There are studies showing that people taking vitamin supplements are in better health condition than those that don&#x27;t, even though it has also been shown that taking vitamin supplements doesn&#x27;t beat placebo. So when looking at people taking vitamin supplements, the studies are biased simply because people taking vitamin supplements are the kind of people more inclined to care about their health in general.<p>So one has to wonder, for studies making the claim that overweight people are more unhealthy, is it the actual weight and body fat? Or maybe it&#x27;s something they eat more of, causing organs to malfunction? Or is it that such people tend to care less about their health than other people?<p>I don&#x27;t want to defend the claims in this article, as it&#x27;s a pretty shallow one. But personally I take all nutritional advice with a grain of salt, including the one you&#x27;ve just made. This is because nutritional studies cannot be made double-blind, the study groups cannot be controlled and for any significant conclusion you&#x27;d have to do it for a large period of time and it&#x27;s basically impossible to control the variables.<p>For example, for us to really measure the effects of being overweight and be correct about it, we&#x27;d have to have at least 2 groups with people of similar weights on average. And then you&#x27;d have to fatten one group, while feeding the other group a normal calorie intake. But the catch is that you&#x27;d have to give them the <i>exact same diet</i>, just different quantities. And you&#x27;d have to monitor them all the time, because people tend to lie about their diet. And then you&#x27;d have to do this for at least 10 years to produce significant results. And even then you can&#x27;t be sure about the cause - as maybe there was something in that diet that in larger quantities caused negative or positive health effects. And you can see how such a study would raise ethical questions - I mean you&#x27;d have to intentionally cause harm to people.<p>That said, being overweight is not natural. Plus we know that being overweight is probably a sign for insulin resistance or a malfunctioning pancreas, or in other words type 2 diabetes. Many overweight people are on their way to type 2 diabetes. And that definitely can&#x27;t be healthy.<p>So I tend to agree that the article is bullshit. But on the other hand the current practice of <i>reductionist science</i> really needs to stop.