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[stocks]

The ‘epidemic of childhood obesity’ is increasingly harder to keep spinning. Each time another report with actual stats and positive health information is issued — facts that shatter any notion of a crisis — it must be buried or spun to try and convince us of a catastrophe.

The latest statistics on childhood overweight from the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. They show that since the childhood growth charts were redesigned nearly a decade ago, there have been no statistically significant change in the percentages of young people at or above the 95th percentile (labeled as “overweight” and some are now calling “obese”).


The spin in the media attempting to downplay this report and preserve alarm about an epidemic of childhood obesity has exhibited near desperation as obesity interests frantically scream louder of a crisis. As this JAMA issue was released, Newsweek reported Dean Ornish, M.D. describing the “obesity epidemic spreading like cancer, metastasizing across the country... as though an alien force.” He suggested this latest figure might be just a statistical artifact and went on to describe the leadership of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in calling for a needed “social movement like none other” to change every aspect of our societal environment to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity.

When will taxpayers call these special interests on their bluff and begin to hold them responsible for the massive amount of public moneys and resources they’ve spent in the name of a childhood obesity epidemic — money that could have gone a long way towards improving educational opportunities and healthcare for children and families? When will the public demand evidence-based public health policies? When will parents hold these obesity interests accountable for the harmful effects of their initiatives and the nonstop weight obsessions that have surrounded their children?

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