Just looking at a picture of delicious food makes you hungry, experts have discovered.

They also claim that the mouthwatering images may be part of the reason for Britain’s growing obesity epidemic – and that people trying to lose weight should avoid looking at them.

Researchers in Germany have revealed it only takes a picture of tempting food to cause a change in the level of hormones that control our appetite.

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We’re always being told that the best way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. But escalating obesity figures in Britain are testament to the fact that dieting isn’t that simple.

This week scientists renewed their attack on the calorie-counting process, criticising it for being too complicated.

With low-fat and low-sugar foods regularly masking more calories than their unadulterated counterparts, and some supposedly healthy foods (such as muesli, cereal bars, even salads) packing more calories than chocolate and cakes, it’s not surprising we’re confused — or that so many diets fail.

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If you’re a woman trying to lose weight by following a low-calorie diet, eating a snack between breakfast and lunch could undermine your progress.

That’s the take-away message from a new study published in the December issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. In the year-long study, mid-morning snackers saw their pounds come off much more slowly than women who ate a healthy breakfast but did not snack before lunch.

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Wouldn’t it be nice to get the benefits of a vigorous workout without having to sweat.

Some years ago, Clinton Rubin, a biomechanical engineer at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, set out to develop a non-drug treatment that could mimic the bone-building action of exercise. His research resulted in a compact platform, called the Juvent 1,000, that produces tiny up and down vibrations. Simply stand on the device, and the shaking motion is supposed to make muscles contract and put tiny stresses on the skeletal structure, leading to bone-building activity – just like real exercise.

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Most weight-watchers know that the best way to shed pounds is to combine a healthy diet with exercise, rather than just rely on one or the other.

However, scientists still know little about the relationship the two factors have with each other.

Now a review from Harvard University has found that starting a fitness regime first could be the key to tackling obesity.

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She was crowned Miss Bikini America after losing 80lbs following the birth of her second child.

And today fitness model Jennifer Nicole Lee showed just how she keeps herself in such amazing shape.

Wearing a pair of tiny bikini bottoms with the words ‘Big Fun’ emblazoned across the back and a stomach-baring tank worn over a neon pink bra, the 36-year-old raised temperatures in an already balmy Miami as she worked out at a South Beach park.

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A McDonald’s muffin marketed as a healthier option contains more salt than one of its burgers.

The fast-food chain’s low-fat blueberry muffin has 1.7g of salt – more than in three packets of ready-salted crisps.

The figures come from health campaigners who claim that simple coffee-break snacks are part of the reason the nation is overdosing on salt every day.

Hidden salt in processed foods is said to be fuelling high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks, leading to thousands of premature deaths.

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From the Dukan Diet to the Caveman Plan, weight-loss regimes instructing us what to eat and what to avoid are big business.

But a number of recent studies have revealed how making several small lifestyle changes could help you lose weight without feeling deprived of the food you love.

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It’s a surprising, subversive and very, very popular idea.

Over the past few years, several studies – including a 2009 analysis of Statistics Canada data – have suggested that being a bit chubby as you get older, far from being a health risk, may actually help you live longer. The extra weight, the thinking goes, could help cushion you from the inevitable slings, arrows and hip fractures of old age.

But the newly published results of a three-decade-long study of clean-living Seventh-Day Adventists in California suggest that you might want to go easy on those early-bird specials after all. When confounding factors such as skinny smokers were removed, the effects of extra weight were clear – and bad – even for those older than 75.

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You might have thought resisting that piece of chocolate cake or extra biscuit was simply a matter of exerting a little will power.

But for some of us it’s much more difficult than that – because of the way our brains are wired.

Scientists have found that a key part of the brain which stops the body from acting on impulse – and gorging – does not function as well in those who are overweight or obese.

A study by scientists from Yale University has shown that falling glucose levels lead to a loss of self-control in the brain which subsequently lead to parts of the brain craving high-calorie food such as cakes, biscuits or crisps.

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