Talking about food, eating, body image, and weight
Sunday, March 30, 2008
You tell 'em, Daniel Engber
In this article from the Dallas Morning News, Engber deconstructs a couple of the myths of the obesity "crisis." Nothing particularly new, but nice to see it in a big paper/national format.
I'm glad the message is going more mainstream, but I worry that a main point of the article is that obese people supposedly die earlier so they burden the health care system less. I don't think this is true, for one thing (at least for the majority of the spectrum of "overweight and obese" weights), and for another it's pretty heartless. I also wish he had cited the Flegal study instead of the Dutch study if he were going to cite recent major studies that cast doubt on the "obesity crisis"--granted I don't know anything about the Dutch study, maybe it was larger or better done or something. It is good to see the issue discussed in something somewhat more productive than the usual knee-jerk rhetoric, though.
You know what no one ever factors into the "obesity costs us money" talk...
How much the obesity industry (weight loss / medical care / etc) brings INTO the economy.
Lord knows I'm a "diets don't work" advocate... but it's a BIG business. What if that business and all the people who earn livings from it were to go away? (It would be wonderful for other reasons, but right now we're just talking dollars and cents).
4 comments:
I'm glad the message is going more mainstream, but I worry that a main point of the article is that obese people supposedly die earlier so they burden the health care system less. I don't think this is true, for one thing (at least for the majority of the spectrum of "overweight and obese" weights), and for another it's pretty heartless. I also wish he had cited the Flegal study instead of the Dutch study if he were going to cite recent major studies that cast doubt on the "obesity crisis"--granted I don't know anything about the Dutch study, maybe it was larger or better done or something. It is good to see the issue discussed in something somewhat more productive than the usual knee-jerk rhetoric, though.
I read that as kind of tongue in cheek. Going back and re-reading, I'm not totally sure why . . . maybe because he made more useful points later.
You know what no one ever factors into the "obesity costs us money" talk...
How much the obesity industry (weight loss / medical care / etc) brings INTO the economy.
Lord knows I'm a "diets don't work" advocate... but it's a BIG business. What if that business and all the people who earn livings from it were to go away? (It would be wonderful for other reasons, but right now we're just talking dollars and cents).
How much would "solving" obesity cost us?
Wow, that was my local paper. Who knew there was that much sanity in Dallas?
That said, right on, Jenn!
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