Forget diet pills and appetite suppressants! Scientists at The Top Institute Food and Nutrition (TIFN) in the Netherlands are developing a new generation of food ingredients that can help prevent obesity by making people eat less, and possibly stop an obese person from developing diabetes.

It used to be that diet and exercise was the best way to get a flat stomach and tight abs, like the ones you drool over on the beach all day. But these days, people will go to any lengths (and try any supplement) to reach beach babe status.

One day you may be able to control your appetite with chewing gum. Researchers in London have found an appetite-suppressing chewing gum made with the hormone called pancreatic polypeptide (PP), which mimics the body's "feeling full" response.

Here’s an interesting satirical summary on the evolution of food control. "We invented birth control; why not girth control?" writes William Saletan in Slate magazine.

"In fact, we're already working on it. Food abstinence, like sexual abstinence, was the original option. Then came the rhythm method: no snacking between meals. Randy teens fortify their resolve at True Love Waits; hungry adults do it at Weight Watchers. To relieve the hots, there's safe sex; to relieve the munchies, there's SlimFast. With foams and jellies, we can kill sperm in the reproductive tract; with lipase inhibitors, we can neutralize fat in the digestive tract. The pill blocks pregnancy by fooling your body into thinking it's pregnant; appetite suppressants curtail eating by making your body think it's full."