Kreeli
10-24-03, 04:11 PM
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031023/dcthv004_1.html
Obesity Statistics Seriously Flawed
Thursday October 23, 4:45 pm ET
Health Care Costs Inflated, 300,000 Deaths Based on Data That Is 'Limited, Fragmented and Often Ambiguous'
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- While obesity is a genuine national problem today, special interests and trial lawyers have promoted hysteria about the issue in order to advance their own political and financial interests. These efforts include frequent citation of inflated health care costs and obesity-related deaths, according to testimony today by The Center for Consumer Freedom at a public hearing of the Federal Drug Administration's (FDA) Obesity Working Group.
The three most commonly-cited statistics associated with the obesity epidemic are 1) that obesity causes 300,000 American deaths per year; 2) that 61 percent of Americans are overweight or obese; and 3) that the economic cost of American obesity is $117 billion a year. The Federal Register notice of today's FDA hearing cited two of these three numbers. All three are seriously flawed.
* 300,000 U.S. deaths are attributable to excess weight. The truth is
that "the data linking overweight and death ... are limited, fragmented
and often ambiguous." That's from an editorial published by the
respected New England Journal of Medicine in January 1998, questioning
the increasingly frantic rhetoric about obesity as a public health
problem.
* Obesity costs Americans $117 billion per year. The original source of
this claim was a study published in the March 1998 issue of the journal
Obesity Research, whose authors themselves admit: "We are still
uncertain about the actual amount of health utilization associated with
overweight and obesity," explaining that "height and weight are not
included in many of the primary data sources." Furthermore, the authors
defined obesity incorrectly, writing: "The current estimate of the cost
of obesity defines obesity as a BMI >/=29." Obesity is actually
defined as a BMI >/=30. Thus the Obesity Research study erroneously
included the economic cost of individuals with a BMI between 29 and 30.
That's more than ten million Americans.
* 61 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. The definition of
overweight used by the U.S. government was arbitrarily changed in 1998,
following political pressure brought by the World Health Organization.
The definition that we abandoned in 1998 had the virtue of
distinguishing between men and women -- something our current definition
does not do. And the 1998 redefinition re-classified 39 million
Americans as "overweight." They literally went to sleep one night at a
government-approved weight, and woke up "overweight."
Testimony from The Center for Consumer Freedom at today's hearing can be found at www.ConsumerFreedom.com.
The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.
Obesity Statistics Seriously Flawed
Thursday October 23, 4:45 pm ET
Health Care Costs Inflated, 300,000 Deaths Based on Data That Is 'Limited, Fragmented and Often Ambiguous'
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- While obesity is a genuine national problem today, special interests and trial lawyers have promoted hysteria about the issue in order to advance their own political and financial interests. These efforts include frequent citation of inflated health care costs and obesity-related deaths, according to testimony today by The Center for Consumer Freedom at a public hearing of the Federal Drug Administration's (FDA) Obesity Working Group.
The three most commonly-cited statistics associated with the obesity epidemic are 1) that obesity causes 300,000 American deaths per year; 2) that 61 percent of Americans are overweight or obese; and 3) that the economic cost of American obesity is $117 billion a year. The Federal Register notice of today's FDA hearing cited two of these three numbers. All three are seriously flawed.
* 300,000 U.S. deaths are attributable to excess weight. The truth is
that "the data linking overweight and death ... are limited, fragmented
and often ambiguous." That's from an editorial published by the
respected New England Journal of Medicine in January 1998, questioning
the increasingly frantic rhetoric about obesity as a public health
problem.
* Obesity costs Americans $117 billion per year. The original source of
this claim was a study published in the March 1998 issue of the journal
Obesity Research, whose authors themselves admit: "We are still
uncertain about the actual amount of health utilization associated with
overweight and obesity," explaining that "height and weight are not
included in many of the primary data sources." Furthermore, the authors
defined obesity incorrectly, writing: "The current estimate of the cost
of obesity defines obesity as a BMI >/=29." Obesity is actually
defined as a BMI >/=30. Thus the Obesity Research study erroneously
included the economic cost of individuals with a BMI between 29 and 30.
That's more than ten million Americans.
* 61 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. The definition of
overweight used by the U.S. government was arbitrarily changed in 1998,
following political pressure brought by the World Health Organization.
The definition that we abandoned in 1998 had the virtue of
distinguishing between men and women -- something our current definition
does not do. And the 1998 redefinition re-classified 39 million
Americans as "overweight." They literally went to sleep one night at a
government-approved weight, and woke up "overweight."
Testimony from The Center for Consumer Freedom at today's hearing can be found at www.ConsumerFreedom.com.
The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.