Scientist condemns misrepresentation of obesity paper
Professor Sir Peter Gluckman has moved to correct a misleading interpretation of a commentary paper which he
co-authored: “Losing the war against obesity: the need for a developmental perspective” published in Science
Translational Medicine on 27 July 2011.
Former employee of British American Tobacco NZ, Carrick Graham has posted on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/carrickgraham) that Gluckman has said “Tobacco control focus leads to greater obesity.”
Sir Peter refutes any such statement and describes Graham’s post as “an outrageous misrepresentation and total
misunderstanding of the paper.”
Sir Peter says “The paper in fact endorses further control of tobacco, which remains one of the most rapid and effective
means of reducing the burden of non-communicable disease.”
The commentary paper suggested that public health agencies could increase the effectiveness of existing measures to curb
the obesity and non-communicable disease epidemic, such as weight loss, exercise and smoking cessation, by considering
the additional importance of influences that occur during development.