1 post tagged “oddball science”

This study infuriates me.  The New England Journal of Medicine today told the world that if you have fat friends, you too will become fat.  Fat is contagious, in other words.

Now, I'm neither Sandy Szwarc nor Kate Harding, and no, I'm not a doctor or even someone who sees a doctor more than twice a year.  No, I am just a fat girl who has a hearty helping of common sense and two years of lawyer training behind me -- and I say I smell a rat.

First of all, the study starts out with some sweeping generalizations -- that 66% of Americans are overweight, for example.    How can 66% of a population be over-anything?  I mean, really?  Surely if more than a majority of a population shows a similar trait, that trait ceases to be extreme, ceases to be "over the norm" -- doesn't it, in fact, become the norm?  There are tons of studies about how Americans are getting taller, too, and no one throws around epithets like "over-height epidemic." 

The study then goes on to say that being fat is no longer a social stigma.

I probably should have stopped reading right there, since that one statement is so obviously and patently absurd.  And, to be frank, offensive toward those of us who suffer stigatization every day based on our size.

But no, some sinister sense of self-loathing compelled me to keep reading about why all my friends should stop hanging out with me.

Mmm'kay.  The study explains its methodology, pointing out that they tracked one group of people and that group of people's contacts.  One thing not taken into account was whether or not a person's contacts included kin -- you know, those people who share your genes.  Those people who share, oh, I dunno, your fat genes. It seems so simple to me that, yes, probably half of the people in my cell phone contacts list are fat -- because they're my family, and they gave me the genes that made me fat in the first place, not because I've been telling them to eat In-N-Out burgers and watch TV all day.  The study does point out that among siblings there is a greater chance of both siblings becoming fat.  Gee.  Among siblings, really?  Wonder why the study didn't extend those findings to other family.

Which brings me to my next issue with the study.  The study was pretty shocked to find out that obesity was catching even over major geographical distances.  This just strikes me as too odd to be true.  Even if I did spend all my time telling my friends across the country to live in a way that would make them fat -- why the hell would they listen to me?  Does my life as a fat girl look so cool that they would want to emulate it?  Also, why would I spend my precious hour of catch up time with a close friend across the country talking about their weight?  Seriously, why?  I want to know about their jobs, their love lives, what books they've been reading -- not whether they had oatmeal or an Egg McMuffin for breakfast.

So then, looking at this situation logically, I can reach two conclusions.  Either the people we talk to across the country who are fat just like us are our family members, in which case, there's more proof that fat isn't catching, it's purely hereditary -- or else our friends across the country who are fat like us were already fat to begin with or are growing fatter as a biologically normal consequence of growing older.

Can someone explain to me why the study didn't deal with either of those completely common-sense hypotheses?  Why weren't either of those completely logical conclusions addressed, researched, and refuted before the study that "fat is contagious" was published?  What is wrong here?  Why is it ok to make fat people social pariahs even more than they already are? 

Edited on July 27, 2007:  Smarter people than I have just debunked this BS study.  The debunking, unfortunately, will not make the nightly news as the study itself did.