Is Obesity a Disease?

[Lyanna Stark]

Not exactly, wiseguy. People make a choice to eat(if they are lucky enough). A person cannot be obese without fuel. The body does not make fat out of thin air. No matter how difficult it can be, no matter how deeply rooted the obsession, obesity is still a choice.

I wish obesity was a disease so it would spread to every starving person on Earth.

By your definition alcoholism isn't a disease either.

[baxus]

in my oppinion, there are cases when it's a disease, and there are cases where it's a consequence of a chosen lifestyle which will in time cause other illnesses.

if someone tries to change their diet and exercise more and manages to reduce his/her weight down to a "regular" (for lack of a better word) category than i don't think that's a disease but a matter of lifestyle.

in those other cases when people really try their best and still don't get any significant results - i consider it a disease.

if someone is obese and does nothing about it - i consider it a lifestyle choice.

i'm aware that it's not as clear cut as that and that there are severe psychological (or psychiatric, even) factors involved.

[The Killer Snark]

No. Redefinition of a word via US and UK nanny states. Diseases are transmitted via bacteriological infection or immune system malfunction. Obesity is caused by simply eating too much food.

[Isalie]

in my oppinion, there are cases when it's a disease, and there are cases where it's a consequence of a chosen lifestyle which will in time cause other illnesses.

It isn't that I don't agree, but when you have something like 1/3 - 2/3 that are overweight, it becomes kind of pointless to speak of a chosen lifestyle. Not only because a lot (most?) of the people with the chosen life style will have been brought up into that lifestyle, but also because saying that the majority of a population have chosen to live in a certain way seems counterproductive. It seems rather that the minority have chosen a lifestyle outside of the norm.

[scotcat]

While there are sometimes other factors involved - glandular problems, mental health issues - if a person is overweight and just sits on their backside doing nothing about it, even when they have been informed their choices are having an effect on their health, it's a choice.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Just like depression is a choice.

Look, if any of you are actually interested in talking to an obese person, rather than just passing judgement on what a worthless sack of shit I am, let me know. Anybody else, write "'Calories in, calories out' is not the whole story" 1000 times and get back to me.

As for the reclassification, I don't know. I'd like to think it will be a helpful change, but I'm not sold on it. For most obese people I know, it's not a matter of education (mostly), it's not a matter of willpower (at first), it's an extremely complicated relationship between food and emotions/habits. That is, it's a symptom of a mental/emotion problem that needs help. Sometimes it's a symptom of something else physical that needs help (thyroid, endo, other hormonal imbalances, internal cysts or tumours, what-have-you). I am frankly always wary of anything that screams "FATTY FAT FAT" first, and focuses solely on that, without recognising either 1) one can have excess adipose tissue and still have normal BP/cholesterol/heart rate/other health markers or 2) the adipose is not the be-all and end-all of what may be happening. It can exacerbate problems without being the root cause. And let's face it, fat kids are shamed from a very early age, and it just gets worse as you get older - if it were as simple as shaming or guilting someone else, nobody'd ever be fat.

[Chaldanya]

Just like depression is a choice.

Look, if any of you are actually interested in talking to an obese person, rather than just passing judgement on what a worthless sack of shit I am, let me know. Anybody else, write "'Calories in, calories out' is not the whole story" 1000 times and get back to me.

As for the reclassification, I don't know. I'd like to think it will be a helpful change, but I'm not sold on it. For most obese people I know, it's not a matter of education (mostly), it's not a matter of willpower (at first), it's an extremely complicated relationship between food and emotions/habits. That is, it's a symptom of a mental/emotion problem that needs help. Sometimes it's a symptom of something else physical that needs help (thyroid, endo, other hormonal imbalances, internal cysts or tumours, what-have-you). I am frankly always wary of anything that screams "FATTY FAT FAT" first, and focuses solely on that, without recognising either 1) one can have excess adipose tissue and still have normal BP/cholesterol/heart rate/other health markers or 2) the adipose is not the be-all and end-all of what may be happening. It can exacerbate problems without being the root cause. And let's face it, fat kids are shamed from a very early age, and it just gets worse as you get older - if it were as simple as shaming or guilting someone else, nobody'd ever be fat.

Thanks for saying this, Aoife. Since this thread was started I've been trying to find some way of saying all of this without blowing my lid. But whilst this board is awesome in many ways the fat hatred and shaming is second to none.

From an obese person's perspective; what does this change? It will make it harder for any other underlying conditions to be diagnosed because Drs will be even more predisposed to tell the offending fatty to loose weight. Obese people will die because of this. Cancers will be undiagnosed, depression will be untreated. For other examples of how fat people are already shamed in a Drs surgery for their weight go to First, Do No Harm.

N

[baxus]

Look, if any of you are actually interested in talking to an obese person, rather than just passing judgement on what a worthless sack of shit I am, let me know. Anybody else, write "'Calories in, calories out' is not the whole story" 1000 times and get back to me.

As for the reclassification, I don't know. I'd like to think it will be a helpful change, but I'm not sold on it. For most obese people I know, it's not a matter of education (mostly), it's not a matter of willpower (at first), it's an extremely complicated relationship between food and emotions/habits. That is, it's a symptom of a mental/emotion problem that needs help. Sometimes it's a symptom of something else physical that needs help (thyroid, endo, other hormonal imbalances, internal cysts or tumours, what-have-you). I am frankly always wary of anything that screams "FATTY FAT FAT" first, and focuses solely on that, without recognising either 1) one can have excess adipose tissue and still have normal BP/cholesterol/heart rate/other health markers or 2) the adipose is not the be-all and end-all of what may be happening. It can exacerbate problems without being the root cause. And let's face it, fat kids are shamed from a very early age, and it just gets worse as you get older - if it were as simple as shaming or guilting someone else, nobody'd ever be fat.

i understand that being obese/overweight is not easy, but neither is being/staying slim.

there are those rare people who eat as much as they want and stay thin, but many people put in a lot of effort to stay fit - watching their diet, exercising regularly and often having a real tough time NOT eating those cupcakes/muffins/brownies that look so tempting.

it's far from easy for me to go work 8 hours a day, then rush to my rowing practice or to the swimming pool, or go running for 10km or whatever is on my programme that day, do an extra job on the side after/instead of that and after all that, make a lunch to take to work the next day.

i stand behind my statement that SOME overweight/obese people are overweight/obese as a result of their choices and you feel free to consider that fat hatred and/or shaming if you so choose.

[scotcat]

i understand that being obese/overweight is not easy, but neither is being/staying slim.

there are those rare people who eat as much as they want and stay thin, but many people put in a lot of effort to stay fit - watching their diet, exercising regularly and often having a real tough time NOT eating those cupcakes/muffins/brownies that look so tempting.

it's far from easy for me to go work 8 hours a day, then rush to my rowing practice or to the swimming pool, or go running for 10km or whatever is on my programme that day, do an extra job on the side after/instead of that and after all that, make a lunch to take to work the next day.

i stand behind my statement that SOME overweight/obese people are overweight/obese as a result of their choices and you feel free to consider that fat hatred and/or shaming if you so choose.

I think we all know people that are as heavy as they are by choice- to say this is NOT fat hatred/shaming. It is a fact.

I have both ends of the spectrum in my family - my stepmother (who was a very heavy woman) made the choice in her late 50's to change her lifestyle. She saw what she was doing was making her fat and did something about it. She's now almost half the woman she was.

My aunt, on the other hand is so heavy we & the doctors are concerned for her health. She does NOTHING to help herself- she eats crap, sits around all day and won't walk the length of herself. She refuses to do anything about her weight. My cousin ( who is 16) is going the exact same route by following her mothers example. They are both bone idle and if they do nothing to change we are all worried about their futures.

How can choosing to do nothing be a disease?

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Again, you seem to be assuming that everyone who's fat is fat because they're stuffing their face with brownies and not exercising at all. Is that true for some people? Absolutely. That still doesn't make them less than human, or less deserving of common courtesy, much less help or medical care for their other issues. It's also not true for more people than you'd expect, I think. The studies that have been done and are still currently done on stress/cortisol levels, insulin resistance, the effect of sleep on weight, and other items outside of 'food' or 'exercise' indicate that it's a lot more complicated than the general public believes, or wants to believe.

scotcat - why are they doing nothing? Is there an underlying physical problem? Mental? Depression? Are they getting support from you lot, or just lectures?

ETA: When this topic come up, especially on this board, I feel like I have to continually try to prove that I am a human being with intrinsic worth, and to remind others that I do feelings (buried in there somewhere :P). When you say 'exercise more! eat less!', you are telling me nothing new, and generally nothing helpful (or in a helpful way). When you discuss it as though 'the fats' are some abstract, faraway group, you deny my presence and personhood. It is not as bad as fighting sexism, in my perception of reach or effect, but it combines with my self-doubt in a way that sexism doesn't. I know I'm not lesser for being female. I haven't yet fully accepted that I'm not lesser because I haven't found the right combination of food and exercise, or that I'm not as able to handle my work-life stress, or whatever it all is that's contributing to my fatness.

None of which is to say that the various issues of and around obesity can't be -- or shouldn't be -- discussed. Just remember that shitting on people really doesn't help them, nor does yelling 'BOOTSTRAPS!', and that this is daily reality for an ever-increasing percentage of the population.

[Isalie]

This can only end well. The point has been made though that no matter how a person end up there, obesity can still be considered a disease. Whether classifying it a disease will matter though will be for the historians to settle ;)

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

Again, you seem to be assuming that everyone who's fat is fat because they're stuffing their face with brownies and not exercising at all. Is that true for some people? Absolutely. That still doesn't make them less than human, or less deserving of common courtesy, much less help or medical care for their other issues. It's also not true for more people than you'd expect, I think. The studies that have been done and are still currently done on stress/cortisol levels, insulin resistance, the effect of sleep on weight, and other items outside of 'food' or 'exercise' indicate that it's a lot more complicated than the general public believes, or wants to believe.

scotcat - why are they doing nothing? Is there an underlying physical problem? Mental? Depression? Are they getting support from you lot, or just lectures?

ETA: When this topic come up, especially on this board, I feel like I have to continually try to prove that I am a human being with intrinsic worth, and to remind others that I do feelings (buried in there somewhere :P). When you say 'exercise more! eat less!', you are telling me nothing new, and generally nothing helpful (or in a helpful way). When you discuss it as though 'the fats' are some abstract, faraway group, you deny my presence and personhood. It is not as bad as fighting sexism, in my perception of reach or effect, but it combines with my self-doubt in a way that sexism doesn't. I know I'm not lesser for being female. I haven't yet fully accepted that I'm not lesser because I haven't found the right combination of food and exercise, or that I'm not as able to handle my work-life stress, or whatever it all is that's contributing to my fatness.

None of which is to say that the various issues of and around obesity can't be -- or shouldn't be -- discussed. Just remember that shitting on people really doesn't help them, nor does yelling 'BOOTSTRAPS!', and that this is daily reality for an ever-increasing percentage of the population.

So much this!

I keep fighting the urge to justify myself, to explain problems and difficulties I have had.

[scotcat]

@aiofe I did not say ALL, I said SOME. In the case of my aunt & cousin, they are in the 'some' category. Some people are the way they are by choice & others as I said in my original post have underlying problems their obesity is a physical manifestation of.

Not once did I say they were less worthy of respect than anyone else. I don't love my aunt and cousin any less because of their weight. we support them and love them, we certainly aren't lecturing them. i find your suggestion of such offensive. i would never dream of making fun of anyone because of their size - I've suffered the same growing up because I was slim - accusations of anorexia, the school nurse accusing my parents of mistreating me etc - so I'd never inflict that on anyone.

[Fragile Bird]

<excellent words>

Well said.

[Elder Sister]

Some of the attitudes exhibited in this thread are pretty disappointing. And I am puzzled by why people feel it's perfectly fine to hate on fat people. Even drug addicts and alcoholics have an easier time of it.

There are a lot of different factors that I see with regards to obesity. For one thing, it's cheaper to eat crap food and certainly much easier. There are people who don't live five minutes from Whole Foods and even if they did, can't afford to eat what they sell. And please, people, don't bother with the rice and beans argument. Try getting a picky five year old to eat rice and beans vs. Chef Boyardee.

Kair explained the emotional side of eating so eloquently...you should be a writer, kair. You have such a way with words. I think this is one of the reasons that obesity has probably been classified as a disease now. Even if there's not a physiological reason, there can be a pyschological reason, and depression and anxiety disorders are real, and sometimes life threatening.

But that's not what bugs me about this thread. If we were discussing anorexia, we wouldn't see the hate. And anorexia sufferers are people with real, serious, pyschological disorders that affect their relationships with food, self image, themselves...exactly what we are talking about in this thread. But because they look more like our ideal of what's attractive, no one is screaming at them to eat, or calling them names, or giving them the crap that we see people giving folks who are overweight. And that really shows you what hypocrisy some of the attitudes in this thread really are.

[Greywolf2375]

I was under the impression that obesity is a symptom to a number of different medical problems and lifestyle choices. Is that what constitutes a disease? And in that case, is low body weight considered a disease too?

Interesting point. Very often low body weight is the result of an illness, like anorexia or bulimia, or some other medical condition, but I don't think having a low body weight has been labelled a disease.

Please be careful in saying things like this - "weight" in and of itself is not the issue. We've had the "is BMI a good measure" 1000 times on this board. The issue is the % of body fat and the impact that body fat has on the functions of the various systems in the body. Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) is, by body weight, morbidly obese. Incredibly low body fat %. Does that mean he is in perfect health? Hell. No. He could have bad cholesterol, his BP could be skyrocketing, etc.

No. Redefinition of a word via US and UK nanny states. Diseases are transmitted via bacteriological infection or immune system malfunction. Obesity is caused by simply eating too much food.

So few words and so much wrong with it. Diseases can be transmitted as such, but are not the sole genesis of diseases. While eating too much is a cause of obesity, it is not the sole cause as you imply above.

1) one can have excess adipose tissue and still have normal BP/cholesterol/heart rate/other health markers

This is what I referenced above, just in reverse. What you say is true Aoife, but turn it around as well. One can have normal chol/body fat %/ heart rate but a BP of 150/100. Even with the other indicators being "good", that BP is still an issue and needs to be addressed for the body to remain either as healthy as it is or improve the health because in the long run it will almost certainly cause issues. That is the factor that almost always gets missed in these threads.

Thanks for saying this, Aoife. Since this thread was started I've been trying to find some way of saying all of this without blowing my lid. But whilst this board is awesome in many ways the fat hatred and shaming is second to none.

From an obese person's perspective; what does this change? It will make it harder for any other underlying conditions to be diagnosed because Drs will be even more predisposed to tell the offending fatty to loose weight. Obese people will die because of this. Cancers will be undiagnosed, depression will be untreated. For other examples of how fat people are already shamed in a Drs surgery for their weight go to First, Do No Harm.

N

If anyone else had typed that bolded sentence you would jump on them for fat shaming. Obese people are dying because of it all ready, this will hopefully help stop that from happening.

[Chaldanya]

oh fuck it all. i hate these threads

[Lyanna Stark]

Kair explained the emotional side of eating so eloquently...you should be a writer, kair. You have such a way with words. I think this is one of the reasons that obesity has probably been classified as a disease now. Even if there's not a physiological reason, there can be a pyschological reason, and depression and anxiety disorders are real, and sometimes life threatening.

:agree:

I recognise myself in kair's words too. And the whole "BOOTSTRAPS" and "Just run 10 km a day you lazy" sort of attitude completely ignores the complicated factors that cause obesity and it's really annoying how it aims at shaming people into becoming "better".

Obesity is an issue for society to tackle, but I really don't think shaming individuals will work at all, neither is it in any way constructive. I like what Ixodes wrote about how he would see it if it's classified as a disease in that he's not interested in whether it's someone's fault for ending up that way, but instead on what can be done to remedy the situation in the best way possible for the individual, without judgement. However, the drawbacks of doctors lecturing people makes me hesitate.

It's also a fact that the society we live in isn't a place where healthy eating is something most of us grew up with. We all know how "easy" it is to completely change our religious views, our views on child rearing, our political stances that we learnt while growing up just because someone tells us we have to drop everything we've learnt and relearn it. Yet somehow, when it comes to food, we are expected to at the blink of an eye completely reprogram ourselves and be chipper and happy about it.

Also, to be thin isn't an automatic way to happiness, even if you'd sometimes think that was the case when you hear people talk about the BOOTSTRAPS.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

This is what I referenced above, just in reverse. What you say is true Aoife, but turn it around as well. One can have normal chol/body fat %/ heart rate but a BP of 150/100. Even with the other indicators being "good", that BP is still an issue and needs to be addressed for the body to remain either as healthy as it is or improve the health because in the long run it will almost certainly cause issues. That is the factor that almost always gets missed in these threads.

Does it, though? Nobody's saying everyone with a 'normal' body fat percentage is always totally healthy. All I've been trying to say is that being 'overweight' or 'obese' doesn't automatically mean you have those problems. Unless you're looking at a patient, you don't know a persons test results, so crying 'unclean! unhealthy!' is at best a lucky guess.

If anyone else had typed that bolded sentence you would jump on them for fat shaming. Obese people are dying because of it all ready, this will hopefully help stop that from happening.

I think that was why she wrote it that way.

scotcat - Nothing in your post read to me as you supporting them. Instead, you were annoyed with them, giving up on them ('they choose to do nothing, those bone idle people'), and show little to no acknowledgement that there could be other factors at play. How old are you, and how close to them? Can you offer to go for walks with your cousin, if not both of them? If this is how you describe them to strangers, I wouldn't be surprised if some of that frustration carries through in person. You've been on the attacked side, you know how it feels when people nag you or lecture you or make assumptions - so I'd probably just be more careful about doing it to others. (You are entitled to be annoyed with them and they're not immune from being irritating people. It's just very easy to conflate their irritating habits and their obesity.)

Going back to obesity as a disease, I seem to recall a study a year or two ago that actually said obesity was, effectively, contagious. What ever happened to that?

[baxus]

Again, you seem to be assuming that everyone who's fat is fat because they're stuffing their face with brownies and not exercising at all.

this is crossing the line.

i have absolutely NEVER stated that "everyone who's fat is fat because they're stuffing their face with brownies and not exercising at all."

what i have said is that SOME are. i haven't even said "majority" or "most" - i've said SOME.

Is that true for some people? Absolutely. That still doesn't make them less than human, or less deserving of common courtesy, much less help or medical care for their other issues. It's also not true for more people than you'd expect, I think. The studies that have been done and are still currently done on stress/cortisol levels, insulin resistance, the effect of sleep on weight, and other items outside of 'food' or 'exercise' indicate that it's a lot more complicated than the general public believes, or wants to believe.

i am aware that if it were as easy as "eat less, exercise more" there would've been much less overweight/obese people in the world.

there are serious social, financial, psychological (even psychiatric in some cases) and physiological reasons why SOME people are overweight/obese but for SOME it IS out of lazyness and "go with the flow" attitude.

i have to point out that i'm using word "SOME" in both those cases since i don't have the data needed to be more specific ;)

ETA: When this topic come up, especially on this board, I feel like I have to continually try to prove that I am a human being with intrinsic worth, and to remind others that I do feelings (buried in there somewhere :P). When you say 'exercise more! eat less!', you are telling me nothing new, and generally nothing helpful (or in a helpful way). When you discuss it as though 'the fats' are some abstract, faraway group, you deny my presence and personhood. It is not as bad as fighting sexism, in my perception of reach or effect, but it combines with my self-doubt in a way that sexism doesn't. I know I'm not lesser for being female. I haven't yet fully accepted that I'm not lesser because I haven't found the right combination of food and exercise, or that I'm not as able to handle my work-life stress, or whatever it all is that's contributing to my fatness.

None of which is to say that the various issues of and around obesity can't be -- or shouldn't be -- discussed. Just remember that shitting on people really doesn't help them, nor does yelling 'BOOTSTRAPS!', and that this is daily reality for an ever-increasing percentage of the population.

i apologize if i caused you to feel bad about yourself.

i was talking from my point of view, where i have a bunch of friends who are 30-ish years old, are 20-ish kg overweight, have horrible eating habbits, rather low fitness levels and make fun of me for doing sports and paying attention to my diet.

when every once in a while one of them expresses that they want to lose weight i try to support them as much as possible, i even invite them to join me on my runs/swims/bike rides and almost every time they pass on it, or quit at the first sign of "wow, this isn't going to go as easily as anticipated". only once did one of them stuck with it for nearly a year, got much fitter and slimer (lost some 25kg) but quit on it after achieving what he perceived as his goal. needless to say, he packed the weight back on almost as quickly as he lost it in the first place.

another friend had a physically demanding music tour of half the europe which he knew he should've physically prepare for and did nothing. yet he's the first one to mock me for running only half-marathons and not full marathons, calling me half-human and stuff like that. i even made a bet with him that if he'd run a lap around this lake nearby without stopping or walking (it's 7.5-8km and i gave him 4 months to prepare for it and do it, which i'd help him with) i'd do a full marathon he did jack shit for it.

those friends of mine are lazy fucks when it comes to doing anything to lose weight and that's ok with me, as long as they don't complain about how they're discriminated for being fat (which they don't, by the way) or make fun of me for not being the same (which they do from time to time).