This is particularly true of less resourced countries with rudimentary data (in which much of the world's population lives).

If potential risk factors are then related to estimates of later multiple disease states, it can easily induce misplaced confidence in the validity of the conclusions about which risk factors were responsible for what disease burden. I am especially concerned about reliance on manipulating disparate surveys that rely on people remembering and reporting what they consume, and which may not always adequately adjust for key confounding factors. Its startling findings on for example the apparent high risk of death when not enough fruits or nuts are consumed, may be an artifact of the methodologies chosen by the statisticians who are the lead authors of the study. Last month I expressed doubts about the validity of the gigantic Global Burden of Disease study whose initial results were published in December in The Lancet (1,2). TheseĬontributions now continue here as a regular column. Agent, Jim Levine.Philip James has written a series of ten contributions identified as 'As I see it', published monthly on the Association's home page since March 2012. 'Given that Americans are enjoying longer lives and better health than ever before, the claim that four out of five of us are running serious health risks because of our weight sounds exactly like the sort of exaggeration that can produce a cultural epidemic of fear.' While the studies and statistics Campos presents are convincing enough to launch a new debate about weight, some of his conclusions border on the absurd (e.g., he blames 'Fat Politics' for the impeachment of President Clinton). Campos also says there's no real medical or scientific justification that fat is bad.

Through a series of anecdotes, readers are told that the media is responsible for crushing healthy body images (particularly women's) how the dieting industry perpetuates the myth of obesity for its own gain and how yo-yo dieting cycles have destroyed more lives than obesity ever will. He boldly states that a cultural phenomenon-society's hysterical fear of body fat-is the real health hazard, not the over-consumption of food.

Through solid prose, Campos builds a case against the 'social institutions' that have misled the public about the dangers of being overweight. Just as low-carb dieting becomes a national obsession and McDonald's begins downsizing its super-sizing, Campos, a law professor and syndicated columnist, offers a sure-to-be scandalous message: maybe fat isn't all that bad.

The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos