I would argue that the obesity panic is greatly exaggerated, that the “cure” for it doesn’t work, and that it usually gets promoted by politicians who have no better way to justify their existence.

For starters, obesity rates have stopped rising for adults, and are actually falling for children. The latest figures from the Health Survey for England, the best source of information we have, show that in 2009, 22.1 per cent of men were obese — compared to 24.1 per cent in 2008; for women, the new figure was 23.9 per cent, as against 24.9 per cent in 2008.

In 2004, 19.4 per cent of boys aged two to 15 were regarded as obese; in 2009, that figure was down to 16.1 per cent. The equivalent figures for girls were 18.5 per cent (2004) and 15.3 per cent (2009).

Even then, what the medical profession regards as obesity and what we commonly recognise as obesity are two different things. About one in four adults is classed as obese.

Now, think about your workmates and friends. Would you really regard a quarter of them as obese? I’ll bet few of them match up to the typical picture that accompanies every story about obesity: a morbidly obese person, whose clothes are straining to hold in their tummies. Such very overweight people only make up about two per cent of the population.

In truth, distinctions between normal weight, overweight and obesity are pretty arbitrary lines, based on something called body mass index (BMI) — that’s your weight in kilos divided the square of your height in metres. BMI is not a particularly good predictor of health, except at the extremes. Those who are mildly obese have much the same life expectancy and health outcomes as those who are normal weight. Being a little underweight is almost certainly worse for you than being mildly obese.

Since the anti-obesity campaign is allegedly motivated by scientific findings, it would seem reasonable and prudent to make doubly sure that those claims are factual and trustworthy. Yet, we continue to find that the case against obesity is significantly flawed. Not only are the claims of an obesity epidemic often wildly exaggerated, but the science linking weight to unfavourable mortality outcomes is also frequently nonexistent or distorted.

[. . .]

As Danesh suggests, other researchers have suggested concentrating on a measurement of the waist alone, while many cling to BMI, which calculates obesity based upon a weight-to-height ratio. Because of its easy applicability, BMI is universally used in officially defining obesity, despite its manifest shortcomings. The BMI is wholly arbitrary and has no scientifically valid connection with mortality.

“Obesity crusaders” are what we call the individuals who manufactured the obesity-epidemic story in the first place and continue, through application of inherently flawed instruments, such as BMI and apple-body shapes, to misinform the public. They are a relatively small group of public-health officials in the US, the UK, the EU, and the World Health Organisation, assorted academics (very many with close ties to the weight-loss and pharmaceutical industry), the International Obesity Task Force, and a collection of so-called public-interest science groups.

How are these obesity crusaders reacting to the unambiguously good news published in The Lancet? Surely, they rejoice at the fact there is one less thing for a health-conscious population to fret over? No, they are not in celebratory mood. Quite the contrary. The obesity crusaders did not waste any time on the New Good News; after all, the Old-Time Religion continues to serve them so well.

It gets worse for the “fat=early death” meme:

There is little credible scientific evidence that supports the claims that being overweight or obese leads to an early death. For example, Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in the US population there were more premature deaths among those who are normal weight than those who are overweight. Indeed, in this study, Americans who were overweight were those most likely to live the longest.

In the American Journal of Public Health, Jerome Gronniger found that men in the “normal” weight category exhibited a mortality rate as high as that of men in the moderately obese category; men in the “overweight” category clearly had the lowest mortality risk.

When it comes to the ideal female body-shape the pipe cleaner is out, the hourglass is in — or at least it will be if the new equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone, manages to chisel out her will on the perfect body image.

“In the autumn the minister will convene the first of a series of roundtable discussions with members of the fashion industry, including magazine editors, models and advertisers, to discuss how to boost body confidence among the young,” the Sunday Times reported yesterday.

One might think that one of the first steps to boost such confidence might be to abolish school weigh-ins and make puppy fat a normal rite of passage rather than the subject of a health warning via the National Child Measurement Programme. (Can any woman think of anything more likely to have produced a fear of being on the chunky side than turning up to school one morning and being plonked on a set of scales?)

While I’m happy to have any excuse to post a photo of the delightful “YoSaffBridge”, this is another example of Nanny State thinking: (some) women have body image issues, therefore we must spring into action and fix it.

Rather than replacing the old impossible images with new impossible images (as the creative director of Harper’s Bazaar pointed out, the fashion industry exists to create the fantasy you’ll never live up to) an equalities minister should throw out all notions of obsessing about feminine beauty and concentrate on helping young girls think about the size of their achievements rather than the flatness of their navels, and the scale of their ambitions rather than — in Joanie’s case — the rather spectacular power of their bosoms.

It’s a theory set to confirm why humans are so fond of fatty foods such as chips and chocolate cake: in addition to the five tastes already identified lurks another detectable by the palate — fat.

“We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes — sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury, protein-rich taste contained in foods such as soy sauce and chicken stock),” Russell Keast, from Deakin University, said Monday.

“Through our study we can conclude that humans have a sixth taste — fat.”

Researchers tested 30 people’s ability to taste a range of fatty acids in otherwise plain solutions and found that all were able to determine the taste — though some required higher concentrations than others.

[. . .]

The results, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, have not definitively classified fat as a taste but Keast says the evidence is strong and mounting.

For something to be classified as a taste there needed to be proven receptor mechanisms on taste cells in the mouth, he said.

Over the past few decades, portion sizes of everything from muffins to sandwiches have grown considerably. Unfortunately, America’s waistbands have reacted accordingly. In the 1970s, around 47 percent of Americans were overweight or obese; now 66 percent of us are. In addition, the number of just obese people has doubled, from 15 percent of our population to 30 percent.

While increased sizes haven’t been the sole contributor to our obesity epidemic, large quantities of cheap food have distorted our perceptions of what a typical meal is supposed to look like. These portion comparisons, adapted from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s (NHLBI) Portion Distortion Quiz, give a visual representation of what sizes used to be compared to what they are today.

H/T to John Scalzi for the link.

I don’t agree with Paul Campos about everything, but I do agree with some of his core propositions:

• Study after study shows that most people are unable to lose more than a small percentage of their body weight and keep it off without major surgery
• There is evidence to show that this is physiologic rather than pyschological — it is nearly impossible for very heavy people to simply “eat less and exercise more” to a “normal” weight (given that 2/3 of the country is overweight or obese, normal weights, aren’t.)
• The fact that this often operates through the appetite system does not mean it’s “all in their heads” or a lack of willpower. Appetite is a signal as powerful as thirst or pain. Most people can’t ignore it.
• The largest environmental determinant of this trend is probably simply cheaper, tastier calories, which will be very hard to reverse

[. . .]

This really is a pattern that you see over and over again in obesity research. It’s as if researchers are terrified to say anything that might be viewed as giving people license to get fat. The CDC researcher who sharply revised downward the estimates of deaths from obesity, finding that overweight was actually healthier, fell all over herself proclaiming that of course, this didn’t account for quality of life. Because we know that a woman who weighs 160 pounds couldn’t possibly have a decent quality of life . . . ?

[. . .]

I know, I know . . . it’s for the children! I am very fond of children. But I do not actually think that they are some sort of master race in whose name anything at all can be justified. And if I did, I’d be a lot more worried about, oh, abortion, than McDonalds ads.

Two final points. Everyone likes to focus on their favorite boogeymen. To read a left-wing blog, you’d think that about 95% of the leading cause of obesity was agribusiness, chain restaurants, and automobiles. To read a right-wing paper, it’s all the infamous lack of self-control displayed by the poor.

But in fact, most of the things effecting kids are side effects of other efforts a lot of people are rather fond of. Processed foods and chain restaurants have exploded in the last two decades because Mom spends more time outside the home, generating more market income, and less time for home cooked meals. Kids exercise less not because crime is higher, or even because we’ve become more suburban, but because they’re no longer allowed to operate unsupervised until they’re quite old, and Mom and Dad both work. Schools don’t have P/E because they’re using the time to teach kids to read. Maybe those were bad tradeoffs. But they’re not irrational tradeoffs, and switching them back is not costless.

One thing Megan doesn’t touch on in the post (although she had done in earlier posts on this topic) is that metabolic changes over individuals’ lifetimes can actively sabotage good intentions on maintaining a given weight. Up until my late 20s, I could lose weight just by thinking about it, and then suddenly in my early 30s, I discovered that taking weight off was something that now needed a more conscious effort. Now I’m finding it even tougher to manage my weight (and also harder to make and take advantage of opportunities to get some exercise). My innate laziness and enjoyment of good food and good wine can usuallyalways overwhelm any urge to go do something healthy instead.

And no, I didn’t copy the entire post . . . there’s lots more, and it’s all worth reading.