Obesity now declared “disease”

[wa3zrm]

Obesity now declared “disease,” but risk for chronic illnesses was no secret

More than 35 percent of U.S. adults and 17 percent of children and teens now have a disease, after the American Medical Association formally voted Tuesday to classify “obesity as a disease requiring a range of medical interventions.”
The shift is aimed in part to get doctors to tackle obesity as if they were treating a disease instead of a lifestyle condition in need of modification.
“Recognizing obesity as a disease will help change the way the medical community tackles this complex issue that affects approximately one in three Americans,” Dr. Patrice Harris of the AMA said in a statement. …
Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI)—a ratio of height over weight—of 30 or higher. People are considered normal weight if they have a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9. …

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...

[OregonNative]

[Faylool]

What do you think Wa3zrm? Do think it should be a disease? Disease of the body? Or the brain function? Like the appetite turn off function when the body has had enough calories for the moment? Or a stomach that doesn't ache when full? All I know is if you gain the fat it will stay there even if you eat normal again unless you reduce the calories to below what the body needs and do that continually until the fat reserves are used so it's a drag once you get fat. You'll never get to eat normally and reap the rewards of a healthful body. You have to starve the body first and exercise the fat off. It takes years for obese people to safely loose and then the skin is all stretched out and flabby. It takes a lot of character to turn that problem around. Big and beautiful is OK but not obese. I think is a disease. Yes.

[truthwolf1]

Sounds like a future of Gastric Surgery, Big Pharma diet pills and recommendations for a lowfat diet nutritionists to combat this

[Burnsey]

Sounds like a future of Gastric Surgery, Big Pharma diet pills and recommendations for a lowfat diet nutritionists to combat this

Right, I'm sure the medical community and pharma will see this an opportunity to create a new market to go along with the new disease.

We are a culture of fat lazy people, lets face it, obesity is just a side effect..........

[Thunder_Snus]

What do you think Wa3zrm? Do think it should be a disease? Disease of the body? Or the brain function? Like the appetite turn off function when the body has had enough calories for the moment? Or a stomach that doesn't ache when full? All I know is if you gain the fat it will stay there even if you eat normal again unless you reduce the calories to below what the body needs and do that continually until the fat reserves are used so it's a drag once you get fat. You'll never get to eat normally and reap the rewards of a healthful body. You have to starve the body first and exercise the fat off. It takes years for obese people to safely loose and then the skin is all stretched out and flabby. It takes a lot of character to turn that problem around. Big and beautiful is OK but not obese. I think is a disease. Yes.

If you eat 3000 calories a day and then go down to only eating 2000 a day the extra fat will disapear until your body has the fat reserves for its intake of 2000 calories a day.
Losing weight is not a drag. Incredibly obese people can lose upwards of 10 pounds of weight weekly if they make incredibly miniscule changes like standing during commercials. Obesity is not a disease. The black death was a disease. Cancer is a disease. All that happens from saying things like alcoholism and obesity are diseases is people will settle for it. "oh you have cancer? Yeah i've got a disease too....obesity." I hate to break the bad news to everyone but you have a CHOICE when you are obese or an alcoholic or a drug addict. You can stop. It's not easy but it is a choice you can make. I made a choice everytime i decided to stop using tobacco and didnt. It was not a disease. You can't decide to not have cancer. You CAN decide to take 10 minutes to prepare a healthy meal instead of driving down to a fast food joint or eating shit food. "how'd you get that disease bill?" "Well i just couldn't stop ****ing eating yeah it was so sudden" I don't care how much you weigh its a choice you make and if you're happy im happy but saying it is a disease is complete bullshit and is just a piss poor excuse. I always wondered why other countries made fun of my country. I can't wait til tomorrow when we decide being stupid is a disease so our shitty school teachers and dumb shit "yolo swag" children can have something to blame.

[lxskllr]

I'm kind of ambivalent about "disease" creep. I think applying it to drug addiction and obesity is stretching the point. It can be justifiably argued to apply by using a lax definition, but by doing so, it makes the classic definition more ambiguous. Stretching the definition is used to further an agenda of some kind, and doesn't serve a valuable classification goal.

[CoderGuy]

It would be like saying nicotine addiction is a disease. It's a choice too, and we have all seen how easy it is to quit if we want. The non-addicted make the same arguments; just stop, cut back until you don't want it anymore. Making it a disease just so we could get insurance funded treatment would be a waste, just as this is. If you want to quit, pay for it yourself, if you want to lose weight, pay for it yourself, if you want to stop drinking, stop paying for it. Right? Who's with me?

[lxskllr]

It would be like saying nicotine addiction is a disease. It's a choice too, and we have all seen how easy it is to quit if we want. The non-addicted make the same arguments; just stop, cut back until you don't want it anymore. Making it a disease just so we could get insurance funded treatment would be a waste, just as this is. If you want to quit, pay for it yourself, if you want to lose weight, pay for it yourself, if you want to stop drinking, stop paying for it. Right? Who's with me?

It doesn't have to be called a disease to cover it with insurance. When a tree falls on your house, it gets covered, and it didn't have to be called a fire to do so.

[CoderGuy]

It doesn't have to be called a disease to cover it with insurance. When a tree falls on your house, it gets covered, and it didn't have to be called a fire to do so.

Except they DON'T cover it in insurance, just like they don't cover smoking cessation. Classifying it as a disease is their way of forcing the issue.

[lxskllr]

Except they DON'T cover it in insurance, just like they don't cover smoking cessation. Classifying it as a disease is their way of forcing the issue.

Verbal games aren't the way to solve policy issues. It's dishonest. When you change rules that way, you might as well not have rules at all because anything is fair game then.

[CoderGuy]

Verbal games aren't the way to solve policy issues. It's dishonest. When you change rules that way, you might as well not have rules at all because anything is fair game then.

Now you're just describing the government LOL

[lxskllr]

Now you're just describing the government LOL

Exactly. I don't have much patience for legalese, and semantic maneuvering. Fsckin' lawyers could take a concept commonly understood by a six year old, and turn it into something you'd need a doctorate in linguistics to understand. It's bullshit, and it shouldn't happen, That creates an elite class that works in word cyphers, and leaves the rest of us plebes in the dark, or more accurately, *requires* us plebes to buy the services of a word decrypter.

[CoderGuy]

Exactly. I don't have much patience for legalese, and semantic maneuvering. Fsckin' lawyers could take a concept commonly understood by a six year old, and turn it into something you'd need a doctorate in linguistics to understand. It's bullshit, and it shouldn't happen, That creates an elite class that works in word cyphers, and leaves the rest of us plebes in the dark, or more accurately, *requires* us plebes to buy the services of a word decrypter.

From your lips to <non-descript deity of your choice>'s ears.

[Thunder_Snus]

I would LOVE to see the battle all insurance companies that offer health insurance get into because of this. And they rightfully should. Ya know what I don't like going to work everyday. I have a disease. My insurance should cover that. I should get paid my hourly wage plus something slightly above what i average in commision every month plus 1 or 2 thousand extra every month for my pain and suffering of this terrible disease.