In
the news today it was reported that the AMA has officially recognized obesity as a disease.
It is anticipated that classifying fatness as a disease will spur health
insurance providers to pick up the costs of treating it. The news was greeted with enthusiasm by those laboring to shrink the belt size in the U.S. It was stated that the AMA's
declaration "could help increase funding for future obesity research. It
could also lead to payment for doctors who want to simply talk to
patients about nutrition or exercise -- time that's not currently
reimbursed by insurance plans." At least that is what is hoped for by those who make it their business to mind the nation's belt size. There is an unmentioned secondary benefit resulting from the AMA's decision that is sure to be welcomed by many plus sized Americans. Treating obesity as a disease will serve to relieve them of responsibility for their condition. They will no longer be open to accusations of being lazy and gluttonous. They have a disease.While there may be instances where there is a physiological condition or a genetic abnormality is present and may contribute to a predilection for obesity, such causes are rare. Bad dietary habits and sedentary life styles cannot be blamed for the epidemic of obesity currently plaguing this nation. Overweight Americans are now officially suffering from a of a medical condition.
The benefits from the AMA's decision are many. One benefit is removing the psychological burden of responsibility for being obese. "Identifying obesity as a
disease may also help in reducing the stigma often associated with
being overweight," said Joe Nadglowski, president and CEO of the Obesity Action Coalition. "Obesity has been
considered for a long time to be a failure of personal responsibility --
a simple problem of eating too much and exercising too little," he
said. "But it's a complex disease... we're hoping attitudes will
change." Indeed. Changing attitudes is what the AMA's decision is really about.
Obesity is a significant problem in the U.S. There are more than than 93 million obese AmericansThe number is increasing. The problems caused by obesity are substantial. According to the National Institutes of Health, obesity and overweight
together are the second leading cause of preventable death in the United
States. Tobacco is the first. An estimated 300,000 deaths per
year are linked to obesity. According
to the CDC, sugary drinks alone are linked to 180,000 deaths every year in
the U.S. Obesity-related health
care expenses cost Americans between $147 billion to $210 billion per
year. Preventing and treating obesity before it leads to more serious
diseases could help reduce those costs
Another goal the OAC hopes to achieve through its decision is to change how obesity is perceived in the nation. The Obesity Action Coalition seeks to "
ensure access to safe and effective treatment options and eradicate the
negative bias and stigma associated with it" The most effective way to meet this goal Nadglowski believes is by liberating the obese from responsibility for their condition. Those 93 million obese Americans should be not be scolded for their poor dietary habits and lack of exercise. They should be treated compassionately as people suffering from a disease for which they are not responsible; as if the reason they super size their meals and go back for a second helping of pie is because they are somehow ill.
Like so many issues, obesity is first and foremost a personal one. One does not catch obesity any more than one catches alcoholism. Obesity is acquired. While in some cases there are physiological factors that can contribute to it, they are not the primary cause. The primary causes of obesity in the U.S. are diet and habit. The obese people you see regularly in the frozen food and snack aisles at Walmart are not suffering from a disease. They did not catch obesity. They were not afflicted with it. The became obese after years of eating too much and exercising too little.
Treating obesity as a social issue is little more than a way expand government involvement in the personal lives of the public. It is individual people who are obese, not society. It is those same individual people who are responsible for their obesity. The obesity "problem" is the result of putting all the obese people into one group. It is akin to stacking turtles in an effort to create an elephant. This has to be done if policy is to be formulated. Policy cannot be drafted for millions of separate individuals. It can only be drafted for groups. Social groups, however are merely collections made from people perceived to have common interest. What that interest might be is dependent the person making the group. Americans can be grouped ay number of ways. They can be sorted by income, gender, age, religion, occupation, social interests, sexual orientation, etc. Most of those groups intersect at many points. A person can fall into many groups. Recognizing the obese as a distinct social group is just an attempt to carve out a place for them at the table.
Despite the AMA's decision, obesity is not a disease. It's only analogy with disease is that it is a debilitating condition. With rare exception, obesity is an entirely avoidable condition
that can be successfully overcome without medical intervention through diet and exercise, both of which I might
point out are free. A more appropriate analogy would be to treat obesity as an injury to be treated by rehabilitation. Just as a person with an injury needs to learn how to avoid future injury by retraining himself and learning new habits, obese people need to retrain themselves and develop new dietary habits to avoid gaining weight.
Why we are spending so much
money on studying and treating obesity is beyond me. We know what
causes obesity, eating too much. We know how to treat it, diet and
exercise. We don't need scientific studies to tell people what any high
school gym coach can tell you: if you want to lose weight put down the
doughnuts and Twinkies, get off your plump buttocks, and get moving. Over the years we have learned a great deal about the causes and effects of obesity. The one thing no study has so far been able to tell us is why so many people are indifferent to their weight. That is the real issue. The only
thing all those studies have provided are excuses, explanations and an open door for government involvement.
We continue to waste time and resources trying to understand what should be common sense: if you consume more calories than you burn you will gain weight. If you continue to gain weight, you will become fat. If you become fat, your health will suffer. But then again, the AMA's action wasn't about treating obesity at all. It was about changing how obese people are viewed and lessening the psychological burden obese people often carry along with their weight.
