Chief Medical Officer's annual report and media portrayal of being overweight

[red marley]

The Chief Medical Officer's annual report has received some media attention today.

I was particularly struck by her concern that "news stories about weight often feature pictures of severely obese people, which are unrepresentative of the majority of overweight people". In fact this was reported by the BBC:



Sometimes only a facepalm smiley will do 

And perhaps this needs a separate thread in 'on the road', but the annual report also has something to say about cycling (see p.110, Ch. 8 ) including quoting an average 7x health to harm ratio for cycling (more conservative than the 20x ratio often reported by the CTC but still conclusively beneficial). She is also critical of shared use cycle paths ("co-located cycle and pedestrian paths") as discouraging walking as pedestrians often feel intimidated by cyclists' behaviour.

[Graeme]

I agree with what you are saying, but I suspect that it would be confusing if the image of an overweight person doesn't match expectations?  Here is that BBC graphic again with someone borderline BMI obese...

And in the meantime, plenty of people have been fighting for the fashion industry to be more representative of the population, to help reduce the focus on the size 0 culture.  I don't know what the answer is - but I agree that I  when I saw this article too.

[Graeme]

And there seems to be an epidemic of headless fat people called Getty.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I presume the problem with using pictures of obese people to illustrate overweight is that most people can tell themselves, truly, Well, I'm not that fat, so I'm ok! despite actually being overweight.