A Fitness Freak's Life

The CDC is backing down from the implications derived from a study released in April that suggested that obesity wasn't really that bad for your health. In that study it was reported that less than 26,000 deaths in the US each year were due to obesity. Earlier studies stated that around 365,000 deaths each year were due to obesity. Apparently some of the confusion is due to the fact that obesity is not always listed as the cause of death even though diseases such as diabetes are often highly linked to obesity. The director of the CDC,
Julie Gerberding now states: it is "not OK to be overweight" and "While we may not have an accurate estimate yet of the exact number of people who die from obesity, we certainly know that there is a large number of people who have the problem". Read more about this from Reuter's

In related news, the International Obesity Task Force at the European Congress on Obesity stated that nearly half a million children in Europe now have health problems usually associated with middle age: high blood pressure, raised cholesterol and poor blood sugar regulation, because they are getting too fat.