Obesity rates are climbing across the country, with one exception: Washington, D.C., is the only area in the U.S. to see a decline in the adult obesity rate. Some people may cite Michelle Obama's healthy eating challenges for D.C.'s flab-less makeover, but it seems that PETA's work to encourage the city's residents and visitors to adopt a vegan diet is having an impact. Check out other ways PETA is getting involved in D.C.:

In addition to having more than 60 stands for our vegetarian/vegan starter kit around D.C., PETA also organizes more than 15 animal rights outreach events per week. There have been patriotic vegan food giveaways outside gross, flesh-filled barbecues; volunteers have served vegan food to the homeless; PETA's "cow," "chicken," and "pig" mascots have handed out free vegan recipes; we've dispensed more than 250,000 pieces of animal rights literature over the past year; we've put up banners; and that's not all. We are also promoting buying cruelty-free products, stopping NASA's cruel monkey tests, and helping make D.C. free of fur, leather, wool, and silk!

Written by Katie Arth, PETA's D.C. area organizer

Because milk doesn't actually help you lose weight, which makes the ads ("Milk your diet. Lose weight!) just a teensy bit misleading. Here's how it went down, according to The New York Times: The ads, which were overseen by our old friends the USDA (whom you may remember from such hijinx as failing to enforce their animal welfare regulations and having lousy, inadequate regulations in the first place) made claims such as that three servings of dairy products a day can help people stay thin, and featured celebrities such as Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez to help promote those claims. But, two years after the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine petitioned the F.T.C. to argue that the ads were misleading (on the grounds that there's just no substantial scientific evidence for the claim), the Dairy Council has decided to withdraw the ads "until further research provides stronger, more conclusive evidence of an association between dairy consumption and weight loss." Here's what PCRM's president, Dr. Neal Barnard had to say:

This isn't the first case of misleading ads from the Dairy Industry. You may remember the "Happy Cows" ads from the California Milk Board, which had the tagline "Great cheese comes from happy cows" and the insidious implication that the living conditions for California's dairy cows made them happy—which is like saying that Abu Ghraib was a five star hotel. Though PETA sued the Milk Board in that case, it was eventually decided that the state is exempt from its own false-advertising laws, so the ads were allowed to stand. I’m not even kidding. As you can imagine, watching the Dairy Industry finally being held accountable for its misleading advertising is immensely satisfying. Let's hope this trend continues.

My friend Joel Barlett’s girlfriend made this cute cartoon about soybeans and their childhood dreams. Sorry everyone, Joel made me share.

You’ve probably heard about the horrible piece of legislation currently under consideration in California that, if passed, will make it legal to sell products made of kangaroo skins there. There has already been a huge public outcry against the bill, but just in case Cali lawmakers need another reason to kill it, here ya go.

It occurred to me the other day that this is no way for the Golden State to welcome David Beckham, and his wife Victoria, to the neighborhood. The Euro “it” couple is moving to LA this summer, where David will play for the LA Galaxy, in possibly the biggest money deal in professional sports history, reportedly worth several hundred million dollars over five years.

It’s no secret that Posh and Becks are big animal lovers. It’s been reported that Posh is a “devout vegetarian,” and just four years after signing a multi-million-pound contract with Adidas to wear and promote Adidas Predators shoes (made of kangaroo skins), David switched to a synthetic model after watching a video of baby kangaroos being ripped out of their mothers’ pouches and beaten to death. Last year in Australia, more than 3.9 million adult kangaroos were killed for the meat and leather industries, and baby kangaroos, or “joeys”, are considered useless by-products of this barbaric industry.

The couple clearly cares about animal welfare, so hopefully this bill will be killed before they arrive in California. Otherwise, who knows, maybe the new slogan for this campaign will become “Boycott Like Beckham” . . .

And finally, this horrible video is why the bill needs to be defeated, like ASAP: