SO PREDICTABLE!

On a December 2008 blog post we were commenting on how India had lowered the normal BMI level from 25 to 23 and how it artificially created millions of obese people. This in a country where malnutrition should be of much greater concern. In fact the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ranks India 67th out of 122 developing and in transition countries based on the proportion of people who are undernourished, the proportion of children under five who are underweight, and the child mortality rate. They describe India’s hunger situation as alarming. 

When we wrote about the decrease of the BMI level back in 2008, we predicted that reading about an obesity epidemic in the Indian and international papers should be forthcoming and that the table had been perfectly set for the media to go ahead with the anti-obesity propaganda force-feeding. A few extra millions of obese citizens, are not a negligible customer base that can and will surely yield handsome dividends for the Big Pharma shareholders.
Well here it is folks exactly as predicted:

Obesity, diabetes: expanding India faces big problem

Worthy of note is how the increase in obesity coincides with right around the time the lower BMI was adopted and how they don't adjust or mention of that change in their rhetoric: 

‘’ Childhood obesity has definitely increased in the last couple of years," said Dr Paula Goel, from the Fayth Clinic in Mumbai, which runs a weight loss programme for adolescents.’’

So predictable!


Additional reading: Ethnic-specific revisions of body mass index cutoffs to define overweight and obesity in Asians are not warranted


The World Bank malnutrition report on India