what are you talking about when you say median. the word he used is "mid range" which I take to mean people at midrange on the BMI, they're not on the low side of normal and not on the high.
>nor is an increase in the share of the population that's obese from 23% to
>31%. His own stats undermine his argument.
He's talking about thin, normal, slightly overweight, overweight, obese, morbidly obese. He said that the gains at the upperend pushed people from being merely overweight to being obese. So, yes, it's real, it's just not an epidemic. IOW, the fat, who were already fat, are just getting way fatter.
He's rejecting the claim that everyone has gotten fatter and pointing at the numbers to say that thin and normal people have remained about the same. The already overweight, the obese, and the morbidly obese have gotten fatter. The overweight have gained so that has pushed them into the obese category. Some of these people, who were maybe 40 lbs. overweight, are now 50 lbs overweight, making them obese according to the definition.
>According to a summary
><http://www.wlscenter.com/ResearchArticles/ObesietyReview.htm> of the
>Flegal paper from which he draws his numbers:
>
>>The report analyses data collected by the National Health and Nutrition
>>Examination Survey (NHANES) since 1960. It shows that the level of
>>obesity was stable at about 14% through the first survey (1960-1962), the
>>second survey (1971-1974) and the third survey (1976-1980). Obesity then
>>spiked up to 23% for the survey conducted 1988-1994 and continued the
>>upward trend to 30% for this most recent survey, 1999-2000. The most
>>recent survey collected data from 4,115 adults.
>
>By the way, 2000 isn't "now." The increases he's downplaying happened in 9
>years.
I know. I don't know if I typo'd something or what but I'm not sure why you think I think anything different. I'm rejecting the claim, because i've already seen these numbers, that the typical _normal_ weight range has shifted rightward because normal people are fatter than they used to be.
>Another set of stats
><http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/tables/2003/03hus068.pdf>:
>
>percent of population aged 20-74 years, age adjusted, that's...
>
> 1960-62 1971-74 1976-80 1988-94 1999-2000
>overweight 44.8 47.7 47.4 56.0 64.5
>obese 13.3 14.6 15.1 23.3 30.9
>
>Something happened starting in the late 1970s. I blame Reagan.
Right. The first of the baby boomers starting hitting 30. :) If you look at the numbers, also, it's overweight and obese young people, teens, who are fatter than they used to be.
don't get me wrong, I'm not downplaying it. I typed a whole bunch about my noticing the same damn thing by income demographics.
I _do_ think that the numbers are, in part, a result of age demographics. Once all the boomers die, you'll see different numbers, though I do agree that the numbers are shifting upward due to the environmental issues--everything from pollutants, automobiles, sendentary work lives, depression, medication, etcs.
Kelley
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'