Les Jones

Science > CDC Blew it on Obesity Numbers

The Houston Chronicle via WizBang.

Being overweight is nowhere near as big a killer as the government thought, ranking No. 7 instead of No. 2 among the nation's leading preventable causes of death, according to a startling new calculation from the CDC.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated today that packing on too many pounds accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC came up with an estimate 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths.

The new analysis found that obesity — being extremely overweight — is indisputably lethal. But like several recent smaller studies, it found that people who are modestly overweight actually have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight.

So it looks like the CDC Adamsized their numbers.

Last year politicians wanted to enact new food laws based on the earlier, flawed study. Science is a process. It takes a while to get the facts straight, and nutritional science in particular is being constantly re-written. When basing public policy on scientific research, it's worth remembering that "latest" information doesn't always mean "best" and sometimes means "worst," since the latest information hasn't been scrutinized as thoroughly.