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Should Obesity Be Classed As A Disease?

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Deskdiary | 08:55 Mon 07th Jan 2019 | News
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It has been suggested that obesity should be considered a disease.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/03/obesity-should-classed-disease-doctors-say/

How would describing 'normal' fat people (i.e, ignoring those who are fat because of an underlying medical condition) as a victim of a disease help them? I suspect it will simply provide the fatties with an excuse for their size? "My obesity is a disease and therefore it's not my fault"

Should smokers be described have having a disease? If not, why not? I see no difference between a compulsion to smoke and a compulsion to shove food down the neck.
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Rockrose and Bagpuss. Obesity does not have to be classed as a disease before you can get help.You can get it from your GP.
the choice: To be obese.. to not be obese: Has anyone actually ever made that 'choice'? No.. because it's not a choice.. It's a disorder.
My view is that being overweight is a result of overeating, obesity is then at the far end of that condition. Among eating disorders is the compulsion to eat more than one burns and obesity is the extreme result of that disorder. Therefore if obesity itself is a disease then those who are obese suffer from two separate diseases, one the result of the other. A great diagnosis for those who want a generous explanation as to why they are ruining their health.

I am of an age where I never had access to any diagnosis and labelling of any of my traits, as with pretty much all of my generation, and therefore we suffer from a shortage of opportunity to generate attention/sympathy and/or labelling and treatment/support. We are the unnamed underprivileged - anything people say about us now is that we are simply old...........hey, there we have it, old age is a disease. Get the NHS, social services, etc. onto this, there is a veritable epidemic going on.
//Obesity does not have to be classed as a disease before you can get help.You can get it from your GP.//
I sought help early on from my GP and subsequent GPs I was told to join a slimming club - not helpful imo
spath at 09:31, every post here is the poster's opinion. For example, you say //It isn't normally considered attractive because when you see someone with excess fat you think 'unhealthy'// but that isn't what I think. I find obese people physically unattractive.
"every post here is the poster's opinion."

That's not true.
No? Why not?
Because personal experience is fact. (RR for example about the 'help' she got) Also it is fact that obesity stems from eating disorders. It is fact that a function disorder is classed as a disease.

This is opinion..

I'd say eating is a function.. A disorder of that function would be a disease.
spath, // I'd say ...//

Your opinion then.
cassa: "Being fat for the vast majority of people is a lifestyle choice. " - no one chooses to be fat. There are a variety of reasons people ingest too many calories but no one chooses to be fat.
Naomi, evident by me saying.. "This is opinion.. "
People are obese for different reason. And the word 'obese' is used too often. BMI is also useless!!

My sister is obese...and she admits it's out of greed. Her daughter is obese because she over fed her.

Maybe she does comfort eat....it's a catch 22. They join slimming world and basically pay to get weighed. We used to go to the gym together. I'd do a work out while she sat on the internet...and then she'd join me for a swim.

She paid gym membership to use the creche and get a couple of hours away from the kids....
Every overweight person I know who is trying to lose weight regards food as a combination of the enemy and a treat. One friend cooks dinner without fat or salt – lean meat or fish, steamed vegetables and all that - and then for dessert produces cream cakes. Naughty but nice – she says. She's been on a diet for years and knows everything there is to know about nutrition and healthy eating. She's an expert.
People forget that exercise is a massive factor to health and weight. Simply by eating healthy won't make you slim, if you're consuming more energy than you're using then it's going to be stored as fat.
Spath - I don't exercise, eat what I want when I want, I'm not overweight.
//Well I am certainly not ignorant but was extremely overweight! //

Rockrose
I said ignorance in most cases. The inability to discern what food is healthy eating and what quantity to eat it.
Just got back from a All Inclusive Break in a hotel that served every cuisine you could imagine in help yourself buffet styled.
There was every salad and accompaniement to it.Loads of local fish and meat meals Rabbit etc.
There were loads of bottles of Olive Oil and Balsamic spread around the serving area. You made your own choice wether you wanted to dress your meal with oil or not.
There was the kiddies corner. No nutrition whatsoever but fibre in baked beans.
The Brit Kids were filling up their plates with piles of chips,burgers and chicken nuggets with copious amounts of ketchup and going back for more.
The Brit parents followed suit but had a few slices of bread and spread to assemble their chip butty starters. They ate that carp all day every day three times a day .
If that is what they do everyday at home than small wonder they looked like obscene blobs on a stick with the encouragement of their ignorant parents.
There was always a large selection of fresh cooked vegetables but you rarely saw the Brits tarry long in that section.
If you want top eat unhealthy fat in large quantities then expect what comes.
Most doctors of the old school have no time for obese patients and consider the condition very much self inflicted.
Rockrose.Sorry about your past experience with your GP.Try again and point out to him/her the NHS viewpoint on obesity.


https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/how-your-gp-can-help-you-lose-weight/
In my opinion, obesity may start as greed and ignorance, but it creeps up.
Once established it is an addiction, and needs to be treated.
None so lonely as the obese.
Last AI I went to there were very few Brits. It was the other nationalities that were loading their plates.

They had breakfast, snacks, lunch, snacks, dinner, snacks. Whereas we just had breakfast, lunch and dinner.
You see overweight people queuing at McDonalds, you see people trying to get a parking space near to the supermarket door as possible to save walking that extra 20 yards, you see people lighting up cigarettes outside hospitals, the message just does not, and will not get through to some people!

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