Bupkiss

3-12-08 did 3.265 miles

Shown below is an excerpt from an article in Medical News Today. I find the article  to be a bit hypocritical because on the one hand it blames diet doctors for hyping the obesity epedemic and on the other hand the webpage is covered with ads for surgical weight loss and other types of programs promoted by medical doctors and clinics.

US obesity epidemic is a myth promoted by diet doctors and the weight loss industry http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/33669.php

"This is partly because the current standards of what is "overweight" and "obese" are defined at very low levels - George Bush is technically overweight while Arnold Schwarznegger is "obese." But it is also because most people confuse body weight with the real sources of health and well-being, such as diet and exercise.

In most cases, the relationship between fat and disease is simply an association, he explains. People who are overweight may also have heart disease, for instance, but there is no proof that being overweight causes the heart disease, he said.

"There are only a few medical conditions that have been shown convincingly to be caused by excess body fat, such as osteoarthritis of weight bearing joints and uterine cancer that comes from higher estrogen levels in heavier women, although this can be treated medically without weight loss," he said. "For most medical conditions, it is diet, exercise, and genetics that are the real causes. Weight is merely an associated symptom."

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• #2 Comment from rosematuseEntry Author 
  3/12/08 5:20 PM | Permalink

  My bad. Forgot about the ads being generated to suit the subject matter but they do sometimes contradict what the main thought the web pages are trying to convey. I've seen diet web pages littered with coupon ads to fast food ...kind of crazy. I'm not a science person by any stretch of the imagination but I don't think I need a degree in science or medicine to know that people are getting heavier by the day. I do think that exercise, healthier eating, and some sort of adjustment to our thinking (lots of unhealthy fat laden food for a little money is better, etc.) to get this problem under control.
• #1 Comment from bluewollie 
  3/12/08 4:46 PM | Permalink

  First of all, the author is a political science professor, not a medical doctor or a physiologist.
  
  The other thing I've seen is this:  most of the risk factors shoot up when someone goes from being "normally fat" to morbidly obese (the way I used to be).
  
  Being somewhat fat does put stress and strain on the bones, to be sure.
  
  As far as ads:  what often happens is that the ads are not generated by the person posting the article but rather some sort of "smart program" "reads" the text on the page and then pulls out a related ad.
  
  For example, my e-mail program generates "running shoe" ads when I talk with someone about running.