#bigfatliar

Time was, we just had scumbag fat activists lying and bandying around that 95% of diets fail, which was never true to be begin with, but apparently, the goal posts have now shifted even further, so that nobody can ever sustainably lose weight.

For the record, the National Weight Control Registry exists for a reason.

What also infuriates me about this blogger is that she’s not just a perfect example of misery loving company, she’s also actively trying to sabotage others.

If you want to be fat, then that’s a choice you make, like everyone else. You’re being stupid and selfish, but if it’s that important to you to be able to stuff your face without any restrictions whatsoever, I’m sure we can deal with it somehow, as a society. After all, that seems to be what we’re doing already, for good or ill.

But let’s not pretend that your stupid, shitty, selfish, and childish self-indulgence is without consequences.  Let’s not pretend that there’s a giant conspiracy of doctors out to suppress the Real Truth About Obesity™, because there isn’t. The reason that study after study shows negative health outcomes to be obesity isn’t “fatphobia”: it’s because there are negative health outcomes to obesity, you fucking cretin.

To paraphrase Harry Turtledove, I always try to shave my data with Ockham’s Razor, so let’s look at the two proposed reasons for the fat-activist-sized mountains of evidence pointing to obesity being harmful:

Obesity actually is harmful, and results from excess calorie intake.

Obesity is not harmful, and there is a giant conspiracy of doctors and researchers trying to make it out to be harmful because fatphobia, for some reason, and obesity is something that nobody has any control over, despite their calorie intake.

Yeah. 

Not to mention that the post in question is pretty damn cruel, too.  It’s the crab mentality with added pettiness and spite.

And then the doctor says, “But you’re not a thin person, so this advice doesn’t apply. You’re literally not the person for whom this advice is valid. I bet you didn’t think that through when you were constructing this elaborate little vindication fantasy in your head, did you?”

And you sit there, stunned, as the doctor rips off his mask and reveals himself to be none other than...

No wonder the fat acceptance movement is such a joke, when these people are the most fired up and active of its members; a bunch of whiny flakes who specialize in lying, both to themselves and others, who take even the tiniest sliver of criticism as oppression and call themselves warriors when all they do is exhibit the basest cowardice, even in the safe and inconsequential environment of a blog.

From @bigfatscience.

Nope. While it is true that some types of cancer are more common among fat people, other types of cancers are less common among fat people.

Moreover, for those cancers that are more common among fat people or have higher mortality rates for fat people, it is unclear whether fatness is the cause of these outcomes or the fact that fat people avoid fat-phobic doctors who provide sub-par medical care, including offering fat people fewer cancer screenings.

Furthermore, all of the evidence linking weight and cancer rates is correlational, and you cannot make causal claims about the association between two variables on the basis of correlational data. This may seem like some kind of nitpicky detail, but it is not. It is literally the foundation of all good science, and people who violate this rule are being sloppy at best and manipulative at worst.

From the National Cancer Institute:

[T]here is consistent evidence that higher amounts of body fat are associated with increased risks of a number of cancers (6), including:

Endometrial cancer: Obese and overweight women are two to about four times as likely as normal-weight women to develop endometrial cancer (cancer of the lining of the uterus), and extremely obese women are about seven times as likely to develop the more common of the two main types of this cancer (7). The risk of endometrial cancer increases with increasing weight gain in adulthood, particularly among women who have never used menopausal hormone therapy (8).

Esophageal adenocarcinoma: People who are overweight or obese are about twice as likely as normal-weight people to develop a type of esophageal cancer called esophageal adenocarcinoma, and people who are extremely obese are more than four times as likely (9).

Gastric cardia cancer: People who are obese are nearly twice as likely as normal-weight people to develop cancer in the upper part of the stomach, that is, the part that is closest to the esophagus (10).

Liver cancer: People who are overweight or obese are up to twice as likely as normal-weight people to develop liver cancer. The association between overweight/obesity and liver cancer is stronger in men than women (11, 12).

Kidney cancer: People who are overweight or obese are nearly twice as likely as normal-weight people to develop renal cell cancer, the most common form of kidney cancer (13). The association of renal cell cancer with obesity is independent of its association with high blood pressure, a known risk factor for kidney cancer (14).

Multiple myeloma: Compared with normal-weight individuals, overweight and obese individuals have a slight (10% to 20%) increase in the risk of developing multiple myeloma (15).

Meningioma: The risk of this slow-growing brain tumor that arises in the membranes surrounding the brain and the spinal cord is increased by about 50% in people who are obese and about 20% in people who are overweight (16).

Pancreatic cancer: People who are overweight or obese are about 1.5 times as likely to develop pancreatic cancer as normal-weight people (17).

Colorectal cancer: People who are obese are slightly (about 30%) more likely to develop colorectal cancer than normal-weight people (18).

Gallbladder cancer: Compared with normal-weight people, people who are overweight have a slight (about 20%) increase in risk of gallbladder cancer, and people who are obese have a 60% increase in risk of gallbladder cancer (19, 20). The risk increase is greater in women than men.

Breast cancer: Many studies have shown that, in postmenopausal women, a higher BMI is associated with a modest increase in risk of breast cancer. For example, a 5-unit increase in BMI is associated with a 12% increase in risk (21). Among postmenopausal women, those who are obese have a 20% to 40% increase in risk of developing breast cancer compared with normal-weight women (22). The higher risks are seen mainly in women who have never used menopausal hormone therapy and for tumors that express hormone receptors. Obesity is also a risk factor for breast cancer in men (23).

Ovarian cancer: Higher BMI is associated with a slight increase in the risk of ovarian cancer, particularly in women who have never used menopausal hormone therapy (24). For example, a 5-unit increase in BMI is associated with a 10% increase in risk among women who have never used menopausal hormone therapy (24).

Thyroid cancer: Higher BMI (specifically, a 5-unit increase in BMI) is associated with a slight (10%) increase in the risk of thyroid cancer (25).

A higher BMI is associated with increased risks of colon and rectal cancers in both men and in women, but the increases are higher in men than in women (18).

In premenopausal women, by contrast, overweight and obesity have been found to be associated with a 20% decreased risk of breast tumors that express hormone receptors (22).

Hmm. Who to trust in this situation? A proven liar with an agenda dedicated to legitimizing the shitty life choices that she and others have made, or the National Cancer Institute? 

Hmm. I wonder who is drawing bad conclusions because of ignorance of the scientific method? Is it @bigfatscience, or the National Cancer Institute?