2012 the 65th World Health Assembly approved the “global monitoring
framework for the prevention and control of NCDs.”^5
To sum up: between the 1998 CDC PowerPoint presentation showing obe-
sity as an epidemic in the United States and the 2012 WHO framework on
NCDs obesity has transformed from an individual disease into an urgent glo-
bal public health threat. In this context, obesity like alcohol use and lack of
physical activity is continually compared to tobacco (Park, 2012).Not only is
tobacco the most widely recognized lifestyle health risk, but it is also the
“greatest killer.” Sometimes it is claimed that “Obesity has overtaken smok-
ing as the leading cause of premature death and illness in Australia” (Sydney
Morning Herald, April 9, 2010).^6 As we shall see, this comparison is not only
useful in getting obesity recognized as a global health threat but also with
regard to the blame games that are involved in the “war on obesity.”^7
CLAIMS AND COUNTERCLAIMS
The success of the rise to prominence of obesity as a global public health
threat is related to a small number of crucial claims that the obesity experts
make. First and foremost they claim that since around 1980, at first in
Western countries but recently in many more nations, there is a strong
increase in the prevalence of overweight. The increasing prevalence
of obesity in Western countries during the 1980s and 1990s (cf. Sturm,
2003)compared to relative stability during the 1960s and 1970sis in
itself not contested. There is, however, some contestation about the best
way to describe the developments. Including people being overweight of
course yields higher prevalence numbers than only referring to people being
obese. As prevalence started out at quit low numbers from the 1970s, it is
possible to say that numbers have doubled or even tripled during recent
decades. Alternatively, one could prefer not to mention prevalence but opt
for the average weight gain in the population. Critics of the “obesity myth”
(Campos, 2004)claim that the average weight has increased only a few
kilograms.^8 These critics recognize a strong increase in the prevalence of
the highly visible category of the morbidly obese and stress that this tends
to lend credence to the obesity experts’ claim of a general increase (Basham
et al., 2007). Apart from such framing preferences, however, recent studies
have concluded that in Western nations the obesity epidemic seems to
have come to a halt since the turn of the century. Basing themselves on
government statistics this counterclaim is made by critics (Gard, 2011)as
122 ROEL PIETERMAN