Obesity Epidemic?
This is another example of why I mock science claims as much as I do. We hear one “fact” is a major threat. Then we hear it’s a blessing. This one is almost like the government telling us smoking is good for you.
About two years ago, a group of federal researchers reported that overweight people have a lower death rate than people who are normal weight, underweight or obese. Now, investigating further, they found out which diseases are more likely to lead to death in each weight group.
Linking, for the first time, causes of death to specific weights, they report that overweight people have a lower death rate because they are much less likely to die from a grab bag of diseases that includes Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, infections and lung disease. And that lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease.
As a consequence, the group from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute reports, there were more than 100,000 fewer deaths among the overweight in 2004, the most recent year for which data were available, than would have expected if those people had been of normal weight.
Being overweight (as opposed to obese) probably isn’t that bad for you. It’s actually normal if you are well nourished. Being well nourished is good for the body. A few extra pounds is the body’s way of storing energy for times where you may be starving. Of course, we don’t have a problem getting food, so our culture admires leanness because it suggests self discipline.
The government changed the BMI so that almost anyone is considered overweight including those with muscular bodies. Extremely fit people are now rated as obese in some instances. It’s utterly stupid. Abut certain bureaucrats did that so they could advance the obesity epidemic theory.
Now we’re hearing that being overweight may be a good thing. No wonder the people hate the media and the government, sending so many mixed signals laced with hysteria. It’s like that old joke “I used to think I was indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.”
The mixed signals come from people advancing agendas through crisis stories. One group feels it needs the public to move in a certain direction (like stop buying a product) so they fund a study that says it kills you. Then another group counters by funding a study that says it cures cancer. The media prints the press releases for both as if its news and we get inundated with these practically worthless stories.
That’s why you have to use common sense when reading this stuff. Does it sound reasonable or not? This story sounds reasonable to me so I am willing to give it more credence than the hysterical obesity epidemic nonsense. The more hysterical a story sounds, the more likely it’s bogus.
Too much of what we hear today is desperate propaganda masquerading as urgent crises that need more taxes and bureaucrats to solve them.
I can’t help mocking science claims, either. First they tell us that electrons orbit a nucleus like a particle. Then they (de Broglie, among others) tell us that the electrons are like waves. What gives? My physicist friends tell me I should learn the math, just as my social science friends tell me that “studies,” not “science,” make tentative claims that can build toward consensus. But even Einstein was proven wrong on some issues—is Al Gore smarter than Einstein? That usually shuts my friends up.
Posted by on 11/10 at 04:01 PMWell, nothing is as great as shutting your friends up, I guess.
Posted by on 11/10 at 08:15 PMLet me take a wild guess, Mr. Hudnall: You’re really fat, aren’t you?
Posted by on 11/10 at 10:25 PMAs a “slightly chubby” guy myself, I know that i am in better health than these weird starved libtards I see running every day down Santa Monica Blvd. WTF is that, get a car already.
Posted by on 11/11 at 11:06 PM
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