Friday, June 03, 2005
Extra pounds dangerous even if research doesn't say so
A new study by Centers for Disease Control researchers found that only about 112,000 Americans die from obesity-related diseases each year, not the 365,000 claimed by earlier reports. Moreover, the new study found that people who are underweight suffer about 33,000 "excess deaths" a year, while people who are a little overweight suffer from no excess deaths.
To counter the effects of this study, CDC Director Julie Gerberding held a press conference saying that being overweight is a health risk no matter what the research says. "What we don't want is for this debate to continue to confuse people," she said. Rather than get confused by reading the research, people should just listen to the politically motivated claims of CDC press releases.
No doubt someone at CDC is more than dimly aware that the agency's funding depends on keeping the alarm bells ringing on obesity and other health-related issues. Any research that claims the problems aren't as bad as the CDC thought -- even (or especially) if it is the CDC's own research -- must be dismissed or Congress will lose interest in supporting the agency.
In CDC's defense, most press reports erroneously say that the new study found that obesity causes only 25,000 (or 25,814) deaths per year. This is based on subtracting 86,094 lives supposedly saved by people being slightly overweight from the 111,909 excess deaths due to obesity. The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association doesn't make this subtraction, but reporters did.
The most accurate reports stated that being overweight causes 25,814 deaths a year, but most say that obesity causes 25,814 deaths. Perhaps a press conference to clarify this was worthwhile -- but if so, it didn't work because the press accounts of the press conference still use the 25,814 figure. Instead, the CDC comes off as appearing to challenge the validity of its own study in order to scare people into losing more weight than the study found was safe.
To counter the effects of this study, CDC Director Julie Gerberding held a press conference saying that being overweight is a health risk no matter what the research says. "What we don't want is for this debate to continue to confuse people," she said. Rather than get confused by reading the research, people should just listen to the politically motivated claims of CDC press releases.
No doubt someone at CDC is more than dimly aware that the agency's funding depends on keeping the alarm bells ringing on obesity and other health-related issues. Any research that claims the problems aren't as bad as the CDC thought -- even (or especially) if it is the CDC's own research -- must be dismissed or Congress will lose interest in supporting the agency.
In CDC's defense, most press reports erroneously say that the new study found that obesity causes only 25,000 (or 25,814) deaths per year. This is based on subtracting 86,094 lives supposedly saved by people being slightly overweight from the 111,909 excess deaths due to obesity. The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association doesn't make this subtraction, but reporters did.
The most accurate reports stated that being overweight causes 25,814 deaths a year, but most say that obesity causes 25,814 deaths. Perhaps a press conference to clarify this was worthwhile -- but if so, it didn't work because the press accounts of the press conference still use the 25,814 figure. Instead, the CDC comes off as appearing to challenge the validity of its own study in order to scare people into losing more weight than the study found was safe.
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