The Obesity Epidemic

The Obesity Epidemic – published by Routledge - demolishes many of the myths about rising obesity levels and challenges accepted views about the causes.

According to the authors - Australian health studies experts Dr Michael Gard and Prof Jan Wright - no scientific study has ever shown a clear link between children’s weight and the amount of TV they watch, or how long they spend surfing the net.

‘The assumption is that kids are getting fatter because they’re couch potatoes who avoid exercise in favour of the TV or computer. But evidence shows that kids who use technology the most are actually more likely, not less likely, to be physically active,’ said Gard.

‘Claims about TV causing obesity are simply not based on fact. I think they come from age-old anxieties over technology. First it was pianos, then the radio that people blamed for social ills. Now it’s TV, computers and video games.’

In writing The Obesity Epidemic, Gard and Wright reviewed over 250 international scientific studies on obesity published over the last four years. They discovered that much of what is said, particularly about childhood obesity, is based on weak or contradictory evidence that ignores basic research standards. They claim:

• Medical researchers and social commentators are driven by cultural views of overweight people as bad, lazy, gluttonous and stupid. • Obesity is rising but it is neither a disease, nor an epidemic, nor a crisis crippling economies and health care systems.

• The commonly-used Body Mass Index (BMI) is an inaccurate and arbitrary measure of fatness that is causing unnecessary alarm. • Science has so far failed to identify the true causes of rising obesity.

• Ideas about obesity causing the downfall of British sport, or obesity being caused by moral degeneration since the 1960s, have no foundation in fact. They are the product of nostalgia and a hankering for “the good old days”.

• Today’s children are not less active. In fact most people, including children, are doing the same, or more, exercise now than in previous generations. • Most people are eating less fat and fewer total calories today than before.

• Proposals for more physical education in schools are unlikely to have any long-term effect on people’s lifestyles or the nation’s health.

Millions of pounds are being wasted each year on ineffective medical research, according to Gard.

Details

SKU SKU1952

ISBN Number 0415318963

Author Gard & Wright

List Price: £31.99

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