M
Mike Kruger
Guest
The Guardian has an excerpt from a new book by Paul Campos, "The Obesity
Myth". The excerpt is titled "The big fat con story."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1200549,00.html
There are some interesting points made about the relative
unimportance of body weight per se; I realize that the
Guardian is not a medical journal (and I have no idea of
Campos's credentials), but it makes interesting reading.
Of most relevance here are the following paragraphs on the
relative importance of overweight versus exercise:
"Over the past 20 years, scientists have gathered a wealth
of evidence indicating that cardiovascular and metabolic
fitness, and the activity levels that promote such fitness,
are far more important predictors of both overall health and
mortality risk than weight. Yet none of the studies most
often cited for the proposition that fat kills makes any
serious attempt to control for these variables.
"The most extensive work of this sort has been carried out
by Steven Blair and his colleagues at Dallas's Cooper
Institute, involving more than 70,000 people. What they have
discovered is that, quite simply, when researchers take into
account the activity levels and resulting fitness of the
people being studied, body mass appears to have no relevance
to health whatsoever. In Blair's studies, obese people who
engage in at least moderate levels of physical activity have
around one half the mortality rate of sedentary people who
maintain supposedly ideal weight levels.
"Similarly, a 1999 Cooper Institute study involving 22,000
men found the highest death rate among sedentary men with
waist measurements under 34 inches, while the lowest death
rate was found among fit men with waist measurements of 40
inches or more. A 1995 Blair study found that improved
fitness (ie, going from "unfit" to "fit"), with the latter
requiring a level of exercise equivalent to going for a
brisk half-hour walk four or five times per week, reduced
subsequent mortality rates by 50%. As Blair himself puts it,
Americans have "a misdirected obsession with weight and
weight loss. The focus is all wrong. It's fitness that is
the key." "
Other interesting claims: (1) people who are overweight have
less problem with osteoporesis, (2) The diet Hillary put
Bill Clinton on might have been partly responsible for his
obsession with Monica Lewinsky.
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Mike Kruger Blog:
http://journals.aol.com/mikekr/ZbicyclistsZlog/
Myth". The excerpt is titled "The big fat con story."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1200549,00.html
There are some interesting points made about the relative
unimportance of body weight per se; I realize that the
Guardian is not a medical journal (and I have no idea of
Campos's credentials), but it makes interesting reading.
Of most relevance here are the following paragraphs on the
relative importance of overweight versus exercise:
"Over the past 20 years, scientists have gathered a wealth
of evidence indicating that cardiovascular and metabolic
fitness, and the activity levels that promote such fitness,
are far more important predictors of both overall health and
mortality risk than weight. Yet none of the studies most
often cited for the proposition that fat kills makes any
serious attempt to control for these variables.
"The most extensive work of this sort has been carried out
by Steven Blair and his colleagues at Dallas's Cooper
Institute, involving more than 70,000 people. What they have
discovered is that, quite simply, when researchers take into
account the activity levels and resulting fitness of the
people being studied, body mass appears to have no relevance
to health whatsoever. In Blair's studies, obese people who
engage in at least moderate levels of physical activity have
around one half the mortality rate of sedentary people who
maintain supposedly ideal weight levels.
"Similarly, a 1999 Cooper Institute study involving 22,000
men found the highest death rate among sedentary men with
waist measurements under 34 inches, while the lowest death
rate was found among fit men with waist measurements of 40
inches or more. A 1995 Blair study found that improved
fitness (ie, going from "unfit" to "fit"), with the latter
requiring a level of exercise equivalent to going for a
brisk half-hour walk four or five times per week, reduced
subsequent mortality rates by 50%. As Blair himself puts it,
Americans have "a misdirected obsession with weight and
weight loss. The focus is all wrong. It's fitness that is
the key." "
Other interesting claims: (1) people who are overweight have
less problem with osteoporesis, (2) The diet Hillary put
Bill Clinton on might have been partly responsible for his
obsession with Monica Lewinsky.
--
---
Mike Kruger Blog:
http://journals.aol.com/mikekr/ZbicyclistsZlog/