Kennedy Distorts Stat in Celebrating Obesity Drop

Filed 2d ago · Via FactCheck.org · The Buffoon Desk

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Olde Timey

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Biển Baltic · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly claimed obesity dropped roughly 2 to 3 percent 'in the last year,' crediting the Trump administration and his own push for 'real foods.' Gallup polling, the likely source of his figure, shows obesity peaked in 2022 and has declined every year since — a trend that started under Biden and totals 3.5 points over several years, not one.

Experts told FactCheck.org they see no evidence of major dietary shifts among Americans, and instead point to the rise of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic — medications Kennedy has previously disparaged. CDC data, considered more authoritative than Gallup's self-reported figures, shows a change within the margin of error, not a confirmed trend at all.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

There is a special kind of nerve required to claim credit for a curve that began bending before you arrived, using a number you rounded into shape, while sneering at the actual medicine most likely responsible. The clean version of this trick is to wait for good news and then walk in front of it; the sloppy version is to compress several years into one and hope nobody owns a calendar. A health agency that cannot read its own data honestly is not a health agency, it is a press office with a stethoscope in the prop closet.

Source: Read the original at FactCheck.org → Scored: Olde Timey · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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