OBESITY AND HEALTH: A SCIENTIFIC UPDATE
Separating Rhetoric from Reality

It would be difficult to overstate the urgency that U.S. government and health officials have placed on the dangers posed by obesity. The Surgeon General labeled obesity "the terror within," a terror more dangerous than "weapons of mass destruction." In an article in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, another group of researchers menacingly warned that "the tsunami of childhood obesity has not yet hit shore" and that it was only a matter of time before heart attack and kidney failure became "a relatively common condition of young adulthood." The purpose of this presentation is to critically examine these and similar claims commonly made in the name of the "war on obesity." The premise will be that most of them are poorly supported and in some cases even directly contradicted by the most up-to-date scientific evidence. An alternative, science-based approach for helping people with weight-related concerns will be introduced. <> 


Jonathan Robison, Ph.D., MS
Assistant Professor, Michigan State University
Phone: (517) 507-0287
Fax: (517) 507-0265
e-mail: robisonj@msu.edu
www.jonrobison.net