BMI doesn't know how healthy you are.

I can't do a blog post without covering a third study  (Actually a Systematic Review that looks at other studies) done by Katherine Flegal of the CDC that says again that people with BMI in the overweight or slightly obese (A/K/A Obesity 1, not to be confused with Obesity 2 electric boogaloo or Obesity 3: The Fat strikes back) category have better mortality outcomes then those of normal weight.  This essentially means that people with a BMI of 25-34.9 have a better chance of living longer than those whose BMI is 24.9 or less or 34.9 or more. 

I could write a rant about our horrible treatment of fat people, our constant pressure to diet, the billion dollar industry that funds it, the obsession with putting everyone in this arcane BMI category instead of looking at their actual health, or how ridiclous it would be if we told people with "normal" weight BMI to gain. 

Instead Paul Campos pretty much sums it up in New York Times op ed that I recommend you read in it's entirety. 

Now, if we were to employ the logic of our public health authorities, who treat any correlation between weight and increased mortality risk as a good reason to encourage people to try to modify their weight, we ought to be telling the 75 million American adults currently occupying the government’s “healthy weight” category to put on some pounds, so they can move into the lower risk, higher-weight categories.

In reality, of course, it would be nonsensical to tell so-called normal-weight people to try to become heavier to lower their mortality risk. 

After this study came out both it and Paul Campos' Op-Ed were attacked. I have mentioned before that any time a study comes out proving obesity was in fact responsible for Hitler, it is taking as fact without question. 

Any time a study comes out suggesting that being fat doesn't in fact step on puppies, it is always attacked as either wrong, or that while we live longer we are very sick, as this Op-Ed from David Katz points out.  Though I wouldn't call it an Op-Ed, exactly . . . it's more like a frothing at the mouth rant in which David Katz points out a lot of anecdotal evidence where he has seen a few people become thin and turn into super humans, never to have another health problem again. What he neglects to mention is all the people he didn't see. Those who never got fatty liver disease, diabetes, or any "obesity" related diseases. People have to remember that for the most part people see doctors when they are sick.  

No one questions methods used for studies proving fat is bad. No one looks to see other aspects of it for example history of dieting, history of being denied health care, stigma and stress. 

Marilyn Wann points out in her own oped piece on CNN how bias health care is towards fat people.

Weight bias has been documented among doctors, nurses, fitness instructors and other professionals on whom a fat person might need to rely for help. Last year, researchers who themselves are part of an anti-"obesity" institution (Yale's Rudd Institute) surveyed medical professionals who specialize in caring for fat people and found that they had high levels of weight bias, viewing us as "lazy, stupid, and worthless."

Why are people going crazy over news that being fat isn't the end and being thin doesn't make you healthy.

I still got 20 billion reasons. 

 

Comments

[Annabelle]

Paul Campos was attacked because he was peddling pseudo-science.

It may be true that fat offers some protection against mortality (though not against morbidity, and please note that the study has been extensively criticized for its methodology), but Campos' article draws conclusions that were not warranted by the original study he cites.