You know what makes me grumpy? What looks to me like getting sloppy about causation and correlation. For example, Stephan Guyenet (who I think is fab) tweeted this yesterday:
Is this really evidence that obesity increases cancer risk? Or is it possible that what causes obesity, which bariatric surgery addresses, is what increases cancer risk?
This really matters. I get that the above is a tweet and there are character limitations, but this “obesity causes …” or “obesity increases …” concept is really rampant. And it seems, to me anyways, that this language shortcut (if that’s what it is) is potentially very flawed.
Check out the section in Weighing Success beyond the Scale (starting around the 20-minute mark) where obesity researcher Gary Foster talks about the benefits of small amounts of weight loss — the small kinds of weight loss that means that the person is still obese.
I’m not an obesity researcher, but I don’t know how you don’t translate this to a HAES-friendly argument that it’s not the weight, it’s what’s causing the weight. And what’s leading to the benefit is not the reduction of weight, but what’s leading to the reduction … typically more movement and a healthier diet.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not think that adipose tissue is benign. But I think we have yet to really disentangle how much of what leads to disease is the excess fat vs lifestyle factors that create all sorts of stress and inflammation (and one of those is weight stigma).
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our Western diet -- especially sugar, refined grains, and industrial oils. Beth writes about nutrition, ancestral health, & food policy. And cats! 
I wonder about the same thing regarding the apparently quite dramatic reductions in the risk of developing diabetes from rather small sustained reductions in body fat.
my hubbys neice just had lipo suction and her stomach reduced to treat her obesity, I don’t agree with this but it is their decision, I can see the repurcusions that will result, and it ain pretty. your right obesity is a symptom not a cause find the underlying cause of it and you address all the other association affects like cancer by the way I have had alot of friends over the years get cancer (some survived some died) but none of them would be classified as fat or even overweight. I have read research that strongly suggests that high sugar consumption in an enviroment of low nutrient enviroment (malnorished person) can triggor cancer because this research has suggested that cancer is the body’s last ditch effort to deal with the excess sugar (blood gluocse levels that go high to often and stay to long even short of diabetes)as cancer cells love sugar but guess what by product they release? lactate, lactate is a carb that does’t stick to cells, the brain loves lactate and so does the heart and liver. cancer cells can absorb alot of sugar with minimal harm to themselves and protect you from dying from heavy glucose glycation of your cells including your liver, heart, brain etc. toxins that go to high for too long triggors cancer cells because I believe due to the cancer cells ability to takein those toxins and get them away from healthy cells, but alas the body’s ability is limited and I believe people die from the underlying cause of cancer and not the cancer itself and that chemo probably kills faster and more people then the cancer itself. but of course this understanding would put a big dent in the cancer industrys bottom line as the average cost of treatments is about 100000 dollars. alot fo dough to kill you faster and make it look like the cancer did you in not hte chemo. what a scam to perpetuate on people, including niave doctors who don’tknow any better. doctors have to deal with liability issues too withhold chemo and get sued give chemo kill your patient and be okay. this world is just so backwards, I don’t know how any humans ever survive to old age without suffering being robbed of mind, heart, soul and property.