There's a lobbying effort underway to classify obesity as a disease. But to understand what's behind this effort, you have to examine the politics. As always, it's all about money: getting obesity classified as a disease opens up the doors to forcing insurance companies to pay for anti-obesity drugs, products and services.
The very fact that we even have an American Obesity Association (AOA) is rather frightening in the first place. The second fact that the AOA has Slim-Fast as one of its members is even more shocking (Slim-Fast powder uses refined sugar as it's #1 ingredient and, in the opinion of many nutritionists, it promotes obesity rather than reversing it).
So let's jump to the chase: is obesity really a disease? Hardly. It's the result of overeating processed foods and avoiding exercise. That's not a disease in the sense that, for example, Malaria is a disease.
The trend towards labeling every unwanted behavior a disease is actually a ploy to shift responsibility for obesity out of the hands of patients and into the hands of doctors. When you call something a disease, you imply that the patient has no control over it (which is blatantly false) and that only qualified doctors can treat it (which is also hogwash).
Let's get real, folks: finding a healthy body weight is the
sole responsibility of each individual and has nothing to do with "disease" or invasion by microbes. Doctors can help, of course, by educating patients on making wise food choices and engaging in daily exercise, but it is ultimately the patient who must decide what kind of health outcome they wish to create. The doctor
cannot control a patient's body fat.
All this doesn't mean that losing
weight is easy, or that nature hasn't programmed your body to store a year's worth of caloric energy in the form of body fat. Because, in reality, your body is programmed to work against you: it
wants you to overeat and doesn't want you to go on a diet and lose weight.
But today, we have all sorts of workable solutions for losing weight. Hoodia gordonii turns off your appetite, allowing you to lose weight naturally, without all the jittery side effects of caffeine supplements.
Fitness programs, aerobics classes, and plain old walking paths give us easy access to forms of exercise that keep body weight under control. And now, thanks to good information on the Internet about nutrition and foods (along with the help of a long list of couragous authors, researchers and pioneering doctors), a person who wants to learn how to eat healthy can rather easily do so.
Education is what will solve the
obesity problem. The free flow information is the answer, not some profit-minded effort to classify obesity as a disease.
Make no mistake: calling obesity a disease will do nothing to reverse the problem at a national level, but it will certainly enrich a small group of companies who strongly desire to profit from the suffering of overweight people.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and award-winning journalist with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He has authored more than 1,800 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, and he has authored and published several downloadable personal preparedness courses including a downloadable course focused on safety and self defense. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In mid 2010, Adams produced TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural health video sharing website offering user-generated videos on nutrition, green living, fitness and more. He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also a noted pioneer in the email marketing software industry, having been the first to launch an HTML email newsletter technology that has grown to become a standard in the industry. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org
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Sunday, November 09, 2003
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