Duh

Despite concerns about an obesity epidemic, there is growing evidence that our obsession about weight as a primary measure of health may be misguided.

Haven't ample studies already shown this?

Glad to have another, but it's depressing that so many are so resistant to the idea. Fat is too useful a scapegoat, whole industries are based around its demonization. The "obesity epidemic" is the theory on which funding of programs is hung. And people like having groups to rag on self-righteously, without a pesky whiff of bigotry spoiling it.

This is really weak:

Several prominent health researchers have criticized the findings from the C.D.C. researchers as misleading, noting that mortality statistics don’t reflect the poor quality of life and suffering obesity can cause.

What does this mean? Are these researchers referencing specific physical health problems "masked" by the study, or are they speaking more generally? Either...you know what causes suffering and reduced quality of life? Eating disorders. Obsessing over weight. Feeling ashamed of your body. The crusade against obesity directly contributes to this epidemic, legimitizes the desire to be thinner. Not healthier, but thinner. The focus on body mass and weight as the primary indicator of overall health has done a massive disservice to the population supposedly being helped.

I could really go on.

Okay, I will:

And on the Internet, various blog posters, including readers of the Times’s Well blog, have argued that the data are deceptive, masking the fact that far more overweight and obese people are at higher cardiovascular risk than thin people.

Really? Comments on the NYT's blog are worthy of reportage here?

Why are people (who are not directly profiting for the health/diet/fitness/beauty industry) so invested in maintaining the delusion that the equation is as simple as more fat = less health, end of story, despite the evidence to the contrary and all harm done by this myth?