Is Obesity a Disease or Lifestyle Issue?

Wait, is lung cancer a disease?

Many people believe that obesity can be overcome by eating less and burning more calories.  Many others think that those who aren’t able to lose weight are simply lazy and lead an undisciplined life. In short, “if you’re fat, it’s your fault.” The blame is almost always placed onto the overweight person. However, this is not true.

In 2013, the American Medical Association classified Obesity as a disease and not a behavior issue.

The American Medical Association defines obesity as a “chronic disease with adipose tissue dysfunction and abnormal fat mass physical forces that results in adverse metabolic, biomechanical, and psychosocial health consequences”.

Any condition is defined as a disease if it shows the following characteristics –

• impaired functioning of some aspect of the body
• shows characteristic signs and symptoms
• causes harm and morbidity

To determine whether obesity is a disease, let us look at each one of these characteristics.

Impaired function

Food intake is regulated by signals sent and received by the brain, and other parts of the body, including the gut, the pancreas, and the adipose (fat) tissue. This is how the feelings of hunger and body weight is regulated.

There are studies that show that the ‘Reward System’ can overrule this regulatory mechanism. Certain foods may act as a hormone that can reset the body’s target weight.

Insulin sensitivity is also impaired. The Insulin hormone regulates blood sugar. It takes up the sugar out of the blood and turns it into fat, muscle, and/or liver cells to be either stored or used as energy. High insulin levels may promote excess storage of fat and weight gain.

Characteristic Signs and Symptoms

Obesity shows its own characteristic symptoms of –

• excessive adipose (fat) tissue
• increased BMI
• increased waist circumference, and/or
• increased body fat percentage.

Harm and Morbidity

Obesity has been found to be associated with several medical conditions, that may show improvement as a person loses weight. These include –

• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Obstructive sleep apnea
• Osteoarthritis
• Gallbladder disease
• Fatty liver disease
• Polycystic ovarian syndrome
• Infertility
• Renal failure

Is lung cancer not a disease because a person chose to smoke and continue smoking? To say that obesity is not a disease but the result of a certain lifestyle, including overeating and/or inactivity would be saying the same thing in different words.

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medifastarizona Joined: June 21st, 2018