{"id":153,"date":"2013-01-03T19:53:52","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T00:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/?p=153"},"modified":"2013-01-03T19:53:52","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T00:53:52","slug":"our-absurd-fear-of-fat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/medicine-in-the-news\/our-absurd-fear-of-fat\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Absurd Fear of Fat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Baselessly categorizing at least 130 million Americans \u2014 and hundreds of millions in the rest of the world \u2014 as people in need of \u201ctreatment\u201d for their \u201ccondition\u201d serves the economic interests of, among others, the multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry and large pharmaceutical companies, which have invested a great deal of money in winning the good will of those who will determine the regulatory fate of the next generation of diet drugs.&#8221; Click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/01\/03\/opinion\/our-imaginary-weight-problem.html?src=me&amp;ref=general\">here<\/a> to read the article.<\/p>\n<p>This study led by the CDC and the NIH is stunning because it challenges the notion that thinness equals good health. However, this observational study does not control for variables; it only notes correlations, which do not indicate causality. Nonetheless, it will force scientists, doctors, and patients to reevaluate what they label as &#8220;healthy,&#8221; and think more critically about the ways non-diseases, such as being overweight, are &#8220;medicalized&#8221; as a useful marketing strategy that underpins the growing weight loss industry, which includes the countless documentaries, videos, pills, and other supplementary tools that help people lose weight.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Baselessly categorizing at least 130 million Americans \u2014 and hundreds of millions in the rest of the world \u2014 as people in need of \u201ctreatment\u201d for their \u201ccondition\u201d serves the economic interests of, among others, the multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/medicine-in-the-news\/our-absurd-fear-of-fat\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41934],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medicine-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/medjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}