From Charles F. Brummitt
Paul Campos makes the best case to sell his recently released book, rather than provide a critical counterpoint to the obesity epidemic debate (1 May, p 20). He is mistaken in his claims that “the current war on fat is an irrational outburst of cultural hysteria, unsupported by sound science”.
The American Cancer Society cancer prevention studies examined over 1 million adults for 14 years, analysing more than 200,000 deaths. They concluded: “The risk of death from all causes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, or other diseases increases throughout the range of moderate and severe overweight for both men and women in all age groups” (The New England Journal of Medicine, vol 341, p 1097). A 16-year US study of 115,000 nurses, reported earlier in the same journal (vol 333, p 677), concluded: “Body weight and mortality from all causes were directly related among these middle-aged women. Lean women did not have excess mortality”.
I could go on. I can also draw on my own experience as a clinician with special interest in infectious disease. I am dismayed to see more and more adults with devastating physical disabilities from obesity. These include limb loss from infection in type 2 diabetes, which is strongly associated with obesity, and increased occurrence and seriousness of other soft tissue infections in obese individuals. This is no trumped-up scare to generate research funds, but a genuine public health crisis.
Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, US
