DISCLAIMER: This links list is always in the works, and is not comprehensive or complete. If you have any links to add, please insert them in relevant comments and they will be reviewed.

For a general resource on debunking the junk science behind obesity, please see:

• Sandy Szwarc’s blog, Junkfood Science
• Michelle’s blog, The Fat Nutritionist

Debunking Fat Hate and Misconceptions

Doesn’t Obesity Kill?

• Obesity does not kill 400,000 Americans a year (in fact, it ‘contributes’ to fewer than 30,000).
• Fit Over 60s Live Longer Regardless of Body Fat
• No tenable link between obesity and breast cancer type
• No tenable link between diet and weight control and remission of type II diabetes
• The J-curve relationship between BMI and mortality

Shouldn’t Fat People Should Simply Eat Less and Move More?

• The preponderance of evidence shows that diets don’t work
• No weight loss intervention shown generally effective post 5 years
• Fat people as a whole metabolically the same as lean people, except that they’re bigger
• Eating and weight gain not necessarily linked, study shows
• Evidence for a bodyweight setpoint (energy homeostasis)
• Medicare’s search for effective obesity treatments: Diets are not the answer. (Mann, Traci; Tomiyama, A. Janet; Westling, Erika; Lew, Ann-Marie; Samuels, Barbra; Chatman, Jason. American Psychologist, Vol 62(3), Apr 2007, 220-233. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.62.3.220 )

Isn’t There An Obesity Epidemic?

• Obesity: An Overblown Epidemic
• The 1998 BMI definition changes made 30 million Americans overweight or obese OVERNIGHT
• The Myth of the Obesity “Tsunami”
• One-third of American Adults are Obese, but Rate Slows

Isn’t Weight a Lifestyle Choice?

• Obesity largely determined by genetics, says study
• Obesity is 77% heritable

But Doesn’t the Idea that People are Different Sizes Though Consuming/Exercising the Same Violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

• In fact, in principle, the suggestion that a “calorie is a calorie” — all human metabolisms are the same Bunsen Burner — violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Isn’t there a Study that Disproves the Claim that You Can Be Fit and Fat?

• That study is junk science. The preponderance of evidence shows that in fact, one can be fat and fit.

Is there Discrimination Against Fat People?

• Brownell Obesity Discrimination Study (2001)
• Health Professionals Specializing in Obesity Aren’t Immune from Weight-Bias
• The surprising reason why being overweight isn’t healthy
• Obesity bias based on disgust, study says (2010)

Isn’t Fat Unhealthy?

• Higher BMI can lower risk for Alzheimer’s
• Metabolic syndrome associated with decelerated cognitive decline in the very elderly
• The case against the Type II diabetes “epidemic” in kids
• You can’t eat your way to diabetes
• ‘Obese’ BMI does not harm current health of young adults, study says

Shouldn’t Fat People Try to Diet Anyway?

• In fact, size acceptance and health at every size may be a better approach to health than chronic dieting.
• Except that dieting can kill you, even when you’re fat and dieting down to a ‘normal’ weight.
• Does dieting make you fat? – a twin study (August 9, 2011, K H Pietiläinen, S E Saarni, J Kaprio and A Rissanen, International Journal of Obesity | doi:10.1038/ijo.2011.160)

General Sites Debunking the Junk Science About Obesity

• Big Fat Lies

General Science

• The Problem With Peer Review
• When the population approach to prevention puts the health of individuals at risk

Food Science

• Canned foods are as nutritious as fresh foods

Evidence for the Moral Panic

ADOPTION AND FERTILITY

• Australian woman told she was too fat to adopt (January 2003, The Age, Australia)
  
• In the UK, fat women can’t adopt (June 2006)
• Kylie Lannigan told she was ‘too fat to adopt’ (June 2007, Australia)
• Gary Stocklaufer denied adoption request because he was fat (July 2007, United States)
• New Zealand bans fat woman from entering the country (November 2007, Big Fat Blog, NZ)
• Obese women not allowed to get IVF treatments (December 2008, BBC News, UK)
• Charlotte and Damien Hall denied for adoption because of their BMI (January 2009, The Guardian, UK)

CHILD ABUSE

• Grandad arrested over Grand Canyon hike (September 2, 2011, The Age, Australia)

MEDICINE AND HEALTH CARE

• Doctors’ ultimatum to kidney transplant wife: Lose 42lb in nine months or watch your husband die (March 2009, Daily Mail, UK – h/t richie79)

TAXATION AND PUBLIC POLICY

• Fat people should have their food taxed to ‘pay for healthcare’
• Don’t operate on smokers and the obese, says NHS Health Secretary (February 2007, Daily Mail, UK)
• City government promotes lie to motivate weight loss via fear; anti-obesity agenda is to blame
• The 1998 BMI definition changes made 30 million Americans overweight or obese OVERNIGHT
• Obesity bias based on disgust, study says (2010)
• Global governments must get ‘tough on obesity,’ in which the commentariat helpfully suggests plus-size clothing be ‘prescription-only,’ amongst other astoundingly panicked and bigoted replies (August 25, 2011, BBC Health, UK)

TRANSPORTATION

• Southwest, Sizism, and Institutionalized Oppression (Athia, YouTube, August 2011)
• On Kevin Smith and Flying Fat (BigLiberty, February 15, 2010)

WORK AND EMPLOYMENT

• Obesity can mean less pay

Libertarian/Anarcho-capitalist Arguments Against the Obesity Moral Panic

• The freedom to be fat
• The new obesity pandemic, as same as the old obesity pandemic