Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Scientific American has a lengthy and in-depth article about the “Obesity Epidemic.” It’s a long article, but it’s worth the read.

• Scientific American – Obesity: An Overblown Epidemic? – by W. Wayt Gibbs

I’ve talked before about the idea that the “Obesity Epidemic” is actually a method for the health insurance companies to deny coverage. That is one idea that this article doesn’t touch on. They very logically look at the available data and reveal that some of the figures that have been given to us were actually guesses and have been quoted so many times that they have become “facts” in the mind of the collective unconscious.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from this article:

“Underweight, even though it occurs in only a tiny fraction of the population, is actually associated with more excess deaths than class I obesity,” says Katherine M. Flegal, a senior research scientist at the CDC.

Oliver, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, is that “a relatively small group of scientists and doctors, many directly funded by the weight-loss industry, have created an arbitrary and unscientific definition of overweight and obesity. They have inflated claims and distorted statistics on the consequences of our growing weights, and they have largely ignored the complicated health realities associated with being fat.”

“The war on fat,” Campos concurs, “is really about making some of us rich.”

“H. L. Mencken once said that for every complex problem there is a simple solution–and it’s wrong,” Blair muses. “We have got to stop shouting from the rooftops that obesity is bad for you and that fat people are evil and weak-willed and that the world would be lovely if we all lost weight. We need to take a much more comprehensive view. But I don’t see much evidence that that is happening.”

Via: About.com – Is the Obesity Epidemic no Health Threat? – by Wendy Bumgardner