Most parents, doctors, policy makers and teachers have something in common. Their primary source for information on obesity and nutrition is the news. The sheer volume of reports, even in professional circles, urgently presenting an “Obesity crisis doomed to bring catastrophic repercussions if we don’t act now!” has reached such extremes, that increasingly more experts are speaking out and calling for people to carefully reexamine what they believe and look at the evidence.

Most people believe, for example, that there is a shocking epidemic of childhood obesity. They believe it must be true because they see the media’s picture of enormous fat children eating junkfood diets and plopped in front of the TV. Those headless adults of extreme size are believed to represent the obesity crisis among adults, too. Even the professional literature can be indistinguishable from the mainstream news in its portrayal of obesity.