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http://www.consumerfreedom.com/article_detail.cfm/article/161?nd=1
Yeah, that CDC study that said obesity kills 400,000 people annually? Yeah, the real figure is closer to 26,000.
From the article: "It turns out that the 70 million Americans who are technically “overweight” have no increased mortality risk. The real problems occur only among the small percentage of Americans with a Body Mass Index of 35 or more."
Apparently an error in the math accounts for at 35,000 of the difference. Add to that the fact that the CDC used data from 1948, that did not take into consideration updates in medical technology and treatment, even though they had more recent data in their computers at the time. So between the 35,000 math error and acknowledging advancements in medical science, their number of people who will ZOMG, DIE! from teh fatz goes from 400,000 to 26,000. That is quite the "oops" there.
:|
To put this in perspective, in 2007 the American Cancer Society expected 559,650* people to die from cancer by the end of the year. 40,910 of those were expected to be from breast cancer, which goes undetected in fat women a lot of the time because they avoid going to the doctor because of the shaming and blaming that happens there, and the refusal of doctors to treat fat patients as patients as opposed to particularly slow children who can't possibly just understand that they "would just get better if they lost the magic number of pounds." Just a newsflash, cancer doesn't care what size you wear.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) reports that 37,428 people died in car crashes in 2007.** Sorry, no stats on how fat those at fault may or may not have been. And it's certainly easier to avoid cars than it is for people who are genetically predispositioned to be fat to become thin.
Seriously, people. Give it up. Admit that all the haranguing of fat people, particularly women, is about the insult to your sense of aesthetics and NOT actual concern. Because if you really cared, you wouldn't advocate dieting practices that are harmful. If you really cared, you'd listen to the research that repeatedly states that most of the health risks associated with fat are actually more readily explained by a lifetime of crash diets.
There's more than one reason to listen to those latter studies. One is that yeah, I would very much like to scientifically get people to shut the fuck up and leave me alone. Two, the people doing the studies that show that diets don't work aren't going to make any money from it. They aren't sponsored by Sara Lee or Hostess or even Frito Lay, unlike many of the obesity panic studies which are sponsored by diet companies.
*http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_1_1x_Cancer_Deaths_Down_Again.asp
**http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
Yeah, that CDC study that said obesity kills 400,000 people annually? Yeah, the real figure is closer to 26,000.
From the article: "It turns out that the 70 million Americans who are technically “overweight” have no increased mortality risk. The real problems occur only among the small percentage of Americans with a Body Mass Index of 35 or more."
Apparently an error in the math accounts for at 35,000 of the difference. Add to that the fact that the CDC used data from 1948, that did not take into consideration updates in medical technology and treatment, even though they had more recent data in their computers at the time. So between the 35,000 math error and acknowledging advancements in medical science, their number of people who will ZOMG, DIE! from teh fatz goes from 400,000 to 26,000. That is quite the "oops" there.
:|
To put this in perspective, in 2007 the American Cancer Society expected 559,650* people to die from cancer by the end of the year. 40,910 of those were expected to be from breast cancer, which goes undetected in fat women a lot of the time because they avoid going to the doctor because of the shaming and blaming that happens there, and the refusal of doctors to treat fat patients as patients as opposed to particularly slow children who can't possibly just understand that they "would just get better if they lost the magic number of pounds." Just a newsflash, cancer doesn't care what size you wear.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) reports that 37,428 people died in car crashes in 2007.** Sorry, no stats on how fat those at fault may or may not have been. And it's certainly easier to avoid cars than it is for people who are genetically predispositioned to be fat to become thin.
Seriously, people. Give it up. Admit that all the haranguing of fat people, particularly women, is about the insult to your sense of aesthetics and NOT actual concern. Because if you really cared, you wouldn't advocate dieting practices that are harmful. If you really cared, you'd listen to the research that repeatedly states that most of the health risks associated with fat are actually more readily explained by a lifetime of crash diets.
There's more than one reason to listen to those latter studies. One is that yeah, I would very much like to scientifically get people to shut the fuck up and leave me alone. Two, the people doing the studies that show that diets don't work aren't going to make any money from it. They aren't sponsored by Sara Lee or Hostess or even Frito Lay, unlike many of the obesity panic studies which are sponsored by diet companies.
*http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_1_1x_Cancer_Deaths_Down_Again.asp
**http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
