Obesity now declared “disease”

[Thunder_Snus]

As a formally obese person, I'm not so sure it's as easy as that. Once I started to change my lifestyle, of course my weight changed but there are things that prevent a certain percent of the population from exercising good judgment when it comes to nutrition. I'd bet that it would better fit as a classification of a mental problem than a disease though.

Weight loss is not a complex game. It is calories in vs calories out. Your body naturally burns calories on its own. Anything about people with "fast or slow" metabolisms is complete bullshit. Although all metabolisms aren't entirely the same it follows a continual path. The more you weight the more calories you naturally burn. Thats why if you weight 200 pounds and eat 100 more calories per day than what is needed to maintain the same weight you will eventually become stable again at a higher weight. Trendy diets such as no carbs, all carbs, only eat bell peppers have any more significance than the given calories in vs calories out. Even workout programs that encourage you to "confuse your muscles" (muscles do not have a memory) are nothing more than things people believe to be the reason they're not losing weight and therefore have an excuse.

If you're obese I don't care. If you're incredibly underweight I dont care. The problem I have is that this is now a disease. People will be treated as if it is something that they have no control over when they very much do have control.

[GoVegan]

well....my take on it, if anyone is interested is..........We need fat people. When the world goes to shit, ie;natural or human caused disaster, and most of the population is starving if humans get hungary enough many will start to eat their neighbor to survive. It happens is other parts of the world that are not as "civilized" as most. Having fat neighbors would be a distinct advantage since they can't run away as fast and they provide more calories and protein.

Just wait till that time comes and you will see that humans will do whatever they need to do to survive.....That includes eating others and kissing ugly women.

To answer the question tho.....most people CAN control their weight and in most cases a change in lifestyle can prevent obesity. In some cases it is a medical issue or side effect from taking certain meds but that's way more rare than people simply wanting to pig out on unhealthy foods.

I don't think its proper to lump both groups together on this point. But at first glance I did laff at the title of this thread and thought the idea was a bit wacko. But the truth is there are people that can't lose the weight for medical reasons.

Similar to how that woman across the bar looks better after the bartender yells last call?

[SnusoMatic]

The mindset to despise obese people is not any different from the mindset to loathe tobacco users.

To use tobacco only requires that one gets benefits from that plant and it's main ingredient. To become obese only requires to eat one slice of bread or 100 calories too much per day for some years or to do one rather small footwalk per day by car instead.

Nothing spectacular is needed to get obese, just a slightly elevated sensitivity for hunger or a slightly higher appetite than normal-weight people have, a slightly lesser inclination to move or to exercise, or a slight miseducation, e.g., the wide-held belief that it's dangerous to feel hunger and that it's "healthy" to feel sated all the time (propagated by people from the medical profession, the same people who now declare obesity a disease).

Due to the history of our species we human beings are able to "run on so little fuel" that the feeling of hunger and the need to constantly work, move and exercise is our normal state of being. Some people just have difficulties to accept that.

McDonald's meals are not unhealthy at all and they aren't junk food. I think McDonald meals have quite perfect nutritional values with their combination of carbon hydrates, fat, protein and salt. Some people just need to be educated that one big meal at McDonald's at midday is enough for the whole day and that it's normal to feel a little hungry some hours later and that it's not unhealthy to resist that feeling.

We should be lucky that there are obese people. It's by any means better than the situation only 100 years ago, when it was normal that many people starved to death in a year with a bad harvest.

BTW, we tobacco users should be lucky anyway that the health Nazis now begin to target other "diseases", presumably because there is no longer more money to be made with anti-tobacco propaganda. The sooner a bigger portion of the population begins to realise that most health related propaganda is a hoax and most "concern for human well-being" is just a money-making-scheme by some second or third class (self-proclaimed) "medics", the sooner society will get back to normal.

Cheers!

i could not say it any better. i disagree with calling everything a disease. for example, mental illness is just a choice those people make. if they are homeless they choose to be homeless. also, people with cancer, they should have ate better, not smoked, worked out, etc. Calling diabetes a disease is nuts too. Me or my parents probably could have done something different and i would not have diabetes. Those people who are overweight could have kept it from happening, they had a choice and they chose to be overweight. Just like a drug addict has a choice and they choose to be crackhead $5 hookers.

seriously, i don't think everything is a disease but to write off overeating because they have a "choice" is to ignore a lot of truths. When I was a kid you ate everything you could get your hands on. To turn down food meant you might be hungry later. Parents made their kids finish their plates of food even if they did not want to. The first 40 years of my life I worked my tail off physically, hard manual labor. I ate like a pig and never gained an ounce and still got hungry before meals. I could start the day with a sugarfied soda, have five more during the day and my body was hard as a rock.

Guess what happened when I started doing sit down work? My body got soft and I gained weight. Eventually, I figured out that I can't keep eating like I was doing hard labor. By then I was 40 lbs overweight and I have not been able to get it off as of yet. Do I have a disease? I don't think so. Did I choose to be overweight? I accept responsibility for everything I do or don't do. Can I understand how someone could let it get away from them and get really big? I can. Would it be a choice? Sure but getting overweight is not always as simple as one might think.

Drug addicts have a choice to take the first drug. For some people after that they don't have much of a choice. Eating can be the same way for some people too.

I really do agree with chainsnuser.

studies say that almost half of those who use nicotine have a mental illness.

[harish]

^^^

whatever they call it, it is a disease

[truthwolf1]

Weight loss is not a complex game. It is calories in vs calories out. Your body naturally burns calories on its own. Anything about people with "fast or slow" metabolisms is complete bullshit. Although all metabolisms aren't entirely the same it follows a continual path. The more you weight the more calories you naturally burn. Thats why if you weight 200 pounds and eat 100 more calories per day than what is needed to maintain the same weight you will eventually become stable again at a higher weight. Trendy diets such as no carbs, all carbs, only eat bell peppers have any more significance than the given calories in vs calories out. Even workout programs that encourage you to "confuse your muscles" (muscles do not have a memory) are nothing more than things people believe to be the reason they're not losing weight and therefore have an excuse.

If you're obese I don't care. If you're incredibly underweight I dont care. The problem I have is that this is now a disease. People will be treated as if it is something that they have no control over when they very much do have control.

I agree but disagree to your calorie views. Calorie restriction was a absolute failure in my own diet plan. It was not til I started a fad diet like so many people call it that my body re-booted and I was seeing real results. Most of my entire life the nutritionists were spewing the anti-fat mantra and eat more grains which I followed better then most which was bloating me up.

People however will not listen to fringe, fad diets etc.. and will listen to their doctors.
Doctors will talk about counting calories, eating lowfat, exercising 3 times a week and then people will wonder why they continue to remain obese in the longrun. They will then be categorized with obesity syndrome like metabolic syndrome.

So, then they will try some drugs which will do who knows what harm, go under the knife or have liposuction done every 5 years on Obamacare.

[Bigblue1]

Does nobody else find it funny this proclamation comes just months before the new healthcare plan takes force?