Question

obesity rates have reached epidemic proportions.

define the claim and counter argument to this claim. who are the people and sources making this claim. with 3 supporting details, what types of information was transmitted about this claim. with 3 supporting details, what are the rhetoric or fallacies used to this claim, with 3 supporting details, what are scientific findings about the claim. with 3 supporting details, what are the best ways to assess the probabilities of this claim. does the claim conflict with your personal observation and background information. what are your conclusion of the claim

Answer 1

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally, with more than 1 billion adults overweight - at least 300 million of them clinically obese - and is a major contributor to the global burden of chronic disease and disability. Often coexisting in developing countries with under-nutrition,
obesity is a complex condition, with serious social and psychological dimensions, affecting virtually all ages andsocioeconomic groups.
Increased consumption of more energy-dense, nutrient- poorfoods with high levels of sugar and saturated fats,combined with reduced physical activity, have led to obesity rates that have risen three-fold or more since 1980 in some areas of North America, the United Kingdom,
Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, Australasia and China.The obesity epidemic is not restricted toindustrialized societies; this increase is often faster in developing countries than in the developed world.
Obesity and overweight pose a major risk for serious diet-related chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, and certain forms of cancer. The health consequences range from increased risk of premature death, to serious chronic conditions that reduce the overall quality of life. Of especial
concern is the increasing incidence of child obesity.

The claim regarding obesity being in epidemic proportion is made by world health organization in an article published by it titled 'GLOBAL STRATEGY ON DIET, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND HEALTH'

The information regarding why obesity is a global problem, how can we define obesity and overweight , what is the extent of this problem, how body fat affects our health, and what can we do about it is covered in this claim.

According to an article namely The US Obesity “Epidemic”: Metaphor,
Method, or Madness? By Gordon R. Mitchell and Kathleen M. McTigue
In 2000, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson mobilized the US public health infrastructure to deal with escalating trends of excess body weight.A cornerstone of this effort was a report entitled The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity. The report stimulated a great deal of public discussion by utilizing the distinctive public health terminology of an epidemic to describe the growing prevalence of obesity in the US population. We suggest that the ensuing controversy was fueled in part by the report’s ambiguous usage of the evocative term “epidemic.”
In some passages, the report seems to use “epidemic” in a literal sense, suggesting that rising prevalence of excess body weight should be defined technically as a disease outbreak. Other passages of the report present the same key term metaphorically, leaving readers with the
impression that the epidemic language is invoked primarily for rhetorical effect. Here, we explore dynamics and implications of both interpretations. This analysis sheds light on the ongoing public argument about the appropriate societal response to steadily increasing body sizes in the US population; likewise, it capitalizes on the accumulated knowledge that the fieldof public health has garnered from combating diverse historic epidemics. Our interdisciplinary approach deploys critical tools from the fields of rhetoric, sociology and
epidemiology. In particular, we draw from metaphor theory and public address scholarship to elucidate how the Call to Action frames public deliberation on obesity. We turn to the applied public health literature to develop a reading of the report that suggests a novel approach to the problem—application of the Epidemic Investigation protocol to streamline the public health response and reframe the public argument about obesity.

The scientific findings regarding by WHO is the article titled global strategy on diet physical activity and health are Currently more than 1 billion adults are overweight - and atleast 300 million of them are clinically obese. Current obesity levels range from below 5% in China, Japan and certain African nations, to over 75% in urban Samoa. But
even in relatively low prevalence countries like China,rates are almost 20% in some cities. Childhood obesity is already epidemic in some areas and on the rise in others. An estimated 17.6 million children
under five are estimated to be overweight worldwide. According to the US Surgeon General, in the USA the number of overweight children has doubled and the number of overweight adolescents has trebled since 1980. The prevalence of obese children aged 6-to-11 years has
more than doubled since the 1960s. Obesity prevalence in youths aged 12-17 has increased dramatically from 5% to 13% in boys and from 5% to 9% in girls between 1966-70 and 1988-91 in the USA. The problem is global and increasingly extends into the developing world; forexample, in Thailand the prevalence of obesity in 5-to-12 year olds children rose from12.2% to 15-6% in just two years. Obesity accounts for 2-6% of total health care costs in several developed countries; some estimates put the figure as high as 7%. The true costs are undoubtedly much greater as not all obesity-related conditions are included in the calculations.

But in my view this claim poses various conflicting issues,

For some years now, obesity sceptics have argued against the mainstream medical and public health perspective on obesity. Writers such as Paul Campos (2004), Michael Gard and Jan Wright (Gard and Wright, 2005; Gard, 2011) have published closely argued critiques of the obesity science literature. They persuasively identify the many inaccuracies, distortions, misleading assumptions and generalisations made in scientific and epidemiological research which have contributed to the idea that obesity is at ‘crisis’ or ‘epidemic’ levels and that being over the arbitrarily defined ‘normal’ BMI automatically damages people’s health.

Some specific points obesity sceptics make are as follows:

• It is not the case that there are far greater numbers of fat people now compared to several decades ago. While there has been a modest increase in average weight, this does not represent an ‘epidemic of obesity’.
• Life expectancy in western countries has risen, not fallen, despite alleged growing rates of obesity and the supposed life-threatening health conditions caused by obesity.
• There is no statistical evidence that being fat necessarily equates to a greater risk of ill health or disease. Statistics show that only those people at the extreme end of the weight spectrum (the ‘morbidly obese’ in medical terminology) demonstrate negative health effects from their weight. The data show that higher body weight may even be protective of health in older people.
• The epidemiological literature has been unable to demonstrate that significant weight loss improves fat people’s health status. Indeed continual attempts by fat people to lose weight can actually be negative to their health status if it involves extreme diets, being caught in a cycle of losing and gaining weight or poor dietary habits.
• Fatness is often a symptom rather than the cause of ill health and disease.
• There is no consensus from the scientific literature that people in contemporary western societies are less active now than in previous eras: indeed many people, particularly those from the middle-class, are highly physically active.
• No clear association has been found between activity levels and childhood overweight and obesity, or between children’s television watching habits and their body weight.
• Nor have studies conclusively demonstrated that relative levels of physical activity influence health status. Medical research has not been able to show how much exercise should be undertaken and how often to achieve and maintain good health and which diseases are affected or prevented by taking regular exercise.
• It is also very difficult to demonstrate scientifically the relative influence of genes in body weight.

So to further conclude

What obesity sceptics present, in essence, is a detailed critique of the ways in which political agendas and pre-existing assumptions shape the reporting and interpretation of medical and epidemiological data relating to body mass. Quite apart of its relevance to debate about whether the obesity epidemic exists and how serious it is, such an analysis is valuable in drawing attention to the work practices and knowledge claims of medical and public health researchers.

The assertions and critiques of obesity sceptics have failed to make an impact on mainstream obesity science, government health policy and anti-obesity public health efforts. Journal articles concerning the dangers of obesity continue to appear in medical and public health journals with monotonous frequency. Alarmist predictions continue to receive attention in the mass media. Governments in western countries have also continued to invest large sums to fund health promotion campaigns seeking to counter obesity. For example, the American ‘Let’s Move’ campaign, directed at controlling childhood obesity, was launched by First Lady Michelle Obama in early 2010, while on the same day President Obama created a Taskforce on Childhood Obesity. The Australian ‘Swap It, Don’t Swap It’ anti-obesity campaign commenced in early 2011. It would seem that there are powerful political and career investments in continuing to ignore the arguments of the obesity sceptics.