The answer is that federal public health agencies have decided to use data from the 1960s and 1970s to define the 85th and 95th percentiles. Now, the statistically curious might wonder how, given this definition, it’s possible for one-third of America’s children to be too fat.
According to someone heavily involved in the process, they did this quite arbitrarily, without any evidentiary justification, other than a vague sense that increasing weight among children was a problem that required some definitional markers. Consider what we even determine to be “fat.” In recent years, government panels decided to define “overweight” and “obesity” as the 85th and 95th percentiles of body mass on the height-weight growth charts for children. Let’s start with the Obamas’ goal of trying to produce an America with no fat kids. Obama emphasized, is to “eliminate this problem of childhood obesity in a generation.”Īll this is dangerous nonsense. On Tuesday, President Obama signed an executive order directing government agencies to work with private industry to combat “childhood obesity.” The First Lady took to the airwaves, issuing dire warnings that one third of America’s children are dangerously fat, while launching a website which makes the alarming claim that, “for the first time in our history, American children may face a shorter expected lifespan than their parents.” The goal of the campaign, Mrs. What Michelle Obama is doing this week is launching the next big government “war” on a supposed social crisis.
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