by Koren Wetmore

When Smokey reached 25 pounds, his owner Tracy Sullivan realized he needed help. Always a large cat, the 14-year-old tabby packed on the excess weight following the death of his littermate six years ago. "Maybe it was boredom or maybe he was sad," says Sullivan of Ithaca, N.Y., "but he started to eat all the time."

And the larger he got, the less Smokey could do. "Most cats can jump easily on a chair or sofa, but there was no way he could do that," Sullivan explains. "He didn't play as much, he moved slower and he was so large that he could no longer groom himself."

When she saw a newspaper ad seeking obese cats for a weight-loss feeding study, Sullivan jumped at the chance to get help for her chubby kitty.

Completed in April 2004 by Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine, the study involved 60 obese cats fed three different diets to determine which formulas improved weight loss while curbing cravings. Participants had to be at least 25 percent overweight. Smokey was the second largest cat in the study, Sullivan says.

In 1997, Cornell researchers found that 25 percent of American cats were overweight. Now that figure is up to 40 percent, says animal behavior resident Emily Levine, DVM, one of the lead researchers in the Cornell feeding study...

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