Frank Gilliland wrote:
On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 02:41:05 GMT, Lancer wrote in
. com:

snip
Still up to your eyeballs in snow? Our weather has been really
wierd,
it was 70 Wednesday morning, and 20 this morning.


You're down there in Texas, right? So what's this I hear about
Houston
being declared the city with the fattest people in the US?

If you think that number of ice cream and pizza places, weather, and
number of sporting goods stores are good ways to measure if a city is
"fat" or not, then sure. This "study" by Men's Fitness Magazine --
basically the men's version of Cosmo -- is little more than junk
science.

On the other hand, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) did a more
scientific study where BMIs from a sample size of the population were
considered. I don't know why that one gets no publicity, while the junk
science does. The top cities are a little different.
http://www.obesity.org/subs/fastfacts/cities.shtml

And here are a few comments from today's Houston Chroncle:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2979999
"One minute Mayor Bill White debunked Men's Fitness magazine's
methodology for labeling Houston the nation's fattest city, and the
next minute he announced a new wellness initiative to combat the label.
'It's calculated with voodoo and fraud,' White said of the rankings of
50 cities across the nation featured in the magazine's February issue.
To determine the rankings, the magazine staff does not actually weigh
anyone, but examines 14 elements of city life, including the number of
fast food and pizza restaurants.
'The rankings themselves are flawed,' White said at a City Hall news
conference Wednesday. He questioned the fairness of not counting delis
as fast food places in New York or Chicago, but counting Smoothie Kings
as fast food places in Houston. Results of the creative formula differ
from the findings of more official medical research, such as that from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

So I would take the Men's Fitness rankings with a grain a salt. Well,
maybe I wouldn't even give them that. It's just a marketing ploy to
sell more magazines.