{"id":1484,"date":"2005-04-19T13:00:43","date_gmt":"2005-04-19T21:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/04\/19\/cdc-exaggerated-fat-deaths-by-1400\/"},"modified":"2005-04-19T13:00:43","modified_gmt":"2005-04-19T21:00:43","slug":"cdc-exaggerated-fat-deaths-by-1400","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1484","title":{"rendered":"CDC exaggerated "fat deaths" by 1400%"},"content":{"rendered":"

From an AP story<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated today that packing on too many pounds accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC came up with an estimate 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths.<\/p>\n

The new analysis found that obesity … being extremely overweight … is indisputably lethal. But like several recent smaller studies, it found that people who are modestly overweight actually have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight.<\/p>\n

Biostatistician Mary Grace Kovar, a consultant for the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center in Washington, said “normal” may be set too low for today’s population.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Keep in mind that the 365,000 number was itself a retreat from the CDC’s recent figure of 400,000 deaths a year. Don’t worry, though… the fact that they overestimated fat deaths by 1400% isn’t going to make them do anything crazy like revise the publicity materials based on false figures.<\/p>\n

CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said because of the uncertainty in calculating the health effects of being overweight, the CDC is not going to use the brand-new figure of 25,814 in its public awareness campaigns and is not going to scale back its fight against obesity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ll be interested to see if this new study accounted for the effects of yo-yo dieting as a separate cause from merely being overweight; if they didn’t, then even the new figure of 25,814 may be an exaggeration. And given the near-universal failure of diets to turn fat people into “normal” people over the long term, I think that describing being fat as a “preventable” condition is dubious.<\/p>\n

“This analysis is far more sophisticated,” said Kovar, who was not involved in the new study. “They are very careful and are not overstating their case.”<\/p>\n

A related study, also in Wednesday’s JAMA, found that overweight Americans are healthier than ever, thanks to better maintenance of blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Diabetes is on the rise among people in all weight categories, however.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think that last paragraph relates to an important point: Fat people who are concerned about their health are better off using moderate exercise and improved diets to work on reducing blood pressure and “bad” cholesterol, and not paying attention to what the scales say. Unlike trying to lose weight, this is an approach that can be successfully applied by most fat people over the long run.<\/p>\n

It’s stunning how irresponsible the CDC has been throughout the “fat is the new smoking!” saga. On the bright side, I’m surprised and pleased that the CDC is releasing this new data, rather than finding ways to cover it up.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Paul of Big Fat Blog<\/a> for the tip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From an AP story: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated today that packing on too many pounds accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC came up with an estimate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fat-fat-and-more-fat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}