Well, one can put as much faith in this conclusion than the previous that being overweight kills!

The only thing one can be certain of concerning the medical profession is that they will change their minds every few years!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The article, "..It's O.K. to be overweight", is misleading. Those of us in the health and nutrition fields have known for years that if you lead an ACTIVE lifestyle, it was alright to carry a few extra pounds. Physical activity keeps your heart healthy. Too much extra weight, however always carries a cardiac risk. The article fails to define how much is too much.

In the battle against overweight/obesity, particularly in the public schools, we have focused, 95% on improved nutrition, which while important is clearly not as important as being physically active. The answer to cardio-vascular disease/stroke/diabetes is to lead a physically active life style. That does not mean being "athletic", it means teaching our children that being physically active is a normal and very necessary component of long and enjoyable life.

The answer to the health care crisis in the United States is little more than the production of a fit and healthy society, starting with our youngest citizens, first. Why is that so hard to figure out?

Joe Herzog (Retired), Fresno Unified School District physical education teacher, 1965-2001

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

During October 1917 to October 1918, war rationing forced the Danish government to put its citizens on a vegetarian diet. This was a “mass experiment in vegetarianism,” with over three million subjects. The results were astonishing. The mortality rate dropped by 34 percent.

This happened again in occupied Norway during the Second World War. After the war, meat consumption resumed, and the mortality rate went up.

Studies at Yale University by Professor Irving Fisher found flesh-eaters have less endurance than vegetarians. A study by Dr. J. Ioteyko of the Academie de Medicine in Paris found vegetarians have 2 to 3 times the stamina of flesh-eaters and take only one-fifth the time to recover from exhaustion.

Osteoporosis is caused by excess consumption of protein. Americans overdose on protein, getting 1.5 to 2 times more protein than their bodies can handle. The body can’t store excess protein, so the kidneys are forced to excrete it. In doing so, they must draw upon calcium from the bloodstream. This negative calcium balance in the blood is compensated for by calcium loss from the bones: osteoporosis. The calcium lost in the bones of flesh-eaters is 5 to 6 times greater than that lost in the bones of vegetarians.

Excessive protein intake also taxes the kidneys; in America, it is not uncommon to find many over 45 with kidney problems. A strong correlation between excessive protein intake and cancer of the breast, prostate, pancreas and colon has been observed.

Meat, fish, and eggs are the most acidic forming foods; heavy consumption of these foods will cause the body to draw upon calcium to restore its pH balance. The calcium lost from the bones gets into one’s urine and often crystallizes into kidney stones, which are found in far greater frequency among flesh-eaters than among vegetarians. Studies have found that vegetarians in the United States have less than half the kidney stones of the general population.

The high consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol leads to artherosclerosis—or “hardening of the arteries.” Plant foods contain zero cholesterol and only palm oil, coconuts and chocolate contain saturated fat. Lowering the cholesterol and fat intake in one’s diet lowers the risk of heart disease—America’s biggest killer.

As far back as 1961, the Journal of the American Medical Association said, “A vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of our coronary occlusions.”

Polyunsaturated fats are promoted as a means of lowering cholesterol in the blood. Unfortunately, this drives cholesterol out of the blood and into the colon; contributing to colon cancer. The most effective way to prevent heart disease is to avoid foods high in fat and cholesterol.

Up to 50 percent of all cancers are caused by diet. Meat and fat intake are primarily responsible. The incidence of colon cancer is high in regions where meat consumption is high. A lack of fiber in the diet also contributes to colon cancer. Unprocessed plant foods are high in fiber and carbohydrates, while animal products have none. The highest incidence of breast cancer occurs among flesh-eating populations.

Meat-eating women have a 4 times greater risk of developing breast cancer than do vegetarian women. There is also a greater risk of cervical, uterine, and ovarian cancer—all linked to diets high in fat. Men who consume large quantities of animal fat have a 3.6 times greater risk of getting prostate cancer.

Multiple Sclerosis is treatable on a low-fat diet. MS is prevalent among populations where consumption of animal fat is high. A brain tissue analysis of MS patients found a high saturated fat content.

Animal products in America are also contaminated with coliform bacteria and salmonella. Healthier, nonviolent alternatives exist.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

William S. Collens and Gerald B. Dobkens write:

“Examination of the dental structure of modern man reveals that he possesses all the features of a strictly herbivorous animal. While designed to subsist on vegetarian foods, he has perverted his dietary habits to accept food of the carnivore. It is postulated that man cannot handle carnivorous foods like the carnivore. Herein may lie the basis for the high incidence of arteriosclerotic disease.”

Dr. Gordon Latto notes carnivores and omnivores can only move their jaws up and down, and omnivores “have a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth, a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth—showing that they were destined to deal both with flesh foods from the animal kingdom and foods from the vegetable kingdom...

“Carnivorous and omnivorous mammals cannot perspire except at the extremity of the limbs and the tip of the nose; man perspires all over the body. Finally, our instincts; the carnivorous mammal (which first of all has claws and canine teeth) is capable of tearing flesh asunder, whereas man only partakes of flesh foods after they have been camouflaged by cooking and by condiments.

“Man instinctively is not carnivorous,” says Dr. Latto. “...he takes the flesh food after somebody else has killed it, and after it has been cooked and camouflaged with certain condiments. Whereas to pick an apple off a tree or eat some grain or a carrot is a natural thing to do: people enjoy doing it; they don’t feel disturbed by it. But to see these animals being slaughtered does affect people; it offends them. Even the toughest of people are affected by the sights in the slaughterhouse.

“I remember taking some medical students into a slaughterhouse. They were about as hardened people as you could meet. After seeing the animals slaughtered that day in the slaughterhouse, not one of them could eat meat that evening.”

R.H. Wheldon, in No Animal Food:

“The gorge of a cat, for instance, will rise at the smell of a mouse or a piece of raw flesh, but not at the aroma of fruit. If a man can take delight in pouncing upon a bird, tear its still living body apart with his teeth, sucking the warm blood, one might infer that Nature had provided him with carnivorous instinct, but the very thought of doing such a thing makes him shudder. On the other hand, a bunch of luscious grapes makes his mouth water, and even in the absence of hunger, he will eat fruit to gratify taste.”

If human intelligence enables man to transcend his physical limitations and function as a “natural” flesh-eater, then we must classify napalm, poison gas, and nuclear weapons as “natural,” too, because they are also products of human intelligence.

Agriculture , cookery, refrigeration, etc. aren’t found in nature, either. One might therefore argue if human technology is “natural,” then human ethical behavior is equally natural.

“I am the very opposite of an anthropomorphizer,” said writer Brigid Brophy. “I don’t hold animals superior or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently towards animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable of rationality, imagination and moral choice, and that is precisely why we are under obligation to respect the rights of other creatures.”

That predators exist in the wild does not imply man must imitate them. Cannibalism and rape also occur in nature.

Robert Louis Stevenson, in his book, In the South Seas, wrote that there was no difference between the “civilized” Europeans and the cannibals:

“We consume the carcasses of creatures with like appetites, passions, and organs as our own. We feed on babes, though not our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear.”

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The American Dietetic Association reports, "most of mankind for most of human history has lived on vegetarian or near vegetarian diets."

The Ladrone Islands were discovered by the Spaniards around 1620. There were no animals on the islands except birds, which the natives did not eat. The natives had never seen fire, and they lived entirely on plant foods—fruits and roots in their natural state. They were found to be vigorous, active, and of good longevity.

Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), responds to the argument that killing animals for food is natural:

"The main problem with this argument is that it does not justify the practice of meat-eating or animal husbandry as we know it today; it justifies hunting.

"The distinction between hunting and animal husbandry probably seems rather fine to the man in the street, or even to your typical rule-utilitarian moral philosopher. The distinction, however, is obvious to an ecologist. If one defends killing on the grounds that it occurs in nature, then one is defending the practice as it occurs in nature.

"When one species of animal preys on another in nature, it only preys on a very small proportion of the total species population. Obviously, the predator species relies on its prey for its continued survival. Therefore, to wipe the prey species out through overhunting would be fatal.

"In practice, members of such predator species rely on such strategies as territoriality to restrict overhunting and to insure the continued existence of its food supply.

"Moreover, only the weakest members of the prey species are the predator's victims: the feeble, the sick, the lame, or the young accidentally separated from the fold. The life of the typical zebra is usually placid, even in lion country; this kind of violence is the exception in nature, not the rule.

"As it exists in the wild, hunting is the preying upon isolated members of an animal herd. Animal husbandry is the nearly complete annihilation of an animal herd. In nature, this kind of slaughter does not exist. The philosopher is free to argue that there is no moral difference between hunting and slaughter, but he cannot invoke nature as a defense of this idea.

"Why are hunters, not butchers, most frequently taken to task by the larger community for their killing of animals? Hunters usually react to such criticism by replying that if hunting is wrong, then meat-hunting must be wrong as well.

"The hunter is certainly right on one point--the larger community is hypocritical to object to hunting when it consumes the flesh of domesticated animals. If any form of meat-eating is justified, it would be meat from a hunted animal."

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

"That the CDC has even published the report and thus threatened to muffle years of propaganda as to the health benefits of staying slender has enraged some medical experts."

Why is THIS one report convincing and definitive, in the spin of the article, yet (by their own description) YEARS of contradictory reports and studies dismissed as "propganda"?

Perhaps THIS is the 'propaganda'.

Science in medicine yields contradictory results sometimes.
It's why it's the PREPONDERANCE of evidence that matters.


This is simply a 'feel good about being overweight' article.
Not a balanced exploration of the science.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

This sounds like what you hear every night on the news about alcohol, caffeine, stress, chocolate...One night it's bad for you, and the next night they have "startling new research" that says something else. Plus, "overweight" is a subjective term, regardless of how scientific they try to make it sound.

For now, I'll take it as an excuse to oink-out more than I already am.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

First, to answer a previous poster:

The CDC has some of the best researchers in the world AND has no ties to drug companies or the diet industry. THAT's why this study is to be taken so seriously.


Quite a few other studies over the years have shown lower mortality in moderately overweight persons, including, significantly, life insurance co. actuarial data. I've been hearing about this info since the early 70s.


All that stuff you read in the news and try to model your life around is usually just a relatively uneducated reporter's take on a complicated study which is then further dumbed down in order to make a headline that will catch your eye. So the headline may read: "Thousands Die From Obesity Each Year" and neglect to note that the study was on a half a million people and the increase was only like 0.5%. Or, to give another example, a 30 % increase in this or that may only translate out to a half a dozen people. This stuff is complicated, varies by illness, (fat increases risk of some illnesses, reduces risk of others) and no doubt has a very strong genetic component that varies with each person or ethnicity.

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd quote the Cato Institute on anything, but here's a link to a good 2005 article: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5185

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Medicine "by daily headline" makes a travesty of good health and science reporting.

My patients are THOROUGHLY confused.

I call upon the media to place a moratorium on health reporting until health reporters become better educated and the media stops sensationalizing all data so it can get eyeballs and ears on its reports=ad revenues$

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton, Pa

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Watching hours of television which in turn gives you the incentive to not lift your butt off the couch causes obesity. Falling for those sleazy consumer advertisements also causes obesity.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

For a long time, I've been convinced that the ideal weights from the insurance industry and other sources are far lower than what should be considered normal. I've got friends who are quite thin and fit who've told me that they are 10 or 15 pounds above their "ideal" weight according to the "charts."

The push to be pencil thin has gotten so out of hand, young people - including boys - are damaging their bodies and making themselves miserable to maintain an unrealistic weight.

Maybe the reason slightly "overweight" people are just as healthy or healthier is that they are actually the "right" weight.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Blah blah blah vegetarianism. Enough already...

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

being a bit overweight should add some longevity to those that are sent off to the gulags.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

LOL

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

All of the life extension literature points to caloric restriction as the best way to extend life. This paper was in a good journal (I have not yet read the original paper but one should never trust pop media's interpretation of journal articles), but correlation does not equal causation. Look up the words "Caloric Restriction" on www.pubmed.com

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Without knowing what "modestly" overweight means, I cannot evaluate this story. I thought being obese or morbidly obese that put one at risk for chronic diseases and early death.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Repeat this mantra daily in the voice of Paul Linde, and ignore most of the other "advice," "caffiene is bad for you, caffiene is good for you", "alcohol is bad for you, alcohol is good for you," "carbs are good for you, carbs are bad for you," etc., etc, ad nauseum.

The only health advice we can all agree on? Stop smoking or don't start, and get up and move. Human beings, originally hunter-gatherers, are not supposed to mimic Jabba the Hut.

As for stress, a probable silent killer in our oh-so-modern world: Get angry, not depressed; it pumps up the immune system. . .according to studies, for what they're worth. (And focussed in the right direction, it might just help rid Washington D.C. of its current crop of parasites.)

P.S.: Is scanning the meat section of your local supermarket the only thing left of, "the hunt?"

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Why are there sooo many contradictory health studies? Grant money, my dears. B.S. studies don't receive their total funding until they publish findings, and so the overwhelming motivation is to publish as soon as possible, complete or incomplete.

What we are seeing here is public welfare to academia. It's just a damn shame that the money going to studies supposedly to improve our health – by telling us what is common sense – isn't going to the poor and hungry in our nation. Their health would be improved if they could just get enough to eat.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I think the main issue is that if you are perpetually yoyo dieting, stressing yourself mentally and physically to try to meet a(n) (probably) unreasonable weight goal, you are going to make yourself very unhealthy, as opposed to carrying some extra weight.

And it is true, that if you were to develop cancer, one of the main causes of death from cancer is starvation. In fighting the disease, you will burn calories, and the cancer will also cause you to burn additional calories, while the treatments can make it difficult to eat well and properly. A small fat store can help. It can even help with other illnesses or during times of mental stress when you may fail to eat properly and need reserves to fall back on.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

GOLDEN MEAN

...and that goes for blogging too!!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

For years, the insurance companies have been using charts that ridiculously inaccurate. Does anyone seriously think that a 6' man with a medium build should be 165 pounds? That's absurd. Such a person should be about 185, which is the optimal health range discovered by this study.

But this article - and probably the study it's based on - doesn't point out the obvious truth. Being 185 or 190 at 6', when your body is mostly composed of lean mass (muscle and bone) is excellent. Being 190 when most of it is fat is bad. There needs to be follow-up studies to this that examine the role of lean mass to fat rations in health. I think everyone intuitively knows what the results will be, but it has to be formally proven.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

with thin subjects who also were smokers,already sick or otherwise good "candidates" for early death as other studies were? I don't trust this study - it's nothing more than a feel-good to facilitate people's inability to stay thin and healthy. When I was growing up very few people were overweight or obese. It's good business for hospitals and doctors to keep patients sick and fat as there is more money in treating them. Just like my doctor trying to push hormone therapy on me when I don't want or need it - it's a racket.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

nt

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The message was quite balanced and not a sweeping
recommendation. It's just one more
interesting piece of a whole puzzle, and not
really that confusing.

In some situations and for some diseases, the
moderately overweight had better MORTALITY
statistics. This might
mean you can bounce back from some diseases more
easily with some spare flesh. But it is too soon
to declare conclusions from the study - I want
to hear more.

For some other major diseases, a
lower weight seems to protect you from getting
the disease in the first place. That has been
shown about as conclusively as it can be with
cancer, where fats in the diet and extra body
fat act as active cancer promoters.

Not addressed: health factors of the moderately overweight.
I know I feel tons better and my
life is more active and full when I'm
eating healthy foods and not carrying extra pounds.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Bottom line under all this shite is the flawed height-weight tables developed by the insurance industry in the 1940's based on a very skewed and biased, not to mention woefully outdated, view of physiology and body type. Sure calculate that BMI based on those flawed tables designed for people with bird-thin bone structures, little to no musculature... and while you who are not of that body structure try to meet the fatally impossible weight requirements for your verticality, enjoy the ride in the hearse! Bwahahahaha!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

...Evolutionary point of view, it makes sense that a modest amount of body fat would be a survival advantage. After all, a fat storage system exists to provide an energy reserve for emergencies.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

As a sociologist who has researched fat stigma for over 25 years, I appreciate the courage it took for Alternet and the author to present this article. Thank you. HOWEVER, there is nothing new here. There have been many, many studies over the years that have run contrary to the fat is lethal pop paradigm and they have been ignored. NO profit for pharma that way. I would also like to add that most weight studies do NOT control for things like risky weight loss practices. Damage from fen-phen to speed in diet pills fall under obesity. Nor do they control for social class, so obesity takes the blame for everything from lack of health insurance to toxins (the poor and people of color have more exposure due to environmental racism/classism).

Nor does association prove causation. Some doctors think that fat is a rudimentary form of protection for the body in some illnesses. So when they show up, fat shows up. But it doesn't mean fat is causing the illness. It could be a side effect.

I do think there is one type of obesity to be very concerned about, and that is the kind caused by pollution and endocrine disrupters. I think those chemicals are causing havoc with our systems, and the solution is to get rid of the chemicals. Not blame people whose bodies gain weight out of sensitivity to them.

I'll just bet this isn't the last word. Cancer societies, which have chemical companies on their boards and are in bed with diet companies don't want to lose their perfect cash cow scape goat. Over my dead rubenesque body will THEY get the last word. Remember it ain't over till the FAT lady sings!!!!!!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

is now running through my head:

"A little extra weight
Would never look
No nicer on
Nobody else
But you"

:)

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

That was cute. Uh huh.

http://www.addictedtoaggravation.com/

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

This is especially true of the elderly. The old folks who are moderately overweight survive illness better then those of ideal weight.
Humankind is DEFINITELY omnivorous...teeth and digestive system structure shows this.
Many human populations would have died during the Ice Age if they didn't eat meat...besides all the other important products animals provided primitive cultures.
Humans may have needed animal protein to develop the intelligence we currently are capable of.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The scientists are careful to stress that the benefits they are describing are limited to those people who are merely overweight -- which generally means being no more than 30 pounds heavier than is recommended for your height -- and certainly do not carry over to those who fall into the category of obese.

Somebody shoulda told the headline writers.

Most doctors have always said a little bit overweight is nothing to be concerned about. Obesity is a whole 'nother ball of ... fat.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Society is in trouble if the aforementioned article's premise is true, that being overweight is good for you. It depends on whom you ask.
Yes, we have spent untold amounts of time and money to keep the "spare tire" off our torsos and undergo various surgical procedures to eliminate the baggage. True, exercising and eating right are standards, but one has to wonder what number can attributed to safely being overweight. The lack of an active lifestyle is a symptom to being overweight.
I know that 17 percent of my body is fat. Not bad for someone who's 46. I still feel it's unhealthy.
What is the solution? It starts early in life. Knowing how to manage your caloric intake, getting enough exercise and avoiding harmful agents is the key. So get off that couch, put the remote down and exercise!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Fruits vs. Obesity

Fruits are low in calories and highly nutritional already grown on public places at increasing ratios to face obesity trends. Tree climbing also can be a body exercise for children harvesting fruits.

Fruits also have around four times more water content than cookies or any dry processed food. It easily satisfies our hunger letting us take less overall energy. Just keep your refrigerator full of fruits and you and your kids will likely get fit.

In Brazil we are suggesting to increase fruit trees in the public areas changing our country to a large tropical orchard. Then, sidewalks, squares, parks, roadsides will be plenty of free fruits bearing the most delicious and appropriate food to fight obesity, also protected from a wild economic system.

Other countries can join us on a fight against global obesity.

We believe Brazil as a tropical country can tackle obesity and be the leader on such fight. We intend the rural area conquer the cities make it full of fruits.
http://revver.com/watch/225528

Even carnivores can be convinced to eat more fruits:
http://revver.com/watch/218695

Why not humans can eat fruits for their own good?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]