"Number one, the researchers found that obesity is negatively related to education -- another way of saying that the more education you have the more knowledge you have of the adverse effects of obesity, the more knowledge you have of nutrition, all of those things lead to lower rates of obesity," says Dr. Walden, a professor of agricultural and resource economics. "So we see, for example, that college-educated people have a lower rate of obesity than high-school-educated people.

"We also see that obesity is negatively related to income. Again, higher-income people are less obese on average than lower-income people," he adds. "The thinking here would be that there are greater financial benefits to staying healthy the more income that you are earning.

"There is a positive relationship between obesity and age; that's probably related to a slow-down in metabolism," Walden continues. "The most interesting finding ... I think from this recent research is that the researchers found a negative link between obesity and gas prices. That is, lower gas prices they found were related to higher rates of obesity; higher gas prices were related to lower rates of obesity. And the thinking here is that with lower gas prices people are going to drive more, they are going to exercise less, and the reverse when gas prices go up.

"So this would suggest there might be some silver lining to higher gas prices," he concludes, "when you look at its effects on obesity."