Is Obesity a Disease?

It qualifies for insurance billing puposes and that's as far as I'll go with that question 8)

I would say that obesity is a risk factor, or condition that leads to disease. And, just like high blood pressure leads to heart disease, it is a condition that must be treated using lifestyle behavior changes or medical intervention.

However, I think using the word "disease" to label something puts a certain type of connotation with it. If we commony call it a disease, and say, someone with fatalistic values/culture becomes obese, do they then not treat it because a higher power "gave" this to them?

This is a very sensitive subject for me and some other people that we covered a month or two ago.  I started a thread called Fatism.  It generated a lot of conversation.  I don't even have the energy to restate my opinions on the subject and I can't find the thread the refer you to the link.

 All I'll say is that many people who do NOT fight this battle have opinions on the subject that those who do fight the battle feel are insulting, hurtful and degrading to them.  Please choose your words carefully when expressing what you think about this subject.

That being said, have at it.

I do hate this topic because there's no real way to decide who's right, and people often get offended on both sides.

I'll offer an opinion from a medical perspective.  It's hard to pin down because people have differing ideas of what obesity is, and it comes from a variety of causes.  Obesity is a condition.  The most common cause of that condition is chronic overeating, which I classify as an affliction and not a disease.  I also lump addictive disorders in this same category, so I'm not discriminating.

Not sure if that makes sense to anybody else. 

Well if obesity is a disease then BT is the cure.

Well it worked for me!!

uh....  well, they do cover drug rehabilitation, which people get addicted by not being able to control their impulses to get sober.

so, sorta makes sense to help overweight people who cannot control their eating to get healthier. 

Long term gains benefit the patient AND the insurance companies.  

I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said, but there is a huge difference between smoking and obesity.  Consider this twist.  A smoker can, regardless of how hard it might be, eventually quit smoking and live the rest of their life without smoking.  As someone who had to take 98% of the food I ate for 37 years of my life and wave goodbye to it because I can never eat it again I can state that it is easier to go completely without something than to get to have little bits of it here and there but to have to limit yourself.  A person with a weight problem/eating issues cannot quit eating and go the rest of their life without food.

I don't mean this to be a statement about which problem is worse, simply pointing out one enormous difference in dealing with the two issues.

I'd like to know the context of how the question came up.  So if obesity is a disease, how does it matter....if it is not a disease, then what does that mean.  How does the answer to this question affect a person who is obese.

Hope that makes sense?

(OK...so I went back and read the first post.  It was a hospital commercial; I understand the context.  But, theoretically, I think my questions above make sense. Any thoughts?)

I guess I come down somewhere in the middle here.  I agree with Derek, that the root cause can be considered an 'affliction'.  In regards to the parallell that has been used throughout this thread...smoking is not a disease, lung cancer is...smoking, and for that matter, overeating, eating poorly, etc. etc., can be described as afflictions, compulsions, or whatever phrase equates to 'not my fault' today.  The fact of the matter is relatively simple...eating, smoking, meth, crack, booze, having inappropriate contact with 16 year old congressional pages, feels good...that's why people do it...brain releases seratonin that makes body euphoric, person wants to replicate the day they felt goood...person continues to do whatever it was that caused the seratonin to release...relatively simple equation...what is lost in all of this is that before, every 'hit' whether it is an eight ball, a big mac, a shot of bourbon, a marlboro, or a blackberry message to a teen boy, we are absolutely capable of self denial...

so while the end result (in obesity's case being heart disease, diabetes, etc) is most certainly a disease, most often it is a long string of conscious decisions to feel good, vs. do what we likely knew was right...very few smokers are unaware (now) of the health costs attributed to smoking, as are very few overeaters unaware of the health costs of a double whopper with cheese supesize value meal.  jAnd now, very few senators are unaware of the cost of flirting with sixteen year old pages.  Obviousy, as spokes said, there is a generous amount of responsibilty on the purveyors of l'il debbies, big macs, and the like, for offering us this toxic crap for so long, and they may have to pay, just like phillip morris and the like have had to recentlly.  But each and every one of us should be expected to be as responsible as they, and do what we can to just be better.

And to frame this effectively, i currently weigh 185, down from 290...when people ask how, I tell them "I run, I don't each much crap anymore, and I drink less beer" 

I do, however have a 'disease', namely insulin dependent diabetes, acquired at 30 yrs of age due to lifestyle choices.  So, my 'affliction' led to a 'disease', and I consider myself responsible for it. 

FWIW

d

There is a saying in come circles re: drug and alcoholism vs. overeating as an addiction.  To quit booze (or smokes or whatever), you lock the tiger in a cage.  With food, you gotta take the tiger out for a walk 3 times a day

No idea whether obesity is a disease (btw, accdg to western medicine and the BMI, I am at 6'2", 235# and therefore "obese" but I sure know I use food as a drug (effects of sugar?  c'mon) just like my brother used alcohol as a drug.  Food is just less immediately destructive