The big fat con story

[JoFerret]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1200549,00.html

Size really doesn't matter. You can be just as healthy if you're fat as you can if you're slender. And don't let the obesity 'experts' persuade you otherwise, argues Paul Campos

Saturday April 24, 2004
The Guardian

In January 2003, as America prepared to go to war with Iraq, the US surgeon general, Richard Carmona, warned the nation that it faced a far more dangerous threat than Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction. Rather than focusing on the danger posed by nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, Carmona told his audience, "Let's look at a threat that is very real, and already here: obesity."
<snip>
This, then, is the case against fat: America, we are told, is on the verge of eating itself to death. The core belief of those prosecuting this case is that the BMI tables testify to a strong, predictable relationship between increasing weight and increasing mortality. That, after all, is what most people assume when they read that medical and public health authorities have determined a BMI of 25 or above is hazardous to a person's health. This belief, however, is not supported by the available evidence.

<snip>
In almost all large-scale epidemiological studies, little or no correlation between weight and health can be found for a large majority of the population - and indeed what correlation does exist suggests that it is more dangerous to be just a few pounds "underweight" than dozens of pounds "overweight". So, let us look at the most cited studies for the proposition that "overweight" is a deadly epidemic in America today. Anyone who bothers to examine the evidence in the case against fat with a critical eye will be struck by the radical disconnect between the data in these studies and the conclusions their authors reach.
<snip>

No one has ever successfully conducted a study into the effects of long-term weight loss, and for a very simple reason: no one knows how to turn fat people into thin people.

This statement is in one sense shocking, despite the fact that there are few better established empirical propositions in the entire field of medicine. How can this be? After all, as those who prosecute the case against fat never cease to remind us, everyone knows how to lose weight: eat less and exercise more. In theory, this regimen should make people thin. In practice, it does not.

More Americans than ever are dieting, percentages tripled over the course of the last generation. And the result? Americans weigh on average 15lb more than they did 20 years ago. Tens of millions of Americans are trying - more or less constantly - to lose 20 or 30lb
<more>

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. Yeah sure it doesn't matter if you are obese..

what crap..of course it matter what kind of shape you are in but being obese doesn't help.

[JoFerret]

2. It all DietBiz all the time

Don't buy the hype.

[soleft]

3. Coming at the from extremes on both ends does not help

There are people who are genetically and biologically predisposed to carry fat on their bodies. I'm not talking about people who eat fast food, people with unhealthy diets, people who are 100 pounds overweight and say it's not their fault, people who are sedentary and never engage in physical activity.

What this author is talking about are people who eat a moderate wide variety of foods, people are active, who still will weight 15-20 pounds more than traditional weight charts tell them they should weight. Women who wear pluz sized clothes who work out and do not suffer from eating disorders or have a pattern of eating beyond physical satiation.

It's when these individuals - individuals with normal blood pressure, normal blood sugar and normal cholesteral levels - try to obtain body types that are impossible for them to maintain that they enter into a cycle of dieting where they often end up gaining significant amounts of weight and at that point suffer ill health.

If young people who are concerned about obesity would concentrate on their eating habits and lifestyle and reject societal pressures of how they should look and approach it from a weight loss and diet mentality - the population would be much healthier, medical costs would be greatly reduced, and we would all treat each other - MAYBE - with a little more compassion.

[Lindacooks]

17. Read the article

Paul Campos actually compares data about BMI (body mass index) and disease, and finds that a high BMI does not automatically mean more disease. He does say that the most important thing is to be physically active, and that your actual weight or BMI isn't as important as that.

I think he is right on (and I have degrees in Biology and Food Science).

[classics]

4. This is a LONG article.

And every word is worth reading.

You will never see this sort of stuff printed in the American press that is funded in the billions by the shame sellers and weight loss corporations.

[troublemaker]

6. Do junk food manufacturers lack influence?

Of course! I always knew the real power in the US is 'the shame sellers and weight loss corporations.' (Is everything you don't like a corporate conspiracy?)

[JoFerret]

11. Interesting differences between blacks and whites body image and

<The obesity myth thrives in contemporary America because America is an eating-disordered culture. Moreover, the prime symptoms of this situation - our increasing rates of "overweight", bulimia and anorexia - are also symptoms of, and have become metaphors for, a broader set of cultural anxieties.>

[PfcHammer]

5. i'm sick of hearing about food and obesity.

it will take decades for this problem to be
corrected as it did in the case of smoking.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

7. I've been saying this for years..

"Fat and Fit" is healthier than "Thin and Unfit". This proves it.

Look at the study where people listed as being "Overweight" had LOWER mortality rates than people listed as "Ideal Weight", while people listed as "Obese" had the SAME mortality rate as "Ideal Weight" people.

I would suggest that this is because people listed as "Overweight" were more likely on average to be getting excercise than people listed as "Ideal Weight" - after all, if I'm thin I don't need to excercise, do I?

Would you consider Brad Pitt to be "overweight", or Russell Crowe or George Clooney to be "obese"? Well by the "standard" applied by the health and diet industries, they are!

What is especially shocking is that if Jennifer Aniston had the same Body Mass Index as Brad Pitt, she would be 55 pounds heavier than she is! Women are being forced to try and attain a goal that is impossible for the vast majority of people, and being told they are disgusting for NOT attaining it.

No wonder depression rates are as high as they are.

[classics]

9. Its shocking proof of the power of the media.

Parents sending thier own children to starvation camps, while starving themselves. All for some ideal nobody would care about if it wasnt for the sick billion dollar a year industry that feeds off the shame they use the media to paint over everyone.

[Skittles]

14. look at all the low-carb crap going on

4 Atkins breakfast bars at Albertsons for $7.49. What a f***ing ripoff. When will people wake up?

[Merlin]

8. Wow! This guy is a terrific writer. And a great social critic.

This is a hell of an article. So are the other two with links at the bottom--but they're much shorter: one on Bill and Monica, and one on the Two Elvises.

This is a long story, but it gets better as it goes along. It is a compelling tale of why American culture is so entirely screwed up.

[goforit]

10. Too funny. Carmona's perspective.............Go McDonalds!!!

[0007]

12. Fast food restaurants and the whore networks go hand in hand

....once your hooked on the fast fix of self indulgence, seldom does one look for other alternates

[JoFerret]

13. His cultural analysis suggests

it is even deeper than than. I was intrigued by the connections with SUVs and the war on Iraq.

[reprobate]

15. This is bullsh*t. Diabetes is now epidemic in america.

And obesity is the major cause of type II diabetes.

It's a terrible, wasting disease from which there is only one outcome. One of my best friends is now fighting it, and my heart breaks to see him lose the feeling in his legs and have to get around by electric scooter.

People, don't pay any attention to this charleton. Besides diabetes, consider the effects of coronary arterie and peripheral artery disease. The first sign of coronary arterie disease in a third of the sufferers is death. More so for the morbidly obese.

There is one way out of this: eat a balanced, low fat diet high is fruits and vegetables. Use meat as the asians do, as just another ingredient added for taste and texture. Get at least moderate excercize. And limit calories. The fewer calories you eat the longer you will live (that seems to be the latest feeling among the researchers).

[Hell Hath No Fury]

16. The Pima tribe...

is being studied because of an epidemtic of obesity and diabetes that has hit their community that correlated with the demise of their natural diet/way of life and the adoption of a western diet.

When you look at peoples which have remained close to the land, as far as food and lifestyle, you simply do NOT see the type of weight issues as we have here in the US.

We do have a problem, especially with our children, that has to be addressed as a society. The rates of Type II diabetes in children is skyrocketing -- something we have never seen before. Food, exercise(or lack of it), life style are all things that should be taught from a very early age by the parents and supported by the schools.

[JoFerret]

18. I don't think you read the article

.

[amazona]

19. this is a good article

Thanks. I've been wondering about this, as I've had friends die too young who were thin. Not too long ago, my friend, in his mid50s, who was thin, was taking care of his brother, who is morbidly obese and has a degenerative illness that affects the brain. One night, he went to sleep watching TV and simply never woke up. The fat, "unhealthy" brother was stunned that his slim, "healthy" brother could die in a night like this. Hell, we were all stunned. "We made plans for everything except this, because we believed there was no chance he could die first." It has made me much more aware that my fantasies of immortality because I am petite are just that, fantasies. When thin people fall ill, they can go in a snap of the fingers, it seems.


My thoughts are still unformed, but I'm thinking there is an unknown X factor causing people to be bigger overall. This X factor may put you more at risk for some diseases but offer protection against others? Eating food is not the cause. People have always eaten food, throughout all of time and human history. I guarantee it.


I think in our hearts we all know that cancer victims have a better chance if they have some weight on them; there's a reason they give cancer patients steroids to help them gain/maintain weight. I'm not sure what to do about it. Weight is very resistant to change. Fat people don't realize that skinny people have just as much, if not more, trouble, changing their weight.

Well, I don't know if my ramblings are of any value since my thoughts are so unclear but I'm glad I read this piece. I'm a bit tired of people starving themselves and claiming it's for their health!