Obesity..a disease? Give Me a Break!

I've been coaching a 15 year old boy (who aspires to become a track athlete) and his family in health and nutrition over the past couple of weeks. Despite his high activity levels, this boy is overweight and frustrated as to why he can't shift the weight. The other day he said to me "Why am I still fat? Am I ill or something?"

His mother told me that the family doctor had suggested that he take appetite suppressants. Suffice to say that I expressed my disgust at this advice - it seems that he and his family have no understanding of food levels and energy balance.

The American Medical Association has made quite a number of dubious recommendations recently, but in making the most recent  but it has surpassed itself this week: "Obesity should be labeled a disease".

“We felt it’s time to take a stance and say we’re going to identify this as a disease,” AMA committee on public health member Douglas Martin, MD, told MedPage Today. “We think that’s going to send a message not only to the public but to the physician community that we really need to make it a priority and put it in our cross hairs.”

So you'll understand why I was livid when I read this. Not a remedial condition! Not self-inflicted damage! A disease! Is smoking and alcoholism a disease now too?

Why does this matter?  Because once again, this opens the floodgates for the medical and pharmaceutical fraternity to profit from quick fix "cures" for what is a condition which so often arises because people (especially children) are uneducated about the causes of obesity, and about the content of what they consume. The junk food peddlers remain  scott-free to advertise their way to even more profit without taking any responsibility or being forced to bear any of the billions of  dollars the obesity epidemic is causing society at large.

In the meantime, people like my young friend continue to be confused as to why they are not "sick" and are then told to take medications.

Talk about a health care crisis - the true crisis is a total lack of health, nutrition and illness prevention education from school age to adult. Until Congress wakes up, and there are sensible public policy changes to deal with education, UDSA and FDA failure and poor involvement more people will needlessly be labelled as carrying a "disease".  

 ~ Jim Mckenzie