(no subject)

[djm4_lj]

"A quarter of England adults are obese, costing £3.7bn a year. It causes more harm than smoking, alcohol or poverty."

It's not that I don't believe the BBC news site - as it happens, I don't, but that's not quite the point - it's that I don't think a bald statement like that should sit there uncriticised. At the very least, I'd like the journalist to expand a little on how they're quantifying 'harm'. I'd also like to know whether they're using 'obese' as defiend by BMI, and if so, are they simply assuming that 'obese' means 'serious health risk'? Thing is, that's actully highly controversial, as anyone writing in this area should know.

Obesity does not cause more harm than lazy journalism, but then very little does.

Comments

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I'd also like to know how they're isolating the effects of obesity from those of poverty, given that there's a positive correlation between the two.

[jhg.livejournal.com]

Bah. Those measures don't go far enough. They should ban all unhealthy food from the country, and set lions and tigers and wild dogs loose around the country, to give people something to run away from - that should give everyone *plenty* of exercise. Well, the survivors anyway...


J

[kake]

I made a comment, but they didn't post it.