UK & US scientists dispute "obesity epidemic" health claims

An Associated Press article datelined London contains some refreshingly sane commentary on "obesity" fearmongering, although the accompanying photo of headless torso dude and "poison pill" ending necessitate the usual "read at your own risk" advisory for "obesity" related journalism.

A sample:

"The obesity epidemic has absolutely been exaggerated," said Dr. Vincent Marks, emeritus professor of clinical biochemistry at the University of Surrey.

Marks [and others] claim that the data about the dangers of obesity are mixed and there is little proof that being fat causes problems including high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer.

...."There's no good causal connection," said Eric Oliver, author of Fat Politics and a political science professor at the University of Chicago.

Blaming obesity for diabetes and heart attacks, Oliver says, is like blaming lung cancer on bad breath rather than on smoking.

But wait -- there's more!

Some obesity skeptics question the motives of experts who make dire predictions about obesity.

With millions of dollars for obesity researchers, an industry of anti-fat drugs, and a boom in the number of doctors offering surgeries like stomach-stapling, the more fat people there are, the more profits there will be in selling them solutions.

Or purported solutions.

The article also reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) categorized body mass index (BMI) scores as "overweight" and "obese" based upon the results of what appeared to be an "independent expert committee convened by WHO."

Yet the 1997 Geneva consultation was held jointly with the International Obesity Task Force, an advocacy group whose self-described mission is "to inform the world about the urgency of the (obesity) problem."

According to the task force's most recent available annual report, more than 70 percent of their funding came from Abbott Laboratories and F. Hoffman La-Roche, companies which make top-selling anti-fat pills.

The task force remains one of Europe's most influential obesity advocacy groups and continues to work closely with WHO.

...."There's not a lot of money in trying to debunk obesity, but a huge amount in making sure it stays a big problem," said Patrick Basham, a professor of health care policy at Johns Hopkins University. [Emphases mine.]

Unfortunately the article ends with a typical "even if some fat is OK, too much is bad" slap at supersize individuals and a caution attributed to Oliver that "morbidly obese people...should be worried."

It's strange to me that Oliver would be quoted as cautioning "morbidly obese" people, since his own book reports the term "morbid obesity" was invented by a physician in the 1950s in efforts to justify his brand of bariatric ("weight-loss") surgery. In other words, "morbid obesity" originated as a marketing (or, rather, fearmongering) term, not as a medical concept.

Not all supersize people have health problems. Of those who do, how many of them can be attributed to the weight-loss "treatments" they may have been subjected to since childhood -- in some cases, infancy -- and body-stressing yo-yo weight loss/regain?

Supersize people shouldn't "worry" about their weight any more than anyone else.

Comments

[Angie]

Maybe it's the mobility issue to which he was in reference. Like, that it's not a problem until you can't move anymore. *shrug*

Great article, other than that, tho.