The New Obesity Scare Statistics

The policy highlights of this Weight of the Nation conference are designed to scare people in power. And since everyone in Washington is obsessed with cost, the big news out of the conference this morning is the latest estimate of obesity's direct costs from obesity cost guru Eric Finklestein  $147 billion per year. His calculations are exacting, although it is extremely difficult in reality to make such a snapshot estimate of something so complicated as obesity. This is one reason why researchers in the field tend to focus on suffering and disparities within populations, rather than aggregate cost. But policy-makers take their cues from numbers, and the CDC has an agenda to sell too. That's not necessarily a bad thing, given the problem at hand, but it's an example of how it is impossible to separate science and values. Click here for full article.