Obesity: The New “Just Say No”

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From Your Health Journal…..”All my regular visitors know I love the health stories on Forbes.com, and I always encourage you to visit their site for some great articles, including the one in today’s review by Dr. Scott W. Atlas – who writes a beautiful article on obesity. Dr. Atlas discusses how obesity has been a hot item in the recent media, noting how discussion has been focusing on poor eating habits, lack of physical activity, the rise in heart disease, cancers, type 2 diabetes, the usefulness of the BMI, as well as how being a little overweight may actually be better – all topics we have covered on the Your Health Journal web site. One interesting line from Dr. Atlas’ article states the lifespan of an obese person is “up to 8-10 years shorter (for a BMI of 40-45) than that of a normal-weight person” – matching the loss of longevity seen in cigarette smokers. So, obesity should never be taken lightly in the media….at all. When the media mentioned how being slightly overweight may increase life expectancy, I said we should be careful of this. Dr. Atlas suggests, “The recent JAMA study implying that being overweight has longer life expectancy than being thin is not simply counterintuitive. Tragically, its authors give the public and the naïve lay media the excuse to suddenly disregard incontrovertible evidence found in hundreds of peer-reviewed publications for decades about the severely harmful effects of obesity on health. Beyond its impact on life expectancy, obesity and being overweight correlate to innumerable serious diseases and have overwhelming effects detrimental to quality of life.” Please take the time to read the entire article by Dr. Atlas at the Forbes web site. The link is provided below.”

Short snip from the article…..

What a holiday gift! No one should be surprised that a new study casting doubt on the harm done by being overweight is being celebrated by the American media. We all know that staying fat is a heckuva lot easier than using willpower to say no to the foods we all love, and who really wants to spend time sweating in the gym or exercising at home instead of sitting on the couch watching television while downing chips and soda? Unfortunately, the recent Journal of the American Medical Association publication analyzing life expectancy correlations to one imperfect calculation of relative weight (BMI, the body mass index) distracts readers all-too-eager to cling to its implications that being chubby is actually better.

The deleterious medical consequences of being overweight or obese should not even be debated at this point, because the findings are incontrovertible. Peeters found a six years reduction in life expectancy at age forty for obese men, and seven years for obese women, compared to non-obese people. The OECD estimates that the lifespan of an obese person is “up to 8-10 years shorter (for a BMI of 40-45) than that of a normal-weight person” – matching the loss of longevity seen in cigarette smokers. According to the OECD, for every 15 kilograms of excess weight, the risk of death increases by about 30%. A Harvard study in March 2012 showed that if adults become non-obese by 2020, the life expectancy in the US would increase by almost four years from that fact alone. The study went further to point out that the entire positive impact of declining smoking rates on American health would be completely overtaken – even reversed – by obesity if current trends continued.

The recent JAMA study implying that being overweight has longer life expectancy than being thin is not simply counterintuitive. Tragically, its authors give the public and the naïve lay media the excuse to suddenly disregard incontrovertible evidence found in hundreds of peer-reviewed publications for decades about the severely harmful effects of obesity on health. Beyond its impact on life expectancy, obesity and being overweight correlate to innumerable serious diseases and have overwhelming effects detrimental to quality of life. A long but incomplete list of serious diseases with increased incidence in obese and overweight adults and children includes diabetes mellitus, type 2; hypertension (high blood pressure); cardiovascular disease (heart disease); stroke; cancer of the prostate, colon, breast, uterus, cervix, kidney, and gallbladder; end-stage renal disease (chronic kidney disease) requiring dialysis or transplant; sleep apnea; gallbladder disease and gallstones; hip arthritis and gout; liver disease; pregnancy complications; complications from surgery; infertility; and Alzheimer’s Disease.

To read the full article…..Click here