Is Being Fat Bad For You?

For nearly four decades, Americans have heard a simple story about health, longevity and obesity. This week, we learn it's a little more complicated. 

Thanks to Katherine Flegal, Paul Campos, Jeff Hunger and Jason Salemi for helping us research and fact-check this episode! 

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Links!

• Katherine Flegal’s “The obesity wars and the education of a researcher”
• Walter Willett's " Evidence does not support benefit of being overweight on mortality"
• Flegal’s 2005 paper
• Flegal’s 2013 article
• Willett’s 2016 meta-analysis
• The infamous 2004 CDC paper
• Fat: A Cultural History of Obesity
• Paul Campos's "The Obesity Myth"
• Walter Willett’s Food Fight           
• The obesity research that blew up
• Flawed methods and inappropriate conclusions for health policy on overweight and obesity: The Global BMI Mortality Collaboration meta-analysis
• Does Body Mass Index Adequately Convey a Patient’s Mortality Risk?
• The Weight of Medical Authority: The Making and Unmaking of Knowledge in the Obesity Epidemic
• Obesity: An Overblown Epidemic? 
• Commentary: On ‘public health aspects of weight control’
• Obesity And Its Relation To Health And Disease
• Does Being Overweight Really Reduce Mortality?
• Individual and Aggregate Years-of-life-lost Associated With Overweight and Obesity