GOING TO CHURCH CAN MAKE YOU FAT

The speed at which the anti-obesity campaign is progressing is simply astonishing. While it took a few decades for the anti-tobacco crusaders to reach absurd levels of propaganda, it took less than a decade for the anti-obesity apostles to catch up to them.  Good heavens! At this rate, we will soon have to pray for a miracle to save the obese from the socially engineered denormalization process!  This is exactly what we meant when six years ago we warned the public that opening the door to holier-than-thou ideologies, no matter how one felt about the smoking issue, is a very slippery slope.

With grants from entities with vested interests such as the RW Johnson Foundation  fueling the anti-obesity mission, only the sky is the limit to how far some researchers will go to get a piece of the pie.  Some such studies prompted headlines as extreme as:  

Obesity is contributing to global warming: study

Health Experts Call Obesity A Threat to National Security

Obesity 'Virus' Spreads Like Common Cold, Scientists Say

Fatty Food Fumes Could Be Dangerous

The latest  ‘’discovery’’ solemnly explains Why Going to Church Can Make You Fat

with the researchers now claiming that although religious people tend to be more obese, it is that same religious mindset that can save them from obesity.  Huh huh, sure, whatever, as long as it brings bread and wine to the scientist's table!

After taking a look at this in-depth article from Sandy Szwarc exposing the vested interests in the anti-obesity campaign and particularly the RW Johnson Foundation’s implication, does anyone still believe that the healthist movement is paving the road to living hell with sincere intentions to save us all from our own earthly sins? 

MORE ON CHILDHOOD OBESITY MYTHS

We came across this dated but more apropos than ever public comment prepared by Sandy Szwarc for the FTC/HHS Workshop in 2005. It is rich with references to studies that find that except for extreme cases of obesity, children can lead healthy and happy lives regardless of their weight.

Much like we have commented on October 12th, low BMI is not necessarily a synonym of good health. You will find that many references in Ms Szwarc’s comments are in line with the study we referenced on our FOLLOW THE MONEY BEHIND THE OBESITY ‘’DISEASE’’ comment. The irony of this particular study is that the actual research was likely attempting to find the complete opposite results because even the concluding remarks tend to tip the scale to the side of the rhetoric that children must be lean to enjoy good health, when in fact their own findings support that children can improve their health through moderate exercise even if they don’t lose weight.

Similar to our line of thinking, Ms Szwarc concurs that exaggerated public health and corporate campaigns against obesity are far more damaging to the psychological and physical health of our children and young adolescents.

Public Comment on Childhood Obesity Initiatives

IS TYPE 2 DIABETES IN CHILDREN A REAL PROBLEM?

Not a single day goes by that we don’t hear warnings about childhood obesity rates soaring causing type 2 diabetes to an ever increasing number of children among other ailments.

Type 2 diabetes having been up to recently qualified as a middle-age and old-age disease, we were most intrigued with what many now call the modern day epidemic and the number of children afflicted by it, so we decided to investigate past the scary headlines.

As often is the case with the obesity issue, before going on a long journey on the world wide web, we first paid a visit to Sandy Szwarc’s health blog to verify if she had written anything on the issue lately and as we have learnt to expect, she in fact has done a thorough investigation and what she discovered doesn’t surprise us in the least.

Some highlights from her article linked at the bottom of the page.

- Type 2 diabetes is said to have alarmingly increased among children and adolescents because rates of overweight and obesity have tripled in the past two decades. But after twenty years, has anyone actually checked to see if this is really true? Is there really an epidemic of childhood diabetes? (…) Incredibly, virtually no one has.

- The importance of this childhood diabetes claim and the massive federal, state and local funds being spent to address it, make it even more incredible that no one has done a simple fact check to see if is even true.

- (…) “despite significant increases in prevalence rates of childhood obesity in the United States during the past two decades,” the medical literature shows that rates of type 2 diabetes among children and adolescents at the population level have remained steady. There is no epidemic of childhood diabetes, or any measurable change at all.

- Here’s the 'epidemic' of type 2 diabetes among America’s youth:
Over the past two decades, the estimated prevalence of type 2 diabetes among U.S. teens has been:
0.12% — 0.15% — 0.12% — 0.04%.
Estimates among children as a whole (age 0-19 years) are lower, 0.02%.

- There is no epidemic of diabetes destroying the lives of children. There’s not even a hint of an impending epidemic in the population data.

The phantom epidemic of child diabetes

CHILDHOOD OBESITY EPIDEMIC BECOMING INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT TO SELL

Sandy Szwarc’s analysis on childhood obesity statistics concluding with the following paragraph -- ‘’When will taxpayers call these special interests on their bluff and begin to hold them responsible for the massive amount of public moneys and resources they’ve spent in the name of a childhood obesity epidemic — money that could have gone a long way towards improving educational opportunities and healthcare for children and families? When will the public demand evidence-based public health policies? When will parents hold these obesity interests accountable for the harmful effects of their initiatives and the nonstop weight obsessions that have surrounded their children?’’ -- exposes how the latest report -- based on the most reliable statistics available -- on childhood overweight from the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are making it increasingly harder for the pharmaceutical industry and its front groups including the media, to keep up with the spinning and propaganda on the artificial childhood obesity epidemic.

Indeed, the report states that childhood obesity in the U.S. has leveled off in the last decade. Ms Szwarc’s analysis of the report and the attempted downplaying by the media is complete with graphs and documented facts. A must read!

Read it at: The epidemic that wasn’t?