Missing The Point
When I click on this article, I get a diet ad in the sidebar with a before and after shot of a girl in a bikini. To avoid the cognitive dissonance, click here instead. Here's an interesting quote:
"Obesity is not a disease," insisted Allen Steadham, director of the Austin, Texas-based International Size Acceptance Association. "All this does is open the door for the diet and bariatric surgery industries to make a potentially tremendous profit."
So what do you think. Is obesity a disease? I thought it was a good thing when it was classified as such, because medical treatment of obesity (if people want to go that route) can help prevent weight-related medical problems down the road. Sure, fat is not the only risk factor, but it is a medical problem, isn't it?
I thought it was a good thing when it was classified as such, because medical treatment of obesity (if people want to go that route) can help prevent other weight-related medical problems down the road. Sure, fat is not the only risk factor, but it is a medical problem. Isn't it?
The other question is, is it a medical problem that people should be treated for, or should they be expected to solve the problem on their own? It seems like both fat-activists and fat-bashers think that people should either do it themselves or not do it at all. It's interesting that they're both on the same side of the medical obesity debate in that way.
The other quote I thought was interesting, from the CNN article, was:
"The [fat acceptance] movement has found itself marginalized by drawing its membership and leadership from the far extreme of obesity," he said. "It will be more successful if it can attract the two-thirds of Americans who are being told by the government that they weigh too much."
"Obesity is not a disease," insisted Allen Steadham, director of the Austin, Texas-based International Size Acceptance Association. "All this does is open the door for the diet and bariatric surgery industries to make a potentially tremendous profit."
So what do you think. Is obesity a disease? I thought it was a good thing when it was classified as such, because medical treatment of obesity (if people want to go that route) can help prevent weight-related medical problems down the road. Sure, fat is not the only risk factor, but it is a medical problem, isn't it?
I thought it was a good thing when it was classified as such, because medical treatment of obesity (if people want to go that route) can help prevent other weight-related medical problems down the road. Sure, fat is not the only risk factor, but it is a medical problem. Isn't it?
The other question is, is it a medical problem that people should be treated for, or should they be expected to solve the problem on their own? It seems like both fat-activists and fat-bashers think that people should either do it themselves or not do it at all. It's interesting that they're both on the same side of the medical obesity debate in that way.
The other quote I thought was interesting, from the CNN article, was:
"The [fat acceptance] movement has found itself marginalized by drawing its membership and leadership from the far extreme of obesity," he said. "It will be more successful if it can attract the two-thirds of Americans who are being told by the government that they weigh too much."
7 Comments:
" .... people, especially women, are judged based on their appearance, and obesity is equated with a lack of self-control. So today and yesterday it has been incumbent upon women to control their appetite in order to encode their body with the correct social messages. And what is that message? Women are expected to be the custodians and embodiments of virtue. Appetite, be it hunger or lust, is socially unacceptable in a woman - "their body as repository of appetite fills them with shame". Girth is an undeniable testament that one’s appetite, for food at least, has been gratified."
http://chetday.com/womenshealthandweight.htm
Probably more in context with your previous 2 entries but an interesting article all the same.
As for the *medicalisation* of obesity? It suggests you can take a pill and get *well*; it rationalises surgery, it takes *blame* away, it absolves people of their fat - "It's nothing to do with me - I'm ill". Homosexuality used to be catagorised as an *illness* not so long ago - as did pregnancy and menopause. I feel uneasy with it. Interesting thread!
I think it is important to realize that some people are healthy yet larger than their BMI says they should be. Are they diseased? And who says so and why? So many people treat fat like it's evil, the cause for all their health problems, like only skinny people can attribute any health issues to non-weight factors. What about the skinny folks who have high percentages of body fat? Are they really healthier than others? American culture about body size is so much more complicated than the medical community or the "experts" want to admit. Even just the categories healthy vs. diseased mask the range that happens with all the million folks in America.
In my opinion you could categorize obesity as a disease, but only if you put it in with psychological problems: it's a mental illness, not a physical illness. Certainly many obese people suffer from thyroid problems, or have other legitimate medical reasons for their weight gain, however most people become obese because of psychological issues such as depression, rather than any physiological problem. You can take a pill or have surgery and lose weight, sure, but the underlying problem that caused you to get fat in the first place will still be there; if you don't deal with that, the weight will come back. I speak from experience on this one: I took phen-fen and lost a lot of weight; I went off the meds (or rather, had the meds yanked away from me by the stupid FDA), and gained all the weight back and then some. The reason? I've been depressed for several years, and rather than actually go in and deal with why I'm depressed and resolve those issues and make peace with my past, I eat (and drink, sometimes too much) instead. I know this, and yet I do nothing about it. Therefore my obesity is my own damn fault, and I have to take responsibility for it and do what's right to fix it. I'm not saying every other obese person is like I am, but I think there are a lot more out there than are willing to admit it.
Obesity is no more a disease than is micromastia.
Never heard of micromastia? It's the "deformity" of small breasts. Oh, wait, what if you don't think small breasts are a deformity? What if you're like me, barely an A-cup, and you like your body the way it is, thank you, and the idea of your body being classified as "deformed" just sounds silly?
I dunno.
Don't know where I'm going with this, except to say that women of all sizes and shapes get crap handed to us.
I don't think the real issue is whether obesity is a disease or not. I think labelling it as such is an attempt not to make overweight people feel bad about themselves, but to try to reduce the economic burden of chronic obesity-related illness. I think the real issue is the American healthcare system, which focuses almost exclusively on curing what goes wrong, not preventing it (probably because cure is where the big bucks are, and with skyrocketing malpractice insurance costs, the big bucks are the way to go). Our healthcare costs would be so much lower as a whole (and worker productivity would probably be higher) if we focused more on prevention.
As an example, in my last job, I travelled to developing countries where diseases such as yellow fever and typhoid are endemic. When I called my HMO about coverage for vaccines and anti-malarial drugs, they told me they wouldn't cover it because they didn't consider it "medically necessary." Now, a typhoid vaccine costs less than $50 (I don't remember exactly what the bill came to), but if I go to Haiti and get typhoid fever, it could kill me, and at the very least, there will be a hospital bill of much more than $50 involved (in the end, my insurer ended up paying for the vaccinations).
Same thing with obesity-related illness. It costs less to give people the resources they need to stay healthy than it does to treat the high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, etc. It ends up falling to Public Health to try to get people to exercise, eat right, stop smoking, get checkups, but in general, Public Health ends up being a handy place for legislators to make budget cuts. So those of us who work in public health end up with unfunded mandates and a overwhelming need staring us in the face.
The only real answer is an overhaul of the healthcare system so that the real emphasis is on what improves health. There was a really interesting report on NPR recently about a competition to design a new healthcare system for the US, but I can't find a link to it.
More info on the economic impact of obesity here:
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/economic_consequences.htm
-Elizabeth F.
first of all obesity is not a disease, but it is a sign of a dieting culture, or undereating culture, obesessed with weight issues. no one gets very obese overnight, it takes alot fo hard work and suffering to get that fat.
it takes extreme self control to starve yourself, (1800 caloires is starvation if below your needs) lose weight, not be able to take the excessive build up of hunger, (hunger is painful, who wouldn't start eating to stop it, just like someone with a severe migraine takes meds to stop their pain, no one blames them for wanting relief) binge, with alot of make up eating to do and wham weight regain with some to boot, then another attempt lose weight binge and start the cycle all over again until you weigh 300 pounds when you were only 150 when you started the dieting merrygoround.
famines make people fat, not foods or the types of foods, in fact the type of foods people prefer is related to their nutritional needs, someone who is recovering from famines needs fatty foods, to get the fat restored as quickly as possible before the next famine hits. they don't creave salads, because if you are dead from starvation what difference does the better quality nutrition make?
the list is priotiy, the body priotizes what is needed, and people who are on the famine feast cycle need fat and lots of it, that is why they crave mcdonalds, ice cream and cakes and seldom crave broculli or fruits and vegies or leaner fare.
so what you are witnessing is not a disease but the result of the weight obsession, the arbitrary standards people are supposed to meet, and a moral pressure to conform, the fear of fat the desire to be thin, desire to lose weight etc.
what we have here is not moral flaws or anything like that but what we have is a WEIGHT WATCHING EPIDMIC. this is what is making people fat, those whose bodies will not tolerate undereating for long and who's bodies will torment their dieters until they eat what and however much the body is demanding.
thus the feasting aspect of the cycle. and the cycle begins again. also being fat doesn't cause high blood pressure or heart disease or anything else for that matter but yo yo dieting and not eating enough, and poor nutrition and the stress that goes with a weight watching and fat hatred socieity sure does.
there are plenty of thin people who have these condtions too, they say 600,000 people die a year from heart attacks in the usa, but the figure for obesity is that 300,000 die from obesity and it's related conditions which include diebetes, cancer, etc, surly 300,000 of the 600,000 were not fat, as that would leave no obese deaths from other causes too.
so that leaves thin or slender people to fill out the rest. other wise you can bet they would make sure you knew that these 600,000 or most of them were fat.
2 million have heart attacks every year, 600,000 die, so that leaves alot of people with diverse health backrounds, size and body mass indexes and I you can bet none of these heart attack victims were equal in their risk factors.
and definitly no all fat either.
anyway this weight watching epidemic has got to stop and emphasis put on better quality eating and exercise and understanding the famine feast cycle and how it makes people fat and how it affects the kinds and amounts of food a person craves and eats.and how this cycle can be stopped forever in it's tracks.
RR
Micromastia? I hadn't heard of it before, so I checked the WIKI for it, which actually states, "The term usually refers to the total or near total lack of normal endocrine tissue in the breasts, not to a normal A cup." So it is, in fact, a legitimate medical condition and not a stylistic interpretation.
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