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kore wrote (edited )

I genuinely do not understand the anti-scientific viewpoint in these articles. In addition, the sections about how science is wrong hardly begin to refute scientific consensus.

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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kore wrote (edited )

Yeah, I do care, cause I think the stakes are high enough.

Alright, so I'm going to preface this by saying that I agree with the parts of the article that condemn fat shaming. I also agree with the parts of the article that correlate mental and physical health (i.e. telling people it's bad to be fat will stress them out and not help anything). I get that. I also agree that being fat isn't a choice (agreeing with point #10)

Second, you are right that they are not specifically "anti-science" in that they trust the scientific method (to refute other studies). So, poor choice of words on my part. Anyway, I was really curious about this link between obesity and disease and I didn't really trust someone writing a clickbait article in a casual tone on the internet so I looked at some things myself.

I am now going to focus on points 2 and 3 of the article:

So point 2 talks about a study that way overrepresented deaths for overweight and obese people and then another study that corrected it, which the article says

[puts] the number closer to 25,000

the study linked says "obesity (BMI > or =30) was associated with 111,909 excess deaths", not 25,000

also, the keyword here is "obesity"!

The 2004 study that was referenced includes both "overweight" and "obesity", and the 2004 study said that 29.5% of the people were in the "obese" category.

Take the 2004 number: 365000 (N.B. includes both overweight and obese) Now take the percentage of people in that study classified as just obese = 29.5%

365000 * .295 = approx 108000 deaths, essentially the same as the 111,909 figure.

Okay, so the article quotes two studies and says that the studies say very different things when they say pretty much the same thing. So that's a complete misrepresentation.

The article quotes another study, and the article claims it says: people categorized as “overweight” live longer than those categorized as “normal,” and most “obese” people live similarly long lives as their “normal” counterparts.

The study says: We document once again, excess mortality associated with obesity. Our results do, however, question whether the current classification of individuals as “overweight” is optimal in the sense, since there is little evidence of increased risk of mortality in this group.

Again, misrepresented study, though perhaps not as completely as the first two.

So point 3... I'm just gonna quote this part of the article:

"Correlation. But no Causation. That is to say, it’s not as simple as it seems on the surface. And just because both fat and disease are present does not mean that the former caused the latter."

And before that they quoted two studies about how weight cycling and dieting actually increase cortisol/"inflammation". That's fine. I just don't understand how the sentence "It's not as simple as it seems... does not mean that the former caused the latter" even begins to refute all of the evidence that links obesity with countless diseases (look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity#Effects_on_health) for example.

All in all, yeah, the article is on to something. We should focus on healthy eating and exercise rather than weight. But like, they're not even using the counter studies correctly, and so I don't know how I can trust them. It's like they didn't even read what the study was actually saying.

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sudo wrote

Thank you for taking the time to actually read the studies.

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kore wrote

it's the first time i've really tried it and boy, I sure learned my lesson

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