Monday, August 11, 2008

Stupidest Obesity Headline Ever?

Not the one above this post, but rather one by Reuters published on August 6th, 2008.

The article had to do with a study recently published in Obesity that looked at predictions for overweight and obesity in the US for the coming few decades.

The hypothetical study wanted to address the question of what might happen to healthcare expenditures attributable to weight and weight related disease if rising rates of obesity continued unabated.

Certainly if you simply draw a straight line on a graph eventually everyone on the planet will be overweight or obese, but natural phenomena do not occur in straight lines and natural distribution will ensure that eventually we will hit a zenith.

The authors knew this too and simply put it together as a hypothetical question.

Reuters perhaps took it a little too seriously with their alarmist headline,

"All U.S. adults could be overweight in 40 years"
For their efforts Reuters has earned my first quobesity post in some time.