The markets have been up so strongly that it's shockingly wonderful not to be able to find too much market bad news but a few things merit mention today. A new study out of the UK found that even being mildly overweight can have a major impact on life expectancy -- as in, three years less. Will people stop eating donuts and burgers? Nah.

The New York Times reports that the rich are suffering. Since last August when the subprime collapse surfaced, rich Wall Streeters have seen their net worths plummet. And they're eating more to handle the stress of losing their jobs. The evidence is clear to their personal trainers who see them step on the scale and read their eating journals.

One has seen his net worth fall to $8 million from more than $20 million, and he thinks that his wife will leave him. He has borrowed money to keep up with his wife's appetite for extravagant clothes and vacations. People are selling million dollar jewel collections that they never wear -- and they keep driving their Bentleys -- so that their friends won't notice.

But the weight gain is the worst. One Wall Street executive snacks on nuts in her office all day to manage the stress of potentially losing her position, while another confesses to inhaling four bowls of cereal at 10 p.m. The Times quotes a dietitian as saying: "The number one concern that they have is the state of the financial market. There definitely is a correlation between the stock market and weight gain."

Score a victory for corporate responsibility and good taste.

After drawing fire from nearly everyone when a Seminole County, Florida, mother complained that her 9 year-old daughter's report card arrived wrapped in an advertisement for McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), the company has decided it will discontinue that practice.

At the time of the original scandal, I wrote that I thought the ad campaign sent the wrong message: "The ad offered kids a free Happy Meal for their good work. Shouldn't kids be taught to work for knowledge and pride, not crappy food and imported toys?"

Apparently McDonald's ultimately agreed, saying it offered to reprint the report card envelopes without the ad at no cost to the school, "because we believe the focus should be on the importance of a good education."

It's a shame that young children are exposed to cynical cradle-to-grave marketing strategies on television, but parents should be able to send their kids to school without having to worry that second-grade teachers will be hocking Happy Meals.

Arby's, a unit of Triarc Companies (NYSE: TRY), has just taken first prize in its attempt to one-up the "super-size" fast-food menu with its "Pick 5 for 5.95" value meal.

If you've read Eric Buscemi's Battle of the Brands post: McDonald's vs. Burger King, you know the Big Mac and Whopper do not fall in the category of "healthy" foods. Add in fries and a drink and you've already clogged your first artery. But Arby's takes it one step further: they give you your pick of five fast-food items on a special menu -- two more than the standard value meal at McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) or Burger King (NYSE: BKC).

I went to Arby's for lunch today to pick my "5 for 5.95" and I must say it's overwhelming.

I decided upon an Arby's Melt sandwich with medium curly fries, a medium drink (sounds like the standard fast-food value meal so far but I had two more choices) mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce and a small jamocha shake.

Needless to say, I couldn't finish everything. I sat at my table staring at my unfinished meal thinking of Thomas Aquinas and what he said about gluttony in his SUMMA THEOLOGIÆ, "Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire ... leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists."

This was just too much food, I thought. It defies all reason. How bad is this for you?

GlaxoSmithKline's (NYSE: GSK) Alli, the first ever over-the-counter weight loss drug approved by the FDA, will be available in late June, almost hitting the market in time for this summer's bathing suit season.

The drug will likely become immediately popular, because it will be FDA tested and approved (unlike Trimspa and Hoodia), but available over-the counter (unlike Meridia and Xenical). Helping it to become a household name is the $150M+ marketing push the drug is getting this year. The advertising has already begun -- I saw an ad for Alli while researching GNC's website for this blog. This should be enough to bring the drug to the forefront of our obese culture's mind. However, the advertising won't be able to keep it there. Only results will.

And unlike past drug treatments for obesity, this one is being very upfront about what it is and isn't. It is not a magic pill, says the website, myalli.com, and the most active ingredient for it to work is you. This is both good and bad for Glaxo. The good news for the company is that they will not be told they are advertising the product falsely -- the website is all about how you have to be ready to change your lifestyle for it to work, and how if you don't, the drug will give you less than desirable side-effects. The bad news is that this is much less likely to be a blockbuster drug if it is not the miracle obesity pill the market has been dying for, which it sadly doesn't appear to be.

All in all, I'd say this is no home run, but a stand-up double for Glaxo. Alli will help those willing to work at it, and strengthen the company's consumer healthcare products segment, fitting in nicely with anti-smoking drug Nicoderm. It will not, if Alli's website is any indication, revolutionize dieting in our instant gratification seeking country.

(On a totally unrelated note, Google ought to sue Glaxo for copyright infringement -- the Alli logo strongly resembles Google's own logo. Although I guess Google would have a tough time with anything like that, with all the heat they are facing since taking over YouTube and all.)

Oh, the indignities of being overweight -- the too-small plane seats, the plus-size clothing racks that are placed so close to those darn petite racks in department stores. And then there are the numerous degradations suffered at the hands of the medical establishment. Okay, we know we should lose weight, but do you have to tell us every visit?

General Electric's healthcare division is lending a helping hand, not only to ease embarrassment, but to help doctors do their job better when it comes to diagnosing large patients. It announced today that it has received FDA approval for a new kind of CT Scan machine that is plus-sized.

This goal was a little masked in the press release headline, which is a mouthful: "U.S. FDA Clears GE Healthcare's New Wide Bore Computed Tomography System; Industry's Most Powerful Wide Bore 16-Slice Technology Designed for Radiation Oncology and Radiology Communities." And, really. Wide Bore is just an unfortunate term in this context.

Luckily I kept reading and learned, " a number of patients are unable to undergo a CT scan because of the limitation of existing systems to accurately image large patients." Ah hah! I thought. Now I get it. Why didn't you just say so?