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There are two schools of thought when it comes to the health benefits or hazards of diet drinks.

Once and for all, we wanted to know: Can diet soda make you fat? So we went to the SHAPE diet doctor, Mike Roussell, PhD, to get his opinion. Here’s what he had to say:

In a word: no. While drinking diet soda every day isn’t exactly good for your health, the chances of it sabotaging your weight-loss efforts are slim. The common misconception regarding the role of diet soda and weight gain comes from a couple of studies that received a lot of media attention. One such study looked at more 6,500 participants and found that diet soda drinkers were 67 percent more like to have diabetes and 37 percent more likely to have metabolic syndrome (a combo of symptoms that is basically where pre-diabetes meets heart disease). What’s more, data from the Framingham Heart Study, the longest running heart disease study in the US, found a 56-percent increase in metabolic syndrome when people drank one or more diet sodas per day!

Read more: Is Diet Soda Making You Fat?

The Danish government takes the fight against obesity literally and raises the price of fatty foods.

Are the Danish facing an era of dry toast? On Oct. 1, consumers in Denmark saw a sudden jump in the cost of many of their favorite bread-friendly products. The average price of a half-pound package of butter increased by 2.5 krone (or 45 U.S. cents). A pound of cheese rose from 34.5 krone ($6) to 36 krone ($6.50). And don’t even think about lard. In a single day, the cost of a half-pound block of pork fat skyrocketed from 12 krone ($2.15) to 16 krone ($2.85) — a 35% increase. Thanks to a new fat tax, Danes are paying more for just about anything they might want to slather on a piece of bread.

Other countries have imposed tariffs on food and drink considered unhealthy, but Denmark is taking the “fax tax” appellation literally. In the name of reducing cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes, the law that went into effect on Saturday specifically targets saturated fats — the fats found most commonly in animal products like butter, cream, and meat. But few outside the government seem to think it’s a good idea — or even a healthy one.

Read more: Beating Butter: Denmark Imposes the World’s First Fat Tax

For long-term weight loss, whole milk may actually be the healthier option.

You probably spend all of one second deciding what kind of milk to put in your coffee. What’s to debate? If you want to keep the pounds off and avoid heart disease, choose skim. This is gospel, after all: It’s recommended by the USDA and has so permeated our thinking that you can’t even find reduced-fat (2%) milk at places like Subway—and forget about whole.

But is it true? Let’s start with the question of what’s fattening. Whole milk contains more calories and, obviously, more fat. A cup has 146 calories and almost 8 grams of fat, reduced-fat (2%) has 122 calories and almost 5 grams of fat, low-fat (1%) has 103 calories and 2.5 grams of fat, and nonfat (skim) has 83 calories and virtually no fat.

Read more: Is Skim Milk Making You Fat?

Many avoid this high-fat fruit, but it helps cut pounds 30 per cent more when eaten right.

People ask me all the time if there is a magic supplement they can take to look younger, shed body fat, boost their energy or improve their skin. In reality, the answer is food. The right food, at the right time and in the right quantities, can have a dramatic affect on your appearance and overall health.

Here are a few superfood suggestions to include in your spring diet – they just might help to slim your waistline in time for summer:

Avocados: Avocados contain glutathione, one of the most potent antioxidants and disease-fighting agents available. Unfortunately, avocados – high in monounsaturated fats – got a bad rap during the past low-fat era. But avoiding avocados will only work to impede your weight loss, depriving you of a source of healthy fats and antioxidants that are good for any complexion.

Read more: Six best fat-burning superfoods

One restaurant serves a broth that packs nearly twice the recommended daily sodium.

Soup may be the ultimate comfort food. It’s warm, it’s nourishing, and you don’t even have to chew it. No wonder Mom made it whenever you were sad, cold, or just plain under the weather.

But here’s a dirty little secret: A lot of soups out there aren’t comfort food at all. They’re discomfort food. That’s because they can make for a lot of discomfort every time you step on the scale, test your blood pressure, or try to squeeze into last year’s swimsuit. Everybody likes a nice, rich broth, but some soups are the Donald Trumps of food: too rich, too thick, and ultimately, full of nonsense. (And like the Donald, some are pretty darn salty, too!)

So whether you’re watching your weight, your blood pressure, or just your general health, take a second look at what’s in your bowl. Here’s how to spot a bad bisque, quick!

Read more: 9 Soups That Make You Fat

Choose a better frozen dinner than Marie Callender’s 1,020-calorie creamy pot pie.

Who likes shopping? All of us!

Who likes food shopping? Hands? Anyone? Hello . . .?

The answer is, almost nobody likes food shopping. Going to the supermarket is a drab, draining drudgery, as even shopaholic gourmands will confess. A trip to the grocery store means spending an hour or so parsing specious nutritional claims and confusing price schemes and annoying, cloying packaging tricks, all while paying more money than you ever imagined, and doing it all under florescent lighting that could make Brooklyn Decker look like the Crypt Keeper.

Worse, thanks to tricky packaging, that supermarket is loaded with food that’s going to cause more weight gain than you bargained for. And it doesn’t matter how thorough your command of the English language is; Eminem couldn’t pronounce half of what’s on an ingredients list, and only Don Draper could make sense of marketing gobbledygook like “Part of a Well-Balanced Diet” and “Loaded with 9 Essential Nutrients.” What you need is a cheat sheet that will lead you away from the worst offenders, and toward the shelves of nutritional safety. Fortunately, I’ve got one.

Read more: 10 Worst Supermarket Foods

Some premade guacamole dips contain little avocado but plenty of chemicals.

Two out of three people in America today are either overweight or obese. That means every time you sit down in an airplane or a packed movie theater, more likely than not you’re going to wind up as the lean center of a fat sandwich. But as you look right and left and see nothing but heft, you can’t help but think, What happened?

How did we all get so darn fat?

Read more: The Truth About Your Weight Gain

Having one glass of this a day helps some people actually eat less and savour meals more.

There’s something funny about the fact that celebs choke down gross diet drinks to stay thin when they could be enjoying a glass of wine like normal people. New research found that wine (seriously, wine!) can help keep your weight in check. Of course, you can’t chug a bottle and look like Marisa Miller (or pair your cabernet with a pint of ice cream), but drinking it in moderation—that means about a glass a day, tops—has some awesome perks. We asked doctors to explain.

Read more: Why Drinking Wine Can Help You Lose Weight During the Holidays

When most people picture the South Pacific they imagine healthy, tanned Hula dancers swaying to the strains of a ukulele — and maybe Jeff Probst. The reality, however, is significantly fatter.

South Pacific islands dominate Global Post’s list of the world’s fattest countries — largely due to the collective memory of leaner times and a cultural preference for fatty frames. In island nations where food shortages only recently became a thing of the past, excess weight is often seen as a sign of health.

Read more here: The world’s fattest countries

Photo Paul Ellis/AFP

I’m always looking for ways (beyond crunches, aagh!) to keep my post-baby waistline trim. But I’ve learned about a cooking trick that goes beyond just eating low-cal to lose weight: there are actually two dinner ingredients that can help reduce abdominal fat.

Read more here: 3 dinners that can blast belly fat