For nearly four decades, Americans have heard a simple story about health, longevity and obesity. This week, we learn it's a little more complicated.

Thanks to Katherine Flegal, Paul Campos, Jeff Hunger and Jason Salemi for helping us research and fact-check this episode!

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Links!

Katherine Flegal’s “The obesity wars and the education of a researcher”
Walter Willett's " Evidence does not support benefit of being overweight on mortality"
Flegal’s 2005 paper
Flegal’s 2013 article
Willett’s 2016 meta-analysis
The infamous 2004 CDC paper
Fat: A Cultural History of Obesity
Paul Campos's "The Obesity Myth"
Walter Willett’s Food Fight
The obesity research that blew up
Flawed methods and inappropriate conclusions for health policy on overweight and obesity: The Global BMI Mortality Collaboration meta-analysis
Does Body Mass Index Adequately Convey a Patient’s Mortality Risk?
The Weight of Medical Authority: The Making and Unmaking of Knowledge in the Obesity Epidemic
Obesity: An Overblown Epidemic?
Commentary: On ‘public health aspects of weight control’
Obesity And Its Relation To Health And Disease
Does Being Overweight Really Reduce Mortality?
Individual and Aggregate Years-of-life-lost Associated With Overweight and Obesity

289: John Bunyan and Babe le bœuf bleu

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