Just over half a century since obesity was introduced into the international classification of diseases, we are told it has become an ‘epidemic’, and governments around the world have implemented social and health polices in an attempt to combat it. TV chef Jamie Oliver has popularised the idea of teaching healthy eating in schools and even checking children’s packed lunches to ensure they are eating correctly.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates 300 million people are obese, and that by 2015 approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million obese, and not just in the developed nations, but also in countries like Brazil and Columbia. Medical research points to links between obesity and a range of other serious diseases from diabetes and heart disease to cancer. But do these statistics provide an accurate snapshot of the health of a nation? Is it particularly unhealthy for the people of developing nations and elsewhere to be gaining weight? Recently it has been shown that the National BMI standards used in health surveys are generally arbitrary and outdated, exaggerating the proportion of obese men and women by as much as 100 per cent. Furthermore, studies done by the American Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health have shown that dieting is more strongly associated with increased risks of death than being overweight. With life expectancy on the rise as well as the obesity rate, the traditional theory of ‘thinner is better’ is most certainly open to questioning.
Patrick Basham and John Luik, authors of Diet Nation, argue that anti-obesity crusaders use blunt, heavy-handed and coercive measures that punish both producers and consumers of foods - the obese, the fat, the slim and the thin. Are politicians’ and medical experts’ efforts to combat obesity unscientific and unethical, or is there really an obesity time-bomb about to explode?
Free BMI check to all those attending this topical Café Conversation!
 | Patrick Basham co-author, Diet Nation: Exposing the Obesity Debate; adjunct scholar, Cato Institute; director, Democracy Institute |
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 | John Luik senior fellow, Democracy Institute, Washington DC; co-author, Diet Nation |
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 | Vivienne Parry writer and broadcaster; medical science correspondent, The Times; Body & Soul columnist; writer-in-residence, Foresight Obesities Project |
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 | Ann Rossiter director, Social Market Foundation |
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| Chair: | |
 | Justine Brian director, Debating Matters Competition |
| Justine Brian director, Debating Matters Competition | |
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 | recommended by spiked |
