The data from the new study underlines the central contention of Professor Campos’ book: that the so-called “overweight” category, which contains most Americans who the government claims weigh “too much,” is scientifically baseless and socially destructive, and should be abandoned immediately.
The new JAMA study finds that, in the year 2000, so-called “overweight” people had the lowest risk for premature death, and that indeed the risk of premature death among Americans labeled “overweight” and “obese” by the government was lower than among Americans who were not “overweight” and “obese.” The study reduces the number of premature deaths associated with overweight and obesity from an earlier figure of 400,000 (a figure that The Diet Myth argued was deeply flawed and could not possibly be correct, given the available data) to 25,000. The book also argues that the risks associated with higher than average weight have been systematically exaggerated by a public health establishment that has been captured by the nation’s $50 billion per year weight loss industry, and that dieting and weight obsession makes Americans both fatter and less healthy than they would otherwise be. The Diet Myth analyzes hundreds of medical studies and concludes that being what the government defines as “overweight” is not a medical risk, and is in fact optimal for a large percentage of the population. A major new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) confirms the contrarian thesis put forth in Professor Paul Campos’ book The Diet Myth: Why American's Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to Your Health (formerly The Obesity Myth).
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