The Washington Post reports on some new conclusions in the nutrition field. The headline: “Being Overweight Isn’t All Bad, Study Says.”
Being overweight boosts the risk of dying from diabetes and kidney disease but not cancer or heart disease, and carrying some extra pounds appears actually to protect against a host of other causes of death, federal researchers reported today.
…
“What this tells us is the hazards have been very much exaggerated,” said Steven N. Blair, a professor of exercise science, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of South Carolina. “It’s just not as big a problem as people have said.”
Well all right then. Will there ever be a time when the nutrition establishment, instead of hysterically hyping fears one year and then sheepishly admitting they were overblown the next, simply admits that there’s a lot we simply don’t know?
Consider the low-fat craze. We were all told in the 80s that dietary fats must be minimized at all costs. Thus people following their advice loaded up on simple carbohydrates, hence getting even fatter and more prone to diabetes and heart disease. Meanwhile they gave up fats that were never all that harmful to begin with, in fact some are quite beneficial. We also had the Center for Science in the Public Interest bully restaurants into giving up beef tallow for frying, and the greasemongers acquiesced by replacing their lard with partially-hydrogenated vegetable oils, to widespread applause. But lo! Those trans fats turned out to be terrible for you, and the beef tallow was never that bad in the first place. But not to worry, because who else but the Center for Science in the Public Interest is there to harass and sue the restaurants into changing their nefarious ways!
Finally, America’s number one killer and public health threat is revealed: nutritionists.
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