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Adopted Wild Boar Threatened with Euthanasia in France

French horse breeder Elodie Cappe walks with "Rillette", a wild boar she rescued as a piglet in 2023 that is now at the center of a legal dispute over the keeping of wild animals in France, at her farm in Chaource, France, January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq
French horse breeder Elodie Cappe walks with "Rillette", a wild boar she rescued as a piglet in 2023 that is now at the center of a legal dispute over the keeping of wild animals in France, at her farm in Chaource, France, January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq
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Adopted Wild Boar Threatened with Euthanasia in France

French horse breeder Elodie Cappe walks with "Rillette", a wild boar she rescued as a piglet in 2023 that is now at the center of a legal dispute over the keeping of wild animals in France, at her farm in Chaource, France, January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq
French horse breeder Elodie Cappe walks with "Rillette", a wild boar she rescued as a piglet in 2023 that is now at the center of a legal dispute over the keeping of wild animals in France, at her farm in Chaource, France, January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq

Animal rights campaigners in France are fighting to save a wild boar adopted as a piglet by a horse breeder but now threatened with being put down if her owner does not send her to a specialized sanctuary, Reuters reported.
A French court is set to rule in coming days on the fate of "Rillette", who was found as a tiny piglet outside the horse farm of Elodie Cappe in Chaource, central France, in April 2023.
Now a big sow with a bristly brown coat, Rillette strolls around between the horses and dogs on the farm and enthusiastically kicks around a big plastic ball with her snout.
"I do not know how she sees me. Maybe I am her mother, maybe her best friend, or just her protector, but as you can see there is a link of love between us," Cappe said as she hugged Rillette in the hay and kissed her on the snout.
Cappe says Rillette no longer is a wild animal and that two attempts to set her free have failed miserably as the boar immediately ran back towards her owners.
"Rillette has no link whatsoever with her own species. If we release her in the woods, she will sit in middle of the road and run to the first human she sees," she said.
Authorities' attempts to remove the boar on health and safety grounds have whipped up a storm of protest in France.
Last weekend hundreds of people in the area marched behind a "Free Rillette" banner, while animal rights campaigner and movie icon Brigitte Bardot posted on X: "I ask that Rillette be saved...who are the monsters who want to euthanize her?".
Rillette's owner says she will fight to save her. "All will depend on the magistrate's decision, but it could come down to euthanasia, and I will not let that happen," said Cappe, who risks three years in jail for failing to comply.
Cappe said that Rillette - jokingly named after a regional dish of shredded pork - is sterilized and vaccinated and poses no danger to the public as she is confined to the farm.
"Why would they take her away, since she is happy here and does not bother anyone?" she asked.

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Obesity Won’t Be Solely Defined by BMI under New Plan for Diagnosis by Global Experts

A man uses measuring tape on his waist in California on Jan. 9, 2025. (AP)
A man uses measuring tape on his waist in California on Jan. 9, 2025. (AP)
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Obesity Won’t Be Solely Defined by BMI under New Plan for Diagnosis by Global Experts

A man uses measuring tape on his waist in California on Jan. 9, 2025. (AP)
A man uses measuring tape on his waist in California on Jan. 9, 2025. (AP)

A group of global experts is proposing a new way to define and diagnose obesity, reducing the emphasis on the controversial body mass index and hoping to better identify people who need treatment for the disease caused by excess body fat.

Under recommendations released Tuesday night, obesity would no longer be defined solely by BMI, a calculation of height and weight, but combined with other measurements, such as waist circumference, plus evidence of health problems tied to extra pounds.

Obesity is estimated to affect more than 1 billion people worldwide. In the US, about 40% of adults have obesity, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The whole goal of this is to get a more precise definition so that we are targeting the people who actually need the help most," said Dr. David Cummings, an obesity expert at the University of Washington and one of the 58 authors of the report published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal.

The report introduces two new diagnostic categories: clinical obesity and pre-clinical obesity.

People with clinical obesity meet BMI and other markers of obesity and have evidence of organ, tissue or other problems caused by excess weight. That could include heart disease, high blood pressure, liver or kidney disease or chronic severe knee or hip pain. These people would be eligible for treatments, including diet and exercise interventions and obesity medications.

People with pre-clinical obesity are at risk for those conditions, but have no ongoing illness, the report says.

BMI has long been considered a flawed measure that can over-diagnose or underdiagnose obesity, which is currently defined as a BMI of 30 or more. But people with excess body fat do not always have a BMI above 30, the report notes. And people with high muscle mass — football players or other athletes — may have a high BMI despite normal fat mass.

Under the new criteria, about 20% of people who used to be classified as obese would no longer meet the definition, preliminary analysis suggests. And about 20% of people with serious health effects but lower BMI would now be considered clinically obese, experts said.

"It wouldn't dramatically change the percentage of people being defined as having obesity, but it would better diagnose the people who really have clinically significant excess fat," Cummings said.

The new definitions have been endorsed by more than 75 medical organizations around the world, but it's not clear how widely or quickly they could be adopted in practice. The report acknowledges that implementation of the recommendations "will carry significant costs and workforce implications."

A spokesman for the health insurance trade group AHIP, formerly known as America's Health Insurance Plans, said "it's too early at this point to gauge how plans will incorporate these criteria into coverage or other policies."

There are practical issues to consider, said Dr. Katherine Saunders, an obesity expert at Weill Cornell Medicine and co-founder of the obesity treatment company FlyteHealth. Measuring waist circumference sounds simple, but protocols differ, many doctors aren't trained accurately and standard medical tape measures aren't big enough for many people with obesity.

In addition, determining the difference between clinical and pre-clinical obesity would require a comprehensive health assessment and lab tests, she noted.

"For a new classification system to be widely adopted, it would also need to be extremely quick, inexpensive, and reliable," she said.

The new definitions are likely to be confusing, said Kate Bauer, a nutrition expert at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

"The public likes and needs simple messages. I don't think this differentiation is going to change anything," she said.

Overhauling the definition of obesity will take time, acknowledged Dr. Robert Kushner, an obesity expert at the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and a co-author of the report.

"This is the first step in the process," he said. "I think it's going to begin the conversation."