Tuesday 10 October 2017

Fake obesity news

There are more worthless obesity predictions on the front page of The Guardian today...

In 2014, a third of men and women in the US were obese (34%). By 2025 that is predicted to be 41%. 

Really? Because in 2007 we were told that the obesity rate would have reached 41% two years ago...

More than three quarters of American adults will be overweight by 2015, a survey has found. A further 41 per cent will be obese if people continue to gain weight at the current rate, according to the study by Johns Hopkins University.

Still, I'm sure they'll be right this time, eh? I mean it's not as if the obesity rate is falling in America or anything, is it? Oh.

How about Britain? What do the ball-gazing experts of the World Obesity Federation reckon will happen here?

In the UK, more than a quarter of adults (27%) were obese in 2014 and that will rise to 34% by 2025.

Yeah? Well, it was supposed to have hit 32% two years ago according to the government's ill-titled Foresight report of 2007 which said...

The extrapolation of current trends, which underpins the microsimulation, indicates that, by 2015, 36% of males and 28% of females will be obese.

And the new prediction of 34% by 2025 is a bit of a climb down from the 41.5% predicted in Foresight...

By 2025, these figures are estimated to rise to 47% and 36% respectively.

As I have said before, I will happily take a bet with anybody that these predictions do not come true, which is to say that the real rate will be lower than the forecast. It always is because these 'microsimulations' are not serious attempts to plan for the future. They are quack statistics made up by spivs to draw attention to special interests (in this instance, it's World Obesity Day tomorrow).

Obesity forecasts are among the most useless trash in the whole 'public health' racket. Any journalists who give them credence should be ashamed of themselves.

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