Obesity: An Overblown Epidemic? (article included)

From [url="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=000E5065-2345-128A-9E1583414B7F0000&pageNumber=1&catID=2"]Scientific American[/url]:

[quote]What is really going on, asserts 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 overweight segment of the "epidemic of overweight and obesity" is more likely reducing death rates than boosting them.

One of those complicated realities, concurs Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is the widely accepted evidence that genetic differences account for 50 to 80 percent of the variation in fatness within a population. [b]Because no safe and widely practical methods have been shown to induce long-term loss of more than about 5 percent of body weight[/b], Campos says, "health authorities are giving people advice--maintain a body mass index in the 'healthy weight' range--that is literally impossible for many of them to follow."

By exaggerating the risks of fat and the [b]feasibility of weight loss[/b], Campos and Oliver claim, the CDC, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization inadvertently perpetuate stigma, encourage unbalanced diets and, perhaps, even exacerbate weight gain. "The most perverse irony is that we may be creating a disease simply by labeling it as such," Campos states.[/quote]


Bolded parts are mine.



Cliff notes:

[i]Some wacky scientitians are saying since most people fail to lose weight, weight loss is virtually impossible and should be blamed on genetics and population variance. The health risks related to obesity are way overblown.[/i]

I've heard too many people blame a lack of weight loss on genes instead of their crap diet and uneducated workout plans.

Sure, it's all genetic bad luck and has nothing to do with people who eat 6 BigMac's a day :rolleyes:

Obesity is not an Epidemic.... lazyness is. Obesity is just a byproduct of our lazy-ass society.

If you look at third world countries all the fat people are rich, our bodies are designed to store fat so genetically fat is in our nature. However that doesn't mean we have to live like that.

You know what I think? That these health organizations have totally exaggerated the overweight/obese statistics you read in the news. 2/3 of America overweight? And what is overweight to them? Most of us wouldn't fit in their healthy BMI scale anyway. The way they get the information is just taking a small sample of the population (probably with selected individuals to distort the obesity rate of their study). Heart disease is now estimated to kill 400,000 people a year. Well a different study now claims only 20,000 deaths. In school when they do fitness testing the only things they care about when determining if you're overweight or not are your height and weight. That means if you're BMI is 25.1 you are considered overweight.

I guess they just find opportunity in the weight-loss industry.

ive got bad genes, but that hasnt stopped me from dropping 15 pounds, and i will drop the rest. in fact my mom used to be heavy but lost 40!!!!!! pounds, and will still lose about another ten. Genes are a hurdle to be overcome, not an unbreakable barrier.

People come to the grocery store and buy potato chips, ice cream, sodas, candy bars, and slimfast. Then they wonder why they aren't losing weight.

Take an anthropology course and you can see why people get fat easily. Our bodies ARE meant to store fat because it has helped us survive for thousands of years. It's amazing there is even such a thing as en Ecto considering Ecto's were the first ones to die during the rough times thousands of years ago.

Regardless of all that, fatness has never been a problem in history except with nobility and the rich. America is full of fatties....hmmmm, genetics? **** no. It's the fact that we don't have to grow our food anymore and work. Some people can now work from their couch like Homer Simpson in that episode where he wore a mumu or whatever the hell it's called.

Genes = another excuse. If you're an Endo, you can still do something and not be fat. Everyone else has even less of an excuse.

ectos may be the first to die off because of food but an ecto body frame seems much more apt to athletic endeavors.. running... jumping. that athleticism may make up for a lack of being able to store fat through being a better, quicker hunter? just a thought.

its not a matter of what you eat as it is a matter of what you are doing when not eating.

I have family in eastern europe, when i go there i am ****ing amazed at how HUGE the portion sizes are. I mean if you ask for a hamburger its the size of 2 big macs put together, except with more meat and more dense bread.

But you know how they get the food. They walk into the center of the town, get their food. with a Coke, several cokes, and walk home. At home they eat very little because they then once again walk into the center of town to hang out with friends.

IMO its not what we eat, its what we do when we dont eat. As americans we can sit inside all day, order food by phone, watch tv, do work at home, every little thing can be done without leaving the house. No where else are we this isolated, and when we are isloated we eat more frequently. In most countries they eat a lot of friend foods, but they obtain it through hard work, and eat scarely throguh the day.

Conclusion: AMERICAN SOCIETY IS ISLOATED AND THEREFORE LAZY.

[QUOTE=ezra]ectos may be the first to die off because of food but an ecto body frame seems much more apt to athletic endeavors.. running... jumping. that athleticism may make up for a lack of being able to store fat through being a better, quicker hunter? just a thought.[/QUOTE]

Good call. I love it when people add concepts to human origins. Human genetics through the last thousands of years are truly amazing.