Conference to examine world obesity

This article is so full of fallacies, I don't have a clue where to start (link)
1800 researchers are gathering in New Orleans this weekend to discuss efforts to treat and contain the worldwide obesity epidemic (what do you want to bet most of them have ties to big pharma and the diet industry, or are out-and-out paid by them?). 300 studies are going to be presented, and I would venture to say that the spin on all of them is to blame the fatties for being fat, and to continue to push weight loss, exercise, drugs, and genetic engineering as the panacea (not to mention shame and abuse because we all know how well all of those things work).
Let's see now, US population is approximately 302 million, and 60 to 64% are overweight (187.25 million) and 60% of those are obese (112.34 million) according to the statistics quoted. I find it hard to believe that the US has the majority of all the obese people in the world (they quote 300 million obese worldwide, so the US has at least 1/3 of them?).
Lifestyle, diet, and lack of exercise are quoted as the main causes of the obesity epidemic (yep, we sit around on our asses all day long stuffing our faces, fer shure fer shure).
Obesity can decrease life span by 5 to 8 years and is linked to increased risk of diabetes, hypertension, arthritis and cancer (and I really want to live that additional 5 to 8 years starving myself and exercising like a hamster on speed, yep yep yep). Not to mention that they haven't been able to prove that obesity actually causes any of those diseases (correlation is not causation, researchers).

An increase in the occurrence of type two diabetes over the past 20 years in the United States is due to the rise in obesity, according to The Obesity Society.
Being overweight is also blamed for doubling the risk of kidney cancer and breast cancer for post-menopausal women.
Death rates in the United States due to bad diet combined with a lack of exercise represent 16.6 percent of all deaths, almost equal to the toll from smoking.

An increase in type 2 diabetes....could that be due to better diagnosis, and more people being tested for it in the last 20 years?
You can blame obesity all you want for doubling the risk of diseases such as kidney cancer and breast cancer, but until you can prove causation, I'm not going to stress about it.
2.4 million people died in 2004 (16.6% of that is 398,000), so I think they are exaggerating how many of those deaths are due to obesity, since that number was revised down to 25,000 by the CDC.

The report urged "new, grand scale changes" across the country to stop the obesity epidemic from undermining the country's productivity.
"US economic competitiveness is hurting as our workforce becomes less healthy and productive. Obesity-related health care costs are draining dollars from the bottom line of businesses," it said.

I've got a new, grand scale change for you. Stop promoting the fat-phobic hysteria and start promoting Health At Every Size and respect everyone for the unique individual that they are, regardless of their size.
Obesity-related health care costs? The majority of those health care costs are caused by repeated weight loss dieting that doesn't work for permanent weight loss, doctors who refuse to look beyond a person's fat to diagnose and treat any illness, and people who can't afford to go the doctor until they are so sick their treatment costs more than it would have if they could have afforded early diagnosis and treatment. Not to mention that a lot of fat people put off going to the doctor because they are tired of being told to lose weight because any illness they have is caused by TEH FAT (yep, weight loss is going to cure that ear infection, it's going to make my arthritis go away, I won't have MS/fibromyalgia/cancer/whatever if I can just lose that extra 100 lbs or whatever it is I'm carting around).