In 2003, the CDC estimated that 400,000 Americans die annually just because they are overweight.Or not, and live longer with a smile on your chubby cheeks...
The CDC reported that being moderately overweight is better for your health than being skinny, at least if delaying your eventual death is your primary goal.
The CDC was clear that being morbidly obese is still a major risk factor for premature death. Of course, can we really believe this government agency?
In 2003, the CDC estimated that 400,000 Americans die annually just because they are overweight.
In 2004, the CDC "corrected itself" and estimated that obesity might only contribute to 345,000 premature deaths. Both seem like big numbers, but that's off by 55,000 people, nearly 14 percent wrong.
Now that it's 2005, you might expect the CDC would revise its numbers again. They did. Apparently, a whopping 25,814 deaths annually are attributed to being too fat. That means that in 2004, they revised the 2003 figure down by more than twice the "once accurate" number of such deaths, and this year the new number is 15 times smaller.
There's a term for people who get their numbers this far off: fat heads.
The good news is that we can eat that Ben & Jerry's now for our health, provided of course you believe the CDC is not an order of magnitude wrong once again. But anybody who says my belly is good for my health is A-OK by me.