I was taken aback by the way in which the interview with Michelle Obamawas conducted on the Huckabee show on February 20. The First Lady came across as a very gracious person and a good parent, but the substance and background of her childhood anti-obesity campaign was never discussed. Instead there was a passing reference to her children's BMI.
There is no medical evidence that fat by itself causes any disease; instead there are putative links to mortality based solely on statistical models and flawed data. School based anti-fat campaigns conducted in various states in the 1990's involving thousands of elementary school children failed to reduce the children's weight. The much quoted BMI (Body Mass Index) was not invented by a medical doctor but by the Belgian astronomer Adolphe Quetelet who attempted to mathematically characterize human physiognomy in 1830. The definitions of overweight and obesity nevertheless are based on arbitrary BMI values. The belief that an obesity epidemic which began in 1980 is threatening our health is unfounded. Similar warnings were issued in the early 1950's. While much is said about our increasing fatness it is fact that Americans today are taller on average than their grandparents, yet this is not seen as a health problem.
