Poll: Obesity as a Disease.

[Lunar Templar]

while I'm willing to concede some people will just always be 'fat' regardless of what they do to lose wieght

it's not a disease. it's just being lazy

 

[Luna]

If a 'normal diet', which I guess would be determined by society as 2000 calories, and it makes someone gain weight, then they simply need to consume less calories

Yeah, it really is that simple.
There is no such thing as a 'normal diet'. If you live in a cold environment and excercise a lot, than you need lots of calories to survive. When Dr Mike Stroud and Sir Ranulph Fiennes crossed the antarctic on foot in 1992/93, each man expended almost 7000 kcal per day, increasing to nearly 11,000 kcal during ascents..
If you live in a comfortable ar-conditioned apartment in the year 2012 sitting behind a computer 18 hours a day, and think that walking to the fridge to get a red bull is excercise, than you probably could survive on 800 calories a day.

The idea of how much a person should eat hasn't changed signifiantly over the last 50 years, whilst modern conveniences and lifestyle choices reduce our energy output. Therefore we get fat.

Too true about the 'normal diet'. I think that most guys who could sustain on 2000 calories are small and weak and/or have a very fast metabolism, but for a short woman with a slow metabolism could turn her into a chubby chubster.

But I don't think one could survive on 800 calories a day. 1000 calories and less is known as the starvation level, it was known as that even in 1918, (and I suspect people may have been generally shorter back then, if only a little, shorter = factor for less calories required), when many people in Germany found that this was all the food they could get, one of the reasons why they gave up in WW1. Also the body needs protein and fat so the source of the calories has some importance.

I must consume well over 3000 calories a day. I have 4 glasses of banana milk in the morning, (unless there's something other than cereal and toast in the morning), and load my plate up with meat+whatever else is for lunch and dinner and consume as much as I can in both of those meals. Then a couple hours after dinner I have a litre of milk with a scoop of weight gainer).

I'm around 180 pounds and I'm gaining weight very slowly. There are some people that could possibly become obese because of this diet. I guess most people who are obese simply don't want to be thinner, if they wanted it bad enough, they would find a way, (generally, there are probably some people with medical conditions out there.)

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Its not a disease...But it can be a symptom of a disease of the mind.

When your fat and nobody desires you, its easy to fall into a depressed place where you think its pointless to try and fix it.

Took me a long time to realise how easy it can be to lose weight if you put your all into it.

 

[The Lunatic]

Regardless of the cause, it's completely avoidable.

Eat to your needs, beyond your needs, you'll get fat.

Quite simple.

 

[babinro]

I'll go ahead and say yes. I'm sure some people genuinely can't control their obesity due to chemical imbalances/genetics or the like.

I assume that most obese people are like me though...they simply don't have the willpower and desire to make the dietary and lifestyle changes necessary to lose weight.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

Obesity is not a disease. It is a symptom. It might be a symptom of an underlying genetic disease, but it could also be a symptom of eating too much or moving too little.

So, could a person who is obese be that way due to a disease, yes. This does not mean that every obese person suffers from a disease.

I have genetics working against me, I will probably always have some amount of pot-belly. However, when I wasn't working out and watching my diet, I was obese by every definition. Now I'm still "overweight", but I'm running two miles three days per week, and lifting weights on the others; and staying under 2,000 calories a day.

Yeah, I may have a "disease" that makes it harder for me to keep weight off than a "normal" person, but if I decide not to do anything about it the resulting obesity is on me, not the disease.

Other people have more serious conditions, but I'm not really certain that the majority of people who want to call obesity a "disease" really have anything like that.

 

[Toby Kitching]

you, sir, know more than I, but i would assume that if it was genetic then the rates of obesity would not increase as lifestyle becomes more sedentary. that just screams 'ENVIRONMENTAL LINK' to me. Besides which i do worry about people who get obese, and then refuse to do anything about it because they think it might be entirely genetic and out of their hands, so they stuff their faces with fatty food and move an inch every few weeks and get huffy if you even mildly imply that their lifestyle may be unhealthy

 

[ShindoL Shill]

Obesity/being overweight is not a disease.
It can be a SYMPTOM of a medical problem.
But it itself is not a disease.

 

[RagTagBand]

No it isn't, Fatty. Stop making excuses.

 

[bullet_sandw1ch]

Eating too many pies is not a disease.

If you keep eating an excess of calories without burning any of it off, then of course you're gonna get chunky.

not always true. i think its extremely rare, but my uncle sleeps 20 hours a day, and has chips and beer for breakfast. he's clinically underweight.

 

[BishopofAges]

In videogame terms I see Obesity more of a status effect, like 'stoned' or 'dead tired' it's just a good deal harder to overcome and has bad effects attached.

The labeling of things as 'diseases' or 'illnesses' are different things because it's up to doctors to tell you, but status effects are obvious to everyone "Dude, you're stoned..." "hey man, you're kinda fat."

Spoiler: Rant

I believe that if I can walk for miles without rest, keep up with the kids in my family, and work a physically exhausting job without a break then it does not matter what my weight is, because I am damn-active enough to keep up with myself.

Happiness is a major factor, if you are unhappy with yourself, you can work towards change, if you are truly happy with yourself, screw other people and the high-horses they road in on.

 

[Pharsalus]

You have to work to lose pounds, you have to work to put them on as well. Genetic disorders may affect some, but obesity is due more to a lack of self control and ready access to cake than anything else.

 

[loc978]

It's avoidable. So is being unhealthily skinny. Eat well and exercise.

As for being a disease.. I guess both are, yes. The definition of disease is pretty damn broad.

 

[kickyourass]

It's more of a condition really, disease implies (At least to me) that it's something that can be caught, you can't catch being fat. While there are some things that place it somewhat out of a person's control (Glandular problems for example) it IS something that a person can counteract if they wish to and that doesn't really say disease to me.

 

[Rofl Harris]

The problem with being obese, is that you're too fat.

So if you stop being fat, that'll probably help.

 

[tobi the good boy]

I think the definition of "disease" is technically a bit broader than people generally use it, and that it actually includes pretty much anything that causes problems that isn't the result of direct physical injury.

Read this post, It is on the front page for gods sake. Why does everyone seem to think a disease means something like cancer or the plague...

EDIT: I'm not standing up for people who blame it for being a disease, I'm just sort of annoyed people don't understand what the term actually is.

 

[Phisi]

I think obesity could be an illness in some kind of anti-anorexia way but then it would really be a symptom, the underlying cause for shoving food down you gullet would be the illness. So not a disease by itself though wait gain can be a symptom of other diseases.

 

[Starik20X6]

Some people have slower metabolisms, or their bodies naturally retain fats more than other peoples. But the fact remains that said fat has to get into your body somehow, it doesn't just appear. So, no. Being 'fat' is not genetic anymore than having a broken leg is genetic.

 

[Batou667]

I would question the 40-70% statistic, unless that's somehow unique to Westerners and predominantly Caucasians.

Where are the 40% of obese Chinese, or Kenyans, or Swedes?

If America has an obesity epidemic it's less to do with genetics and more to do with lifestyle and American food regulations. And, you know, public education on the issue, which is being actively held back by yet again medicalizing a social issue because it lets lazy people feel better about their poor decisions.

 

[lacktheknack]

I knew a girl (recently deceased at 28) who got reversible gastric bypass, grocery shopped under supervision, bought only healthy things, and attended multiple health programs. She remained obese (and died of a heart attack) regardless. The issue was that her "eating too much" overlapped with "starving to death" with no in-between - her body remained in constant hardcore fat-storage mode at all times.

Yes, it can be an actual disease. However, the above illness is so rare (caused by very specific brain damage) that trying to blame your fatness on it is laughable, especially if you're complaining about it while eating buffalo wings while sitting in a obesity scooter.