{"id":1182,"date":"2014-01-25T10:40:10","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T23:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=1182"},"modified":"2014-01-25T10:40:10","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T23:40:10","slug":"national-obesity-forum-exaggerates-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=1182","title":{"rendered":"National Obesity Forum exaggerates crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meh, but shows its important to be above reproach in public discussions…<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.foodnavigator.com\/Legislation\/We-exaggerated-obesity-crisis-pressure-group\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018We exaggerated obesity crisis\u2019: pressure group<\/h1>\n
Post a comment<\/a><\/p>\n
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By\u00a0Mike Stones+<\/a><\/p>\n

20-Jan-2014<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\"The<\/p>\n
The National Obesity Forum has admitted exaggerating Britain’s obesity crisis<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Related tags:\u00a0Anecdotal evidence<\/a>,\u00a0State of the Nation\u2019s Waistline report<\/a>,\u00a02007 Foresight Report<\/a>,\u00a0More or Less radio programme<\/a>,\u00a0Obesity<\/a>,\u00a0National Obesity Forum<\/a>,\u00a0Scientific research<\/a><\/p>\n

Related topics:\u00a0Legislation<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Influential lobby group the National Obesity Forum (NOF) has admitted exaggerating the severity of the UK\u2019s national obesity crisis and relying on anecdotal evidence, rather than scientific research, in its\u00a0State of the Nation\u2019s Waistline<\/i>\u00a0report published last week.<\/p>\n

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The document \u2013 which received widespread media coverage \u2013 claimed predictions made in the 2007 Foresight Report that half of Britons could be obese by 2050 had under-estimated the crisis. In reality, the problem was growing worse, it claimed.<\/p>\n

But NOF spokesman Tam Fry told BBC Radio 4\u2019s statistics programme\u00a0More or Less<\/i>, that the group had exaggerated its warnings about the scale of the obesity crisis in order to reach a wider public.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we were trying to do is force home<\/i>[its obesity warning] \u2026\u201d,\u00a0he said.\u00a0\u201cA little exaggeration forces the message home\u00a0\u2013 that\u2019s what we wanted to do.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018A little exaggeration\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

Fry also acknowledged the NOF should have made clear its report was based on anecdotal rather than scientific research.\u00a0\u201cI think maybe we were a little wrong not to be more forceful about why we were drawing these conclusions,\u201d\u00a0<\/i>he told the programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think it<\/i>\u00a0[the obesity problem]\u00a0has got worse, because although we have no statistics and figures, we have a lot of observations,\u201d<\/i>said Fry.\u00a0\u201cThe word coming through from clinics all over the country is the greater volume of people coming in for obesity \u2013 but, more importantly, coming in for the conditions that it engenders.\u201d\u00a0<\/i>That included diabetes, cardio-vascular problems and strokes.<\/p>\n

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Since the Foresight report was completed, there had been little improvement in government action to remedy the problem of obesity, leading the NOF to conclude that the problem is growing still, said Fry.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not as bad as we thought\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

The programme highlighted research conducted after the 2007 study that suggested Britain\u2019s obesity crisis was not becoming\u00a0worse. Ben Carter, the programme\u2019s obesity expert, said:\u201cMost of the data published since 2007 has shown that things are not as bad as we thought \u2013 or at least not deteriorating at the rate we thought we would.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

US research was also quoted suggesting while the obesity problem was a serious problem, it was not becoming ever worse.<\/p>\n

But Fry claimed there were various problems with the data. Chief among those was its reliance on body mass index, which generally under reports overweight and obesity.\u00a0\u201cThere is a lot of literature that states that for a fact,\u201d\u00a0<\/i>he said.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the programme Fry told FoodManufacture.co.uk the Department of Health\u00a0\u201chad all the time in the world to say that the report was rubbish but they didn\u2019t\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n

Fry added:\u00a0\u201cObesity is such a problem that that doctors now say 2M need gastric bands to curb their food intake. Also, gout, which used to be the preserve of kings, is now a lot\u00a0more common<\/a>\u00a0.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Listen to\u00a0More or Less<\/i>\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meh, but shows its important to be above reproach in public discussions… http:\/\/www.foodnavigator.com\/Legislation\/We-exaggerated-obesity-crisis-pressure-group\/ \u2018We exaggerated obesity crisis\u2019: pressure group Post a comment By\u00a0Mike Stones+ 20-Jan-2014 The National Obesity Forum has admitted exaggerating Britain’s obesity crisis Related tags:\u00a0Anecdotal evidence,\u00a0State of the Nation\u2019s Waistline report,\u00a02007 Foresight Report,\u00a0More or Less radio programme,\u00a0Obesity,\u00a0National Obesity Forum,\u00a0Scientific research Related topics:\u00a0Legislation Influential … Continue reading National Obesity Forum exaggerates crisis<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,10,22,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts-data-points","category-healthy-habits","category-policy","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1183,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions\/1183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}