The obesity myth?
CNN reports today that people who are 100 pounds or more overweight are the fastest-growing group of overweight people in the United States.
Using body mass index (BMI) standards, Rand Institute researchers found that the
proportion of the severely obese was 50 percent higher in 2005 than it had been in 2000.
Okay, so, as a nation, we’re getting fatter, which may, or may not be healthy. I’m not debating the numbers, but, I do think there are problems with the study that need to be called out.
The study bases its conclusions solely on the basis of BMI, which is calculated by dividing weight by the square of a person’s height. It’s a popular one-size-fits-all method that doesn’t take into account one’s muscle mass, ethnicity, or frame size.
According to the BMI, Brad Pitt, Michael Jordan and Mel Gibson could all stand to lose a few pounds and Russell Crowe and George Clooney are certifiably obese. The World Health Organization concluded that people of Asiatic origin could be considered overweight with a BMI of just 23.
The CNN article goes on to state emphatically and authoritatively, “Overweight people have higher risks of heart disease, diabetes and some cancer, and obesity makes the risks much more imminent.”
This, too, is debatable. Multitudes of books have come out in the past decade illuminating the so-called obesity myth in America. Among my favorites are Paul Campos’ The Obesity Myth and Fat Politics by J. Eric Oliver.
and Campos reveals that much of obesity researchers’ findings depend directly on the diet industry for financial support. “Many of the same researchers have direct financial relationships with the companies whose products they are evaluating,” Campos writes. Talk about a conflict of interest.
Let’s look at this particular study, conducted by the Rand Institute. Although the institute does do research for government-based groups and non-profit organizations, the list of clients also includes such fat-fighting notables as:
- Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc., makers of weight-loss drug Xenical;
- Eli Lilly & Co. which, in 2004, began clinical trials of five drugs aimed at helping people lose weight;
- Pfizer, Inc. who has developed hormone-like compounds that boost metabolic rates
- Johnson & Johnson which has huge and multiple stakes in the weight-loss industry and has fought to have obesity classified as a disease.
Is being obese unhealthy? Perhaps. But constant yo-yo dieting poses a far greater health risk, says Campos.
He writes, “The typical prescription — reduced caloric intake, a.k.a. dieting — produces weight cycling rather than permanent weight loss. A great deal of evidence suggests that much of the increased health risk associated with ‘obesity’ is actually a product of dieting, rather than of weight itself.”
Alarmist studies like the one sponsored by the Rand Institute only serve to further denigrate fat as something deviant, supported by so-called scientific evidence, while doing nothing to address the far-more-important causes of why people are obese.
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