Now they tell us

Data on Deaths From Obesity Is Inflated, U.S. Agency Says by Gina Kolata:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that its widely publicized estimate that 400,000 Americans die each year from being too fat is wrong and that it will submit a new, lower figure to the medical journal that published its original estimate last March...

[Dr. Stanton A. Glantz, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco] estimates that the number of deaths from obesity to be more like 100,000 than 400,000. And the inflated numbers of obesity deaths, he added, represent "a very, very fundamental mistake that was made in the paper, which they have done nothing to address."

"This is not some esoteric little detail over which there is huge uncertainty," he said.

Others, who are not part of the antitobacco movement, agreed with Dr. Glantz that the 400,000 figure made little sense.

[Dr. Eric Oliver, a political scientist at the University of Chicago], for example, said obesity, like tobacco, had little effect on mortality in people over 65. So with two million deaths a year in the United States, 70 percent of which are among people over 65, virtually every younger person who dies would have to die from obesity. "The numbers simply don't add up," he said.