September 11, 2007

Why Harvard Wants You To Be Unhealthily Thin. A big problem with elite institutions is that, for years on end, people in such places can abuse their positions by saying things that aren't true, before anyone whose opinion counts notices. A particularly clear example of this is provided by the Harvard School of Public Health, which for many years has been pushing a phony claim with great success. The story is simple: That it's well-established scientific fact that being "overweight"--that is, having a body mass index figure of between 25 and 30--is, in the words of Harvard professors Walter Willett and Meir Stampfer, "a major contributor to morbidity and mortality."
posted by HawthorneWingo 16 years ago
  • That paper needs a new title. It gave lots of examples of "how" and didn't even address the "why".
  • Paul Campos runs prominent fat-activist blog the Big Fat Blog which is always worth a look. Their Big Fat Facts page explains what they're about. However, I think while he's good on social issues and media hysteria, his medical science isn't that great. He prefers to look only at mortality rates, which have all kinds of confounding factors: people can lose weight because of ill-health, drug use, depression etc. Most of the medical evidence against obesity comes from disease rates: the increased incidence of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and so on. Campos prefers to ignore disease rates: instead he usually tries to sneakily equate mortality rates with all ill-health. Suppose you don't want to get diabetes even if it doesn't kill you?
  • What about normal weight people tending to be involved in more activities which may cause mortality? For example: skiing, surfing, bear baiting...
  • Being obese can cause health problems. Nobody, not even Paul Campos, argues otherwise. Now, I really don't hear much about people in the overweight category being called unhealthy - it's usually all aimed at the obese category. However, you don't go from normal to obese - you go through overweight. So as much as you are getting closer to the danger zone, it might be something to worry about. And Paul Campos should not be trusted with numbers. All he knows how to do is spin them to support his argument. I bet Katherine Flegal wishes he'd hurry up and find another article to (mis)cite.
  • Can't speak to the writer's biases or use of spin, but I thought this was interesting because, even when I'm in tip-top physical condition, I land in the "overweight" category--and I'm in the "obese" category even when I'm just a few pounds overweight. I look more like a linebacker or a tight end than like Fatty Arbuckle or Lou Costello. It's obvious to me that the healthy-weight charts are designed for a certain body type--one that's very different from mine. The idea that where you fall on these charts absolutely determines your health outlook seems very obviously flawed from where I sit.
  • Shut up, fatso.
  • The idea that where you fall on these charts absolutely determines your health outlook seems very obviously flawed from where I sit BMI doesn't take into account distribution of fat around the body. Isn't the latest finding that fat around the organs in the abdomen more dangerous than normal fat?
  • What about normal weight people tending to be involved in more activities which may cause mortality? For example: ... bear baiting... That's just crap! Everyone knows that fattys make tastier bear bait.
  • Now, I really don't hear much about people in the overweight category being called unhealthy - it's usually all aimed at the obese category. Maybe not so much in the literature and media, but from practitioners themselves? Not being a scientists I don't have irrefutable data. But, my own experience and that of 100% of everyone with whom I've ever discussed the subject (and the subject comes up a lot) carrying 20 extra pounds makes a night-and-day difference in how most doctors and nurses treat patients. You can't get a prescription for an antibiotic or get a broken bone set without fist sitting through a lecture about how you'd never be sick again if you'd drop those 20 pounds. YMMV, IANAD, etc.
  • Anecdotal: How many obese 80-yr-olds have you seen?
  • Actually, a couple.
  • Well, there's always Fat Old Fred.
  • Anecdotal: How many obese 80-yr-olds have you seen? Probably more than a few, yeah.
  • Fat Old Fred has manboobs!
  • I'm thinking that's what Dick Cheney looks like with his shirt off. I wish I weren't, but I am.
  • Uh.. Paul Campos does not run Big Fat Blog. Different Paul. This article is yet another example of how doctors and scientists are dangerously supporting fallacious theories that obesity = unhealthy. It is simply not true. There is study after study that points to lifestyle being a much more significant factor in health than weight or BMI. Here's a great interview with Linda Bacon (who has her doctorate in physiology specializing in weight regulation and an outspoken proponent of Health at Every Size) that talks about how obesity research is skewed. "My experience from having worked closely with many obesity researchers who are more conventionally-minded than me is that they are so strongly mired in their assumptions, that they don't look at the evidence. Those that willingly engage, change their beliefs. The evidence is quite convincing."
  • Nice link. Thanks, Kimberly.
  • *does double take*
  • ?
  • Hm, so we have a minority scientists/researchers/doctors who say that being obese is not unhealthy, and we then have the majority of scientists/researchers/doctors who disagree and say that it is quite unhealthy. Of course, there must be some sort of conspiracy at work here. That is the only explanation.
  • I think the point is really that the subject may be more complex than we've been led to believe.
  • gasp
  • *fans fat self