The research is being reported in a biased manner, which I'll go into in a minute. But I suppose that's only to be expected, since the research was biased to begin with.

The researchers started -- and apparently ended -- with assumptions that fatness is always unhealthy and undesirable, weight loss is always healthy and desirable, and that permanent, safe weight loss is achievable. None of those assumptions is empirically supported, and each has been debunked in research documented in books ranging from Glenn Gaesser, Ph.D.'s Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health to Fat Politics by J. Eric Oliver, Ph.D. and Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata.