well as a number of obesity experts (Flegal et al., 2010; Rokholm, Baker, &
Sørensen, 2010).
The claim that “fat people die younger” has been forcefully made during
theearly years when obesity became recognized as a public health threat.
As quoted above, it is sometimes claimed that “Obesity has overtaken
smoking as the leading cause of premature death and illness.” Two publica-
tions are highly significant for providing scientific legitimacy to this claim.
First,Allison, Fontaine, Manson, Stevens, and VanItallie (1999)estimated
that each year in the United States almost 300,000 excess deaths were
contributable to being overweight. Second, Mokdad, Marks, Stroup, and
Gerberding (2004) updated this research and calculated an even higher
number of almost 400,000 annual excess deaths.
Providing an example of astatwar(Best, 2001,pp. 128159) one year
later Mokdad and his colleagues from the CDC were highly embarrassed
when researchers from the National Center for Health Statistics a
department within the CDC itselfcalculated the number of excess deaths
at 26,000 annually (Flegal, Graubard, Williamson, & Gail, 2005). This
research showed that the life expectancy for people with overweight and
modest obesity (BMI 2535) washigherthan for people of normal weight
(BMI 18.524.9). Recently Flegal published the results of a meta-study
confirming that being overweight or mildly obese is associated with asmal-
lermortality risk than being of normal weight (Flegal, Kit, Orpana, &
Graubard, 2013). In policy circles this claim is sometimes implicitly recog-
nized, for instance by the Dutch government that in its 2009 overweight
policy paper for the first time didnotuse the mortality argument (Minister
of Health, 2009, Parliamentary document TK 31899, no. 1).
Combining claims on mortality and morbidity the WHO states in their
Fact sheet on overweight and obesity: “Overweight and obesity are the fifth
leading risk for global deaths. At least 2.8 million adults die each year as a
result of being overweight or obese.^9 In addition, 44% of the diabetes bur-
den, 23% of the ischemic heart disease burden and between 7% and 41%
of certain cancer burdens are attributable to overweight and obesity”
(WHO, 2012a, Fact sheet nr. 311). Clearly, being (extremely) overweight is
associated with certain diseases. However, here too we find counterclaims
or at least sobering information. In 2005, for instance, Gregg et al. con-
cluded: “Except for diabetes, CVD risk factors have declined considerably
over the past 40 years in all BMI groups. Although obese persons still have
higher risk factor levels than lean persons, the levels of these risk factors
are much lower than in previous decades” (2005, p. 1868). Furthermore,
one might wonder how to explain that people being overweight or mildly
Obesity as Disease and Deviance 123