Take Katherine Flegal, a statistician at the US Centres for Disease Control. Last year, she and her colleagues published a systematic review of 97 studies in The Journal of the American Medical Association and concluded that mild obesity produced no extra mortality risk and being merely overweight resulted in a small reduction in mortality risk.
Despite being supported with a ream of data, the study was savaged by the public health lobby.
For a long time, I had not evolved a view on Snowdon’s activities.
This rapidly evolving.
Second Hand Smoke and the fallacy that “gun control” is a gender or safety issue come to mind.
Most folks have never heard or John Lott nor Gary Mauser.
Witness the element who zealously enforce public smoking regulations..a combination flat earth society/inquisition.
The outrage of High River clearly showed a partisanship which extend across political party lines…or that Big C conservatives are actually progressive liberals.
GRRR.
Morbidity remains an issue.
The majority of hip and knee replacements in developed North America are weight related. The recovery is longer and more difficult and the range of motion may be more limited. Surgery is more difficult and has more complications for those who are obese, also.
A slimmer person may have worn out their knees and hips through athletic or work activity. They are more likely to up and walking around sooner and returning to being able to dance or do other recreational activities.
By middle-age, the overweight faced with an elevator and a stairway may find it is no longer a choice for them.
We live in a time where everyone is minding everyone elses business. A nation of busy bodies that don’t seem to have a life of their own, but get comfort in meddling in other peoples lives. The reason for their activism is always the same. It’s for the children, it costs the healthcare system which I contribute to, it could be dangerous or have long term health implications or other reasons that were inconceivable even 40 years ago. The biggest problem is that activists never quit. When they have ridden one horse into the ground they simply change horses and continue to ride. They will never run out of causes until we get a major economic collapse. Then it will be a whole new experience to mind their own business. Something past generations took pride in.
I forget where I read the phrase “Policy-based evidence-making“.
The study authors have committed the unforgivable sin of confusing the issue with facts.
They must be purged.
Big money to be made in heath care products , from anti-smoking homeopathic remedies. That to diminish the fallacies would be to infringe on the profits of the snake oil sales man.
Look at ads from the 20’s or thirties, even before. The same game was being played.
Rev, um, no, you missed by a mile. The pork-down industry won’t be harmed by such data, they target appearance, not health. They know that the human EGO is fragile, so that’s were they shoot. The few who a health conscious can still be targeted successfully, see Larry’s post.
sasquatch and peterj, exactly.
“Despite being supported with a ream of data, the study was savaged by the public health lobby.”
No doubt eh! This report would not fit their people control agenda.
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do with the approval of their own conscience.”
C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Eerdmans)
“Despite being supported with a ream of data, the study was savaged by the public health lobby.”
Are these the same folks who are continually calling for “evidence-based” policies? Well now they’ve got their evidence, and it seems they can’t take it because it doesn’t agree with their opinions.
“The biggest problem is that activists never quit. When they have ridden one horse into the ground they simply change horses and continue to ride.”
The quote from the commenter above is so true. Not just about health issues but about life in general for activists. They must be continually outraged but they seem to pick and choose regarding the outrage de jour.
The activist horse was gay marriage/acceptance (which I agree with but not how it has now started to persecute others like they were persecuted), now it is moving on to transgender, next it is going to be polygamy (which has already started and will get a push for cultural sensitivity to the Muslim culture).
I am beginning to wonder if people with a certain type of mental inclination (I would hate to call it illness) gravitate toward liberal progressive. Some type of personality which has to feel superior to others and force other people to do what they say always making it more and more outrageous to provoke a response where they can be… wait for it…. righteously indignant.
It seems that most Independent and Conservatives are more for individual rights, freedom of speech, with a live and let live attitude. Granted the far right also has its issues as well.
I think that has been part of the problem – that the liberal progs like to yell and shout and essentially be drama queens about their current pet issue, whereas, the Independents/Conservatives have just rolled their eyes at the drama and went about their daily lives. Since there was no push back the Progs just assumed they were right/justified and since there was no resistance just kept on rolling over people until we are where we are today.
In my opinion it is time to say “no more” and to push back on the Progs on issues that are destructive to not only the US/World but to individual communities (for example global warming which is slowly being debunked – but the progs can already smell and have plans for the carbon tax, affirmative action initiatives which actually hurt the people they are trying to help).
Also, (last of my rant) it has always seemed to me that the Liberal Progs are major hypocrites. They want others to follow their mandates but they do not seem to apply it to themselves. Major example – Obama is always pushing Global warming and using it to kill coal jobs, delay pipelines, push for carbon tax. However, I am sure he has a huge carbon foot print. If he really wanted to do something about it he would publish his carbon foot print, show others how to figure out theirs, pledge to reduce his by a third by such and such a date and encourage others to do the same but no he just flies everywhere. The data is coming out that global warming was just a weather pattern (not Co2 induced) but still if Obama believes in it he should act like it and not just talk about what others can do and what he can make others do.
One can’t generalize here. With regard to the so-called Australian Paradox, the paper relied on inaccurate government data about levels of sugar consumption in Australia (the outdated government data-gathering method failed to account for a significant amount of sugar usage in the country). The authors have since recognized the error and retracted the paper.
I looked at the obesity paper and don’t find it at all convincing. Basically, if you factor out all obese people with health problems (such as diabetes) then obesity does not cause health problems. Yes, but it fails to account for the possibility that what causes diabetes causes obesity in a large number of people. Further, it is clear from metabolics there are numerous ways obesity disturbs metabolism. So the result of that particular metastudy is of limited value. A problem with all of these studies is that they are epidemiological, which cannot establish causation. So with saturated fat, there was some evidence that saturated fat might be a causal factor in heart disease. However, prospective studies have failed to find any link. The epidemiological studies presumably found a mere correlation. Those who ate more saturated fat in the epidemiological studies tended to be the type of people who did other things that affected heart disease. Similarly, people who wear expensive watches may have higher rates of heart disease in epidemiological studies, but that would just likely show they tend to be less health conscious people. You would not say wearing an expensive watch causes heart disease, or that such people would reduce risk by removing their watches.
What you’re describing is narcissism: From wikipedia:
Some people diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder are characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance. They have a sense of entitlement and demonstrate grandiosity in their beliefs and behavior. They have a strong need for admiration, but lack feelings of empathy.[5]
Symptoms of this disorder, as defined by the DSM-IV-TR, include:[1]
Expects to be recognized as superior and special, without superior accomplishments
Expects constant attention, admiration and positive reinforcement from others
Envies others and believes others envy him/her
Is preoccupied with thoughts and fantasies of great success, enormous attractiveness, power, intelligence
Lacks the ability to empathize with the feelings or desires of others
Is arrogant in attitudes and behavior
Has expectations of special treatment that are unrealistic
doesn’t this sound just like them. Additionaly note that are defined by an utter desperation for attention: they HAVE to be out doing things to get attention (protesting, sit-ins, whatever), and they can only justify that by being outraged.
What they’re outraged about is irrelevant at a psychological level – what they need is justification for attention.
Also – narcissists are typically not very good in business (a few are, like actors, but mostly they’re not), so this eternal activism gives a justification why they hold down a continual string of low-paying, part-time jobs: it’s not that they CAN’T get a better job, it’s that they’re sacrificing themselves for a noble cause (which is just another play for more attention).
They can’t see (and don’t care) what damage they do to others – it’s irrelevant to them.