“Health News” Is Neither Healthy Nor News + Real Health News That You Probably Missed This Week

Health News Checklist From Body Love Wellness Last week, “health news” outlets widely reported this study that found that fat people with metabolic abnormalities, when studied over a 10 year period, seem to show more cognitive decline than thin or fat people without those abnormalities.

I could go on and on about the fact that this is not a controlled study and doesn’t account for things that might be causing this decline other than fat, like fat stigma and pharmaceuticals etc.

But today, I want to talk about the way this study was reported, not the study itself.

Why “Health News” Is Usually Bad News

Let’s look at MSN Health, for example. The original article on MSN Health was so hate-filled and misleading that an editor must have finally revised it to make it slightly more accurate. I wish I could get access to that original posting, but at the very least this facebook preview from the Rolls Not Trolls group says it all.

This is how “health news” outlets like MSN Health reported the study:
being fat makes you dumber from facebook preview with circleEven though MSN eventually changed the text of the article, they kept both the inaccurate title and the image of the mostly headless fatty holding a donut. Kudos, MSN for not letting fact checking get in the way of your hit count!

The Other Study That Came Out This Week That “Health News” Outlets Didn’t Bother To Cover

So is it any wonder that this other study, which found that fat doesn’t kill and being fat may actually have a protective effect when it comes to diabetes, got swept under the rug by “health news” outlets this week?

Here’s a quote from this study that may blow your mind.

“After adjusting for diabetes and hypertension, severe obesity was no longer associated with mortality, and milder obesity was associated with decreased mortality. There was a significant interaction between diabetes (but not hypertension) and BMI, such that the mortality risk of diabetes was lower among mildly and severely obese persons than among those in lower BMI categories.”

In other words, fat doesn’t kill you. If you don’t have diabetes or hypertension, and you’re fat, even really, really fat, your life expectancy is no different than a thin person. And if you have diabetes, being fat actually lengthens your life expectancy.

Hmm. So why would this study, which had a sample size of over eight times that other, widely reported study, get so little mention in the press?

Could it be because, as I wrote last week, the idea that fat is bad and weight loss works is the result of advertising, not science?

Perhaps it wasn’t reported because, if fatness isn’t dangerous or unhealthy or bad for you, then everyone from diet companies to diet pill manufacturers to weight loss surgery implant manufacturers to weight loss surgeons to Dr. Oz to women’s magazines to diet book gurus to anti-obesity researchers to the hacks at MSN Health would have to find some other way to make a living?!

This is hugely important health news that news outlets never bothered to cover. They didn’t cover it because if people actually knew about it, it would kill the weight loss business.

The diet industry alone makes over $60 billion a year here in the U.S. and much of that money is funneled back into the economy in the form of advertising. Perhaps some “news outlets” would go under without those monthly checks from Weight Watchers. I can’t be sure of that, but this much is clear: the news industry has an interest in keeping the weight loss industry thriving.

What You Can Do

1) Follow The Money — When you see a fat bashing article online or in print, take a look at the rest of the page, site or periodical. How many diet-related ads do you see? How many references or links to weight loss products do you notice? You may be shocked by what you find.

2) Ignore Or Comment — When you see “articles” that say that fat is bad and weight loss is the answer, feel free to ignore them. You know that they’re not the truth, and won’t contribute to your mental health. Alternatively, dig a little deeper and see if the cited study lines up with the article. The study itself may have bias too, so see if you notice that as well. And remember, very often, “health news” is neither healthy nor news. Feel free to comment and give ’em heck for bad reporting.

3) Practice Health At Every Size(R) — When you look at studies that are not funded by the diet industry, again and again it becomes clear that fat is not a death sentence, it’s not a curse. Embracing the body that you have–nourishing it, loving it, moving it in ways that feel good–is truly the healthiest thing you can do. This is the essence of HAES(R). You have the right to live a big, beautiful life in the body you have right now.

Get great body love tips and more when you subscribe:

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. To learn more about Golda and her work, click here.


(Listen to this post here, or subscribe on itunes.)

24 thoughts on ““Health News” Is Neither Healthy Nor News + Real Health News That You Probably Missed This Week

  1. What you are pointing out is of ultimate importance. The more I research this issue for my website, the more glaring the infractions become. The health community has been manufacturing false data about obesity and “bad” foods for years. When some savvy scientist determines otherwise, the good news is always hushed. Back in 1987, Paul Ernsberger unsuccessfully challenged the NIH with data showing that high adipose tissue reduced the incident strokes. Kathleen Flegal of CDC demonstrated in 2005 that BMI overweight has a lower mortality rate than normal. She showed this in her tables but would not come out and say it in her report. She reported about 100,000 excess deaths due to obesity, however without looking at the effect of potential confounders. Still the CDC uses the older 300,000 figure. Campos et al. in 2005 talk about conditions that confound mortality statistics in severe obesity including weight cycling, inactivity resulting from obesity, and stimulant diet pills, anyone one of them alone could be responsible for the entire increase in death rate in the morbidly obese. In other words, an increase in death rate due to morbid obesity is not yet settled fact. I discuss this and much more on my super-enhanced website: http://no-obesity-epidemic.org.

  2. Fat makes you dumber? Wow, fate hate and ableism in one sentence and news. Less cognitive functions and skills is not being dumber and HOW does fatness causes that?

  3. This study was a gold standard study – a longitudinal study across ten years, with a large cohort, that controlled for a number of factors and was cross-checked with the longitudinal Whitehall study. The fact that it was reported hatefully doesn’t change that.

    The diabetes study was reported in the mainstream press – it certainly showed up on the Zite app, which aggregates health articles from across the web, but only takes articles from relatively well-known sites.

    HAES advocates shoot themselves in the foot by doing the same thing they accuse the mainstream medical establishment of doing – cherry picking evidence. Fat cells are not inert and they play a role in hormones and inflammation that is only now being understood. There is a clear relationship emerging between very high levels of adipose tissue and conditions like breast cancer, which are not correlational but causal.

    Given the way that extreme levels of fat provoke an inflammatory response, the cognitive decline finding is not such a surprise.

    1. Annabelle, could you say more about both studies? The first study, what did it control for? And the second study, where was it reported in the press?

      Weight loss advocates have this problem to contend with — if fat cells do cause these issues (and there is a way to prove that fat cells are causing the problem, not dieting or other things that may have led to the fat cells being there), what is the answer? Weight loss efforts don’t work, so what exactly is the point for blaming fat for these thing?

      You say “Given the way that extreme levels of fat provoke an inflammatory response, the cognitive decline finding is not such a surprise.” But that WASN’T the finding of the study. There was no cognitive decline found in fat people who didn’t have metabolic abnormalities. You yourself are conflating fat and cognitive decline when the study showed no evidence of that.

      1. You’re right, I did make the mistake of conflating fat and cognitive decline, rather than the findings of obesity coupled with metabolic problems leading to faster cognitive decline. You were right to pick me up on that.

        However, I did not advocate weight loss and nor did I blame fat people. I am well aware of the research about weight and diets etc. (You do know, though, that dieting doesn’t increase the number of fat cells?)

        Unfortunately, just because losing weight is difficult to impossible doesn’t in any way negate the health impacts that can be caused by adipose tissue. The best solution is, as always, prevention.

        1. I should have said… the best solution is to get as metabolically healthy as possible. Even incremental changes can be positive.

          1. Anna, on an individual level, your comment about prevention (not getting fat?) being “the best solution” (for health?) may sound reasonable (although I’d argue the factuality, feasibility, and ethics of your claim). On a population level, it starts to sound like eugenics to me. I’m happy to make incremental changes to my behaviors; I refuse to judge my weight negatively because I am fat.

          2. Marilyn: public health campaigns are eugenics? Really?

            I thought HAES was about people being in the best health they could be for their circumstances, and about focusing on the health issues rather than on the fat. Or am I wrong about that?

  4. THANK YOU for posting this!! I just saw this on the news last night. I didn’t read the study, but knew from the way the anchor and the anti-fat doctor were discussing it that they were dying to say “being fat makes you dumber.” They never came out and said that directly, but they did close the segment with “This is just more motivation to hit the gym!”

    Nowhere as sick as that MSN Headline you posted, but still. Thank you, again for your logical and straightforward post, and for mentioning the other study. This stuff is so needed, but it’s a shame the mainstream media won’t pick it up because it doesn’t sell ads.

Comments are closed.