A rosy complexion really does spell good health, according to a clever experiment conducted by researchers at the University of St. Andrews. The results offer one more good reason to get fit.

Here’s a new way to shed fat: bet money on it. Thanks to several new websites that enable people to make bets and track their progress, hopeful weight losers are competing against one another to see who can lose the most weight.

What’s the best remedy for an aching back? According to results from a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health, most chronic back pain sufferers don’t know the answer–in large part because their doctors aren’t telling them.

Are physically active women less likely to develop breast cancer? The latest evidence says yes. And new findings also suggest who’s most likely to benefit.

Take a stroll in the morning or the early evening in the Brazilian city of Recife, and chances are you’ll see lots of people exercising. U.S. health experts say Brazil’s fifth-largest city has found just the recipe for encouraging good health and fitness.

For years the nation’s expanding girth has been blamed on lazy lifestyles. If more of us would just get off the couch and get moving, the thinking goes, we wouldn’t have to worry about weight loss plans and diet books. New evidence paints a more complicated picture.

I’m not fat. I’ve never had to diet. Except for the odd foray into cross-dressing on Halloween in San Francisco’s Castro district, I’ve never worried about slipping into a size 8 evening dress. And I’m not a fan of graphic novels or books. But as soon as I picked up The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude, A Memoir, by Carol Lay (Villard Books, 2008), I was charmed.

It’s enough to make fitness experts despair. Despite all their efforts to get Americans to become more active, gym memberships actually fell 3 percent between 2006 and 2007. The good news: gyms around the country are offering deep discounts on memberships.

A funny thing happened after University of Michigan scientists ended an exercise study in which volunteers used devices called pedometers to count the number of steps they took. The research subjects kept on walking. The reason: they loved using their pedometers.

To be as fit as you can be, it may be better to take it easy now and then.