La Wade Guest Post
It’s less of a “guest post” and more me “posting her e-mailed comments to me because I can’t figure out how to say it any better than she already has.”
The headline is “Obese 'don't want to lose weight,'" but then the header goes on to say that "More than a quarter of obese and overweight people do not want to lose weight, a survey says," which according to my calculations means that most of these people said they did want to lose weight. [Damnit, Jim, I’m a scientist, not a mathematician! But if 75% did want to lose weight, that headline is slightly specious.] The article also goes on to say that many obese people are not aware of the health risks of overweight, which I think is an interesting issue given the contradictory messages that have been in the media on this issue over the last year.
Speaking of which, there's an article out in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association that says that obesity raises your risk of heart disease and diabetes even if you have normal blood pressure and cholesterol.
Anyway, I am sure there is some interesting message to be synthesized from all of this about whether stressing the health risks of obesity is helpful to people trying to lose weight, or whether it's just discouraging and off-putting. I'm not sure exactly what it is, though...
I also think that’s interesting. Sticking your head in the sand about the real health risks of overweight is clearly not a great idea, but I personally didn’t know that your risk of heart disease was raised even if you have normal blood pressure and cholesterol, which is scary. I still think society will help the overweight and obese a lot more if they avoid demonizing them. I mean, obviously, since that’s the whole raison d’etre of this blog.
The headline is “Obese 'don't want to lose weight,'" but then the header goes on to say that "More than a quarter of obese and overweight people do not want to lose weight, a survey says," which according to my calculations means that most of these people said they did want to lose weight. [Damnit, Jim, I’m a scientist, not a mathematician! But if 75% did want to lose weight, that headline is slightly specious.] The article also goes on to say that many obese people are not aware of the health risks of overweight, which I think is an interesting issue given the contradictory messages that have been in the media on this issue over the last year.
Speaking of which, there's an article out in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association that says that obesity raises your risk of heart disease and diabetes even if you have normal blood pressure and cholesterol.
Anyway, I am sure there is some interesting message to be synthesized from all of this about whether stressing the health risks of obesity is helpful to people trying to lose weight, or whether it's just discouraging and off-putting. I'm not sure exactly what it is, though...
I also think that’s interesting. Sticking your head in the sand about the real health risks of overweight is clearly not a great idea, but I personally didn’t know that your risk of heart disease was raised even if you have normal blood pressure and cholesterol, which is scary. I still think society will help the overweight and obese a lot more if they avoid demonizing them. I mean, obviously, since that’s the whole raison d’etre of this blog.
posted by mo pie at 12:38 PM
3 Comments:
1) I agree with you that the emphasis in the headline is somewhat specious (and not everybody is going to critically think their way to the other half of the conclusion you stated).
2) Someone (I think it was on Big Fat Blog) pointed out that when reporters state that "overweight people are not aware of the risks of overweight", that it reinforces the stereotype of fat people as stupid. Now I grill my doctors so hard I sometimes think they hate to see me coming, but I think BFB may have something there.
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