I do not know what I am talking about when it comes to this topic. Neither, it seems, do most others here. We are intelligent laymen, but laymen all the same. S

I do not know what I am talking about when it comes to this topic. Neither, it seems, do most others here. We are intelligent laymen, but laymen all the same. So what do we do in order to intelligently judge this blog post? Well, first, let's consider what we know about the contenders. On one side, a number of respected professional scientists conducting a very expensive multi-decade study and publishing the results in peer-reviewed journals. On the other side, a nurse with a Blogspot blog. OK, that is not necessarily bad. Great truths have been spoken by nobodies. We judge by the message, not the speaker. But still, we need more "meta" information. Studies appearing in peer reviewed journals are assumed to be reliable because of the good history of the journal. Let's try to ascertain the reliability of this source, looking at her history - and maybe we'll find some other things she discusses that we do know something about, so we can match up her worldview to ours. And ... oh dear. Let's look at this blog, shall we? I'll ignore the warning sign of the 20+ links to "fat support" groups in the blogroll. Maybe she's just supportive of her large readers. Maybe she doesn't have an agenda? Benefit of the doubt and all that. Oh, another long (LONG) article in which she completely demolishes another study, this time about the "obesity paradox" - being slightly overweight was associated with a slight increase in health. She claims that in fact the study shows that overweight and obese people are much healthier than the media reported, and they were covering it up. Hm. She takes two major studies to pieces in as many posts. That's unusual, for not one but TWO studies to be completely wrong, in a short amount of time, and one person - her - to be the one to find where they are wrong. And both wrong, as it happens, in favour of eating. Are you getting suspicious yet? Let's move further down the first page of her blog. Ooh, a post in which she cherry picks a couple of bad examples of govt. health care to make an unsubtle point about the planned health reforms in America. Completely ignores that every other developed country has socialised health care and we do fine - plus live longer (which we shouldn't, since fat people have an advantage, apparently!). I am beginning to smell a crank. I make it down to "Pudge Police are coming (Part 2)" before calling it quits. Still treating this article as something worth your time?