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More good sense from Paul Campos (author of "The Obesity Myth"), though it's not like the most fat-phobic out there are going to read it and take it to heart.
Don't feed the humans!
Excerpt:
The reaction of America's leading "obesity" experts to the latest study on the issue demonstrates yet again that our current definition of the word "overweight" makes no sense. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health's fumed that the new findings were "rubbish." His colleague JoAnn Manson found the study, authored by Katherine Flegal and others, and published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, "very puzzling." After all, for "overweight" people to be healthier than "healthy weight" people just doesn't seem logically or linguistically possible.
How did we get into this mess? First, the relevant definitions: According to public health authorities in America and around the world, people are "overweight" if they have a body mass index between 25 and 30 (for a 5'4" woman this is between 145 and 173 pounds; a 5'10" man fits the category if he weighs between 174 and 208 pounds).
A decade ago, when I began to study the relationship between weight and health, I was struck by the almost total lack of medical justification for labeling people in this weight range "overweight." Since then, the situation has become considerably more absurd...
...
Still, when the entire public health establishment has put its stamp of approval on a definition, those who have staked their professional reputations on the accuracy of that definition aren't going to be deterred by something like, well, evidence. Predictably, Willett, who has been perhaps the most prominent proponent of the idea that people ought to try to maintain very low weights, was outraged by the latest refutation of his theories: "It's just ludicrous to say there is no increased risk of mortality from being overweight," he told The Washington Post.
What's actually ludicrous is that Occam's razor has yet to be employed to explain the "very puzzling" result that, once again, "overweight" people have been found to enjoy better health than "healthy weight" people. The definition of "overweight" promulgated by Willett, Manson, and their colleagues makes no sense. Many "puzzling" results cease to puzzle when one stops abusing the English language.
Don't feed the humans!
Excerpt:
The reaction of America's leading "obesity" experts to the latest study on the issue demonstrates yet again that our current definition of the word "overweight" makes no sense. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health's fumed that the new findings were "rubbish." His colleague JoAnn Manson found the study, authored by Katherine Flegal and others, and published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, "very puzzling." After all, for "overweight" people to be healthier than "healthy weight" people just doesn't seem logically or linguistically possible.
How did we get into this mess? First, the relevant definitions: According to public health authorities in America and around the world, people are "overweight" if they have a body mass index between 25 and 30 (for a 5'4" woman this is between 145 and 173 pounds; a 5'10" man fits the category if he weighs between 174 and 208 pounds).
A decade ago, when I began to study the relationship between weight and health, I was struck by the almost total lack of medical justification for labeling people in this weight range "overweight." Since then, the situation has become considerably more absurd...
...
Still, when the entire public health establishment has put its stamp of approval on a definition, those who have staked their professional reputations on the accuracy of that definition aren't going to be deterred by something like, well, evidence. Predictably, Willett, who has been perhaps the most prominent proponent of the idea that people ought to try to maintain very low weights, was outraged by the latest refutation of his theories: "It's just ludicrous to say there is no increased risk of mortality from being overweight," he told The Washington Post.
What's actually ludicrous is that Occam's razor has yet to be employed to explain the "very puzzling" result that, once again, "overweight" people have been found to enjoy better health than "healthy weight" people. The definition of "overweight" promulgated by Willett, Manson, and their colleagues makes no sense. Many "puzzling" results cease to puzzle when one stops abusing the English language.
