If you don't want people to start chanting, "Fatty, fatty two-by-four, can't fit through KFC's door," you might want to put down that drumstick and pick up some Gardein buffalo wings instead. A recent study of hundreds of thousands of Europeans revealed that the more meat people ate, the more weight they gained over time—and chicken is the big culprit.

This is important to tell everyone: Researchers found that the people who were most likely to gain weight were also those who ate the most chicken, followed by processed meats and red meat.

Researchers at Imperial College London in the U.K. found that people who ate more meat gained about a pound a year on average, even if they consumed the same amount of calories as people who ate less meat. And most meat-eaters eat far more calories than do vegetarians or vegans. And predictably, the more meat people ate, the more weight they gained. For every additional 8.8 ounces of meat that people ate daily, they packed on about four and a half extra pounds over five years.

"Our results suggest that a decrease in meat consumption may improve weight management," wrote the study's authors in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Hurry—surf on over to GoVeg.com and order a copy of our vegetarian/vegan starter kit today, before you end up looking like this.

Written by Alisa Mullins

The number with the worst rap may be 666, but 555 turned out to be the real "Number of the Beast" for one mother who was arrested last week on charges of neglect when authorities found out that 555 pounds was how much her obese 14-year-old son weighed.

Jerri Gray of Travelers Rest, South Carolina (near Greenville), says that juggling jobs meant she often relied on fast food to feed her tubby teen. She learned the hard way that a diet of bacon cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets is a recipe for a health disaster—one that has put her son's health in serious danger.

To ensure that Greenville residents get that message loud and clear, we plan to erect our billboard reading, "Feeding Kids Meat Is Child Abuse." Also, Ms. Gray will be receiving a copy of Meatless Meals for Working People, a cookbook of quick and simple vegan fare, courtesy of PETA.

Written by Karin Bennett

Richard Cooey
metronews / CC

Well, life sentence, maybe. Richard Cooey, a 267-pound inmate on death row in Ohio, claims he's just too big to die, dang it. Cooey says he deserves a second stay of execution, this time arguing that his size and small veins will render the paralytic—part of the lethal-injection drug cocktail—only partially effective, causing him unnecessary suffering. Since Cooey is claiming that he's gained so much weight because of all the fattening prison food, we think the obvious move is to switch to a slimming, healthy vegetarian diet to avoid similar predicaments in the future. We went ahead and asked the prison to do just that.

Serving vegetarian meals would not only save money on inmate health costs, it would also prevent murderers and criminals from being involved in more senseless killing. There has even been evidence to suggest that serving inmates vegetarian meals helps reduce prison violence. Now this is just a win-win situation for everybody!

Whether you're pro– or anti–death penalty, don't we all agree that innocent creatures don't deserve to die at the hands of another? (Hmm … maybe we don't, but we should!) Now, I don't know if our pal Richard Cooey will opt for a vegetarian last meal, but I do know that we can help stay the execution of the millions of innocent animals who are currently on death row—condemned to dinner plates and hideous clothing.

Well, in the end, the courts have ruled that Cooey is full of hooey. He's next up to be executed by the state of Ohio on October 14, but you can help end unnecessary suffering just by making different meal choices!

You can read our letter to the warden here.

Written by Missy Lane