(1989) Physical Fitness and All-Cause Mortality: A Prospective Study of Healthy Men and Women, JAMA 262 (17): 2395–2401.īrownell, K.D. New York: Basic Books.īlair, S.N., Kohl, H.W. (1982) The Dieter’s Dilemma: Eating Less and Weighing More. (1995) Physical fitness, mortality and obesity, International Journal of Obesity 19 (S4): S41–S44.īennett, W. (1996) Obesity and Prognosis in Endometrial Cancer, American Journal of Obstretrics and Gynecology 174 (4): 1171–1178.Īssociated Press (2006) Study Confirms That You Can’t Be Fat - And Healthy, Online.īarlow, C.E., Kohl, H.W. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.Īnderson, B., Connor, J.P., Andrews, J.I., Davis, C.S., Buller, R.E., Sorosky, J.I.

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. The cost-benefit ratio involved in trying to make people thinner justifies using scarce public health funding to pursue this outcome.1 Significant long-term weight-loss is a practical goal, and will improve health. People within the narrow range of ‘ideal’ weight are healthier than people who are not, because they avoid the detrimental causal effects of overweight and obesity. This correlation reflects a direct causal relationship. In particular, the recent explosion of public health interventions across North America, Europe and Asia that address the so-called obesity epidemic are based on the following beliefs, which in turn form the basis of the recent spate of warnings issued by obesity researchers and the public health establishment - warnings which have been repeated countless times in the mass media all across the world:Ī strong correlation exists between weight and health risk. In fact her entire adult life is a testimony to how utterly abnormal it is for her to weigh less than that.The current war on fat is proceeding on the basis of several (usually unstated) assumptions. It's actually hard to get one's mind around how crazy it is to claim that it would be 'normal' for Oprah Winfrey to weigh less than 155 pounds. (Anyone interested in a detailed debunking of this destructive nonsense can consult any of a host of recent academic publications, including books such as Eric Oliver's 'Fat Politics,' Sander Gilman's 'Fat,' Michael Gard's and Jan Wright's 'The Obesity Epidemic,' and my own 'The Obesity Myth'). Indeed, it's every bit as bizarrely unscientific as declaring that a 'normal' height is between 5-6 and 5-9. The notion that it's 'normal' for adults to have a body mass index between 18.5 and 24.9 is a classic piece of social insanity. The good news - and this really can't be stated strongly enough - is that this definition is completely fraudulent. The bad news is that it is quite literally impossible for the large majority of Americans to maintain the government's definition of a normal weight. In regard to that question, there's bad news and good news.

The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos