A study last year which made headline news (of course) shouted that Baby Boomers who were just a tad "overweight" (BMI 25-27) would live fewer years.
It made great headlines for the obesity hysteria but luckily junk science guru, Stephen Milloy pointed out some fatal flaws in the study.
Unluckily, many baby boomers do not read Fox news and might have missed Milloy's great article.
It turns out that the study was based on a survey of AARP members and the average respondent wasn't even a baby boomer (average Birth date of 1930). Only 18 percent of the members responded so this was not a representative section even of a not necessarily representative group.
The data on age, weight, smoking etc was all self reported and none of it was validated. Self reported data is notoriously inaccurate.
The death statistics were taken from the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File which did not list the cause of death. So all of those who died in auto accidents, from medical or drug error and violent death (totally unrelated to weight) were included in the study.
It seems that the fat phobes have to resort to flawed studies to "prove" how "unhealthy" obesity is, which argues, of course, that obesity may not be unhealthy, in and of itself at all.
Not to worry - Baby boomers (or any other group) - this "study" proved nothing except that it made good headlines to fuel the current obesity hysteria.
I've always enjoy Stephen Milloy's great articles especially on obesity studies... you can read his article here...
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