June 8, 2004
By GINA KOLATA
--------------- How are the measures he's talking about not big increases? 6-7 pounds in a decade? Assuming that height isn't changing, that's almost 2.75 points on a body mass index scale. And the increase has been accelerating. The 95th percentile BMI has shifted more than 15% since 1980, and the median has increased by 9%, which means that this is not just confined those at the top of the distribution, and much of it has come in the last 15 years.
This is also wrongheaded because it takes attention away from the ways that food production and costs have contributed to obesity.
Christian