There is yet another development in the ongoing debate about whether being slightly overweight can cause an early death.
Not long ago, a report was issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute suggesting that people who are overweight but not obese have a lower death risk than people of normal weight. The scientists also reported that being very thin increased the risk of death, even if the thinness was longstanding and not due to illness.
That view was roundly criticized by the Harvard School of Public Health and the American Cancer Society, which said those finding were “deeply flawed” and held a press conference to emphasize that a number of studies show that “the death risk from excess pounds increased continuously from normal weight to overweight to obesity.”
Now, CDC director Julie L. Gerberding is backing off the first study. "It is not okay to be overweight,” she said last week. “People need to be fit, they need to have a healthy diet, they need to exercise. "I'm very sorry for the confusion that these scientific discussions have had."
Not long ago, a report was issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute suggesting that people who are overweight but not obese have a lower death risk than people of normal weight. The scientists also reported that being very thin increased the risk of death, even if the thinness was longstanding and not due to illness.
That view was roundly criticized by the Harvard School of Public Health and the American Cancer Society, which said those finding were “deeply flawed” and held a press conference to emphasize that a number of studies show that “the death risk from excess pounds increased continuously from normal weight to overweight to obesity.”
Now, CDC director Julie L. Gerberding is backing off the first study. "It is not okay to be overweight,” she said last week. “People need to be fit, they need to have a healthy diet, they need to exercise. "I'm very sorry for the confusion that these scientific discussions have had."
- KC's View:
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Listen, we understand that science changes and scientists have a right to change their mind.
But this kind of indecision and seemingly imprecise thinking and reporting is the kind of stuff that gives obesity research a bad name, and sends people running off to Krispy Kreme in search of comfort food.
This doesn’t seem like evolving science to us. It seems more like dithering bureaucrats who can’t get their act together.
