God Bless Referrer Logs

Or I might never have seen this post. Very extensive and well-reasoned debate happening here, all stemming from that recent study about the dangers of overweight being overblown.

"The point is, the '400,000' study did not get an enormous P.R. push because of scientific merit. There was an idealogical need to trumpet a study proving that fat is 'the new tobacco'; and by serving the needs of ideology rather than science, the CDC put itself in a position where it deserved criticism... The huge publicity given the '400,000' did have a scaremongering effect; it encouraged a level of anti-fat hysteria unjustified by sound science. ('Hysteria' is the correct word; the director of the CDC called fat worse than the black plague.)"

If you're at all interested in the scientific debate about weight, there's a lot of food for thought in here.