From now on Obesity is classified as Disease (in US)

The American Medical Association, the nation's largest physician organization, decided Tuesday to recognize obesity as a disease that requires a range of medical interventions for treatment and prevention.

According to "F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2012," a study released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in September last year, adult obesity rates in 2011 exceeded 30 per cent in 12 U.S. states. The study projected that "if rates continue to increase at the current pace, adult obesity rates could exceed 60 per cent in 13 states, and all states could have rates above 44 per cent by 2030."

"The American Medical Association's recognition that obesity is a disease carries a lot of clout," says Samuel Klein, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "The most important aspect of the AMA decision is that the AMA is a respected representative of American medicine. Their opinion can influence policy makers who are in a position to do more to support interventions and research to prevent and treat obesity."

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Whether it actually is a disease or not, it was a right decision in my opinion. Obesity is a huge problem in US, costing billions of extra dollars a year for the country (of also other taxpayer´s money) + giving a bad example for the future generations. That is something that should be fought with. Unfortunately in other countries also overweight is becoming the new "normal", even though it is not and some of the example of it is coming from US, whether we like it or not... This decisions will hopefully lead to more government intervention, whether taxing fast food/soft drinks higher, banning fast-food and unhealthy meals from schools or just investing much more to health-related education and campaigns for awareness of this issue. I know many people would call it "nannying", but well, if too many people weren´t like kids and failed to take responsibility over themselves as grownups should do in the first place, somebody has to nanny, as this is negatively affecting the society as a whole.

I agree it should be classified as a disease...a mental disorder. Even if you have some medical condition that makes it hard for you to be at a healthy weight, it's not impossible to stay within at least 20-30 pounds of a healthy weight with sensible eating and moderate exercise.

It is more than a mental disorder. people eat out of boredom. People eat just for the sake of it.
For the taste, texture, sight, smell......but most of them dont even care to read the ingredients.

Of all the obese people in this country ... I wonder how many of them have a legitimate disease and how many of them just eat too many buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Originally posted by shaneslaughta
It is more than a mental disorder. people eat out of boredom. People eat just for the sake of it.
For the taste, texture, sight, smell......but most of them dont even care to read the ingredients.

If boredom isn't a mental issue..then what is? lol

The American Medical Association, the nation's largest physician organization, decided Tuesday to recognize obesity as a disease...

This disease has another name: Lazy

That is all.

I hardly see how obesity is "negatively affecting society as a whole", or how it's becoming the new "normal" since defining it as a disease all but says that it's abnormal and needs to be treated. I don't really understand how you can say we're setting a bad example for the future generation and then put the blame on kids being 'too dumb to take responsibility for themselves'. Or how you (And other people!) can imply that obesity is caused by irresponsibility, eating fast food and laziness.

It could be an eating disorder (and that means eating too much of ANYTHING, whether it's McDonald's or health food). Or a metabolism/thyroid disorder. Or genetics, to an extent. Or about a thousand other things that could cause/contribute to it. Generalizing it as people eating too much fast food and not being active enough is ridiculous and childish

tl;dr hypocrisy and ignorance everywhere

Originally posted by Hushabye

If boredom isn't a mental issue..then what is? lol

Its not, its called go for a bike ride, go on a hike, go for a swim.....run around in circles.

Get some damn exercise and quit playing COD all damn day long.

Seems odd to focus on obesity, a symptom, rather the disease behind the symptom.

Dont worry about whatever emotional or mental problems I have. Or even if I'm just lazy as hell and eat a dozen donuts for breakfast. Just worry about my fat.

Like scraping the blight off of leaves. The tree is still sick and dying but at least it looks better.

The medical-industrial complex wants to pathologize everything. I say someone's personal appearance or medical condition is none of my business, and no one else's either. You go, fat people!

reply to post by missflowers


You dont see how being lazy has given the society a lack of drive? The less you actually get out and do the worse you feel.

Im lazy once and a while....not every day to the point where i gorge myself on double cheeseburgers and pizza just for something to do.

And to it, the tech age has given people even less to do.

a hundred years ago people went out and built things, they planted gardens, they walked or rode horses to town.

I used to be about 100lbs overweight when i was younger, now im 190lbs 6 foot 1 inch. I dont hate fat people i just know that most lie to them selves to feed their unhappiness.

While i understand this isn't the 1900's anymore, we should still be doing things for our selves rather than letting machines do all the work while we sit around and get fat.

The more i think about it, it seems people these days will make up any excuse to sit around and do nothing.

Originally posted by starviego
The medical-industrial complex wants to pathologize everything. I say someone's personal appearance or medical condition is none of my business, and no one else's either. You go, fat people!

I haven't been to the doctor in 6 years, and i haven't been sick in as many.

Its all about the money, anything to make you go to the doctors, buy drugs that are legal, and support big pharma.
Oh and line big brothers pockets with tax money, and underhanded back room deals to FDA approve drugs.

reply to post by shaneslaughta

I dont hate fat people i just know that most lie to them selves to feed their unhappiness.

Here, here!!!

I was once overweight too. The difference was that I knew why I was overweight. I lacked the motivation to make healthy meal choices and to be diligent about being active.

When I began honestly and accurately counting my calorie intake and improving the quality of the calories I consumed, I began seeing results immediately. The results began showing at an increased rate when I scheduled an hour daily to exercise; be it running, walking, yard work, weight training, etc...the goal was to be active daily....sometimes "obsessive" about it (see my signature below).

Furthermore, at one point in my life I was visiting my doctor 8 to 12+ times a year with various ailments; however, since changing my eating & activity habits 8+ years ago, I have not been to the doctor at all (except for an annual physical).

Aside from extremely rare medical conditions, nobody has a legitimate excuse for being overweight; unless being overweight is their goal.

reply to post by LeatherNLace


Yep been there done, learned from my experiences and became happy with my self.

People were meant to be active, get buff and do hard work. Look at how they portrayed the Spartans in 300.

Because people used to look like that doing hard manual labor every day.

If we were made to be gelatinous blobs, why did we evolve with a spine instead of taking the form of an amoeba?

Originally posted by missflowers
I hardly see how obesity is "negatively affecting society as a whole", or how it's becoming the new "normal" since defining it as a disease all but says that it's abnormal and needs to be treated.

These were the reasons why it was labelled as abnormal in the first place.
Couple of examples of negative effects on society:
1) Less productive people, especially on jobs which require more physical activity.
2) More health issues for people, which leads to more worries, stress
3) Carrying extra weight has been linked to higher depression rates and anxiety issues.
4) Bad example for kids, when they see parents are overweight. Often the eating habits from parents transfer to eating habits of kids.
5) Extra costs for the government out of taxpayers money (even the one´s healthy) to cover the extra costs of diseases which have come from overweight (heart issues etc, US is already spending more than any country in the world on healthcare, one of the main reasons is the fact that there are far more expensive-to-cure diseases)

Becoming normal means that when people see it as it is okay to be overweight, as so many people already are. When everybody around are depressed one finds it more difficult to be happy just as when everybody else lives healthily it is harder to live unhealthily. Our environment affects us a lot. At the end everybody wants to fit in and when one is too different from others it is harder to fit in. That is common psychology, peer pressure in some ways, it can be both- positive and negative.

If parents are overweight, the likelyhood of the kids also being overweight increases significantly also and then the cycle repeats itself. There is a saying that every one of us is the mix of his/her 5 closest friends. That is also quite true in my opinion. Friends, family and often people we do not even expect to influence our behaviour more than we can think...

I don't really understand how you can say we're setting a bad example for the future generation and then put the blame on kids being 'too dumb to take responsibility for themselves'. Or how you (And other people!) can imply that obesity is caused by irresponsibility, eating fast food and laziness.

I did not put the blame on kids. You just did not get the point of that. As I was suggesting government intervention, then I know many people here in ATS dislike it and call it nannying. What I was doing was comparing overweight adults to kids. When one is overweight and does not do anything about it, he/she is acting like a kid not taking responsibility and needs nannying...

It could be an eating disorder (and that means eating too much of ANYTHING, whether it's McDonald's or health food). Or a metabolism/thyroid disorder. Or genetics, to an extent. Or about a thousand other things that could cause/contribute to it. Generalizing it as people eating too much fast food and not being active enough is ridiculous and childish

You are bringing in extremes. About 80-90% of people- large majority) are overweight because of their own actions... When you have eating disorder, go to a doctor, get rid of it. I have thyroid disorder - I got to it fast, changed my diet signifantly, a lot of sea food. Also my metabolism is rather slow. Yet I am in very good shape and low body fat (under 12%).

I personally know a couple of overweight people. At least from them I see no effort towards losing overweight, using car for moving nearly always, when you ask to come to practice/jogging, not a single time. They do not look what they eat, they eat whatever comes to mind. At work they do not move much. That is not laziness? To be honest, they have tried a few times to lose weight, although they have always quit withing a month, when no visible results have happened.

There have been numerous studies comparing the eating habits and moving habits of different people. Every single one has come to conclusion that overweight people move significantly less than people in normal shape on average and also the eating habits differ a lot, from sizes to selection of food.

There are things that might affect overweight but most of them can be overcome. You can not believe that 60% of Americans have some extreme condition that causes overweight, which other nations do not have. It is their lifestyle and eating habits that cause it.

I guess this will finally allow me to get help with my "triple cheesburger" addiction.
Well, I don't really eat a lot of triple cheeseburgers, just three cheeseburgers at a time.

Why is it that everything that tastes so good is so bad for you. I mean half-dozen eggs and half pound of bacon for breakfast is just a good way to start the day. And a half-gallon of ice cream in the cool evening air is just right.

I caught my obesity from sitting on a dirty toilet seat.

Or maybe it was that fat person on the plane next to me.

I hope it's not an STD!

Originally posted by teamcommander

Why is it that everything that tastes so good is so bad for you. I mean half-dozen eggs and half pound of bacon for breakfast is just a good way to start the day. And a half-gallon of ice cream in the cool evening air is just right.

I did not get whether it was sarcasm or not?

To be honest, everything you mentioned can be eaten, although in moderate amounts. The amounts you mentioned seem extreme.

For example, I often eat eggs with bacon in the mornings (altthough there is no real bacon here, just ham). 1 egg and one slice of ham (maybe 1-2 ounces) + a nice rye bread with tomatos and some coffee is enough for me personally to have energy till lunch, sometimes some fruit too in the middle as a snack - apple or banana usually. I love ice-cream especially in summers, although when I usually eat I eat 100g max at a time, just the size of medium ice cream at stores. (approx 4-5 ounces) and that is maybe once-twice a week in summers.

There are some things I noticed in US.

1) The sizes of meals differ a lot. Your small size can be compared to L/XL round here. I remember so well when I ordered a small meal at some breakfast place - potatoes with gravy or something like that. When it came, it was massive, I was so surprised. I ate it out of respect to the cooks, but at the end I was not far from starting to puke, I was so full. I can not imagine what the large one looks like. Same was with burgers, your small burger is our big one

2) Eating style differs a lot. I noticed so many people just basically pooring the food in, maybe chewing it once or twice. Compared to me who chews every piece for half a minute I like taking my time, enjoying the food. My colleagues finished their lunches in 10-15 minutes, while for me it took nearly 45-60 minutes, as the portions were large compared to round here, here I usually eat for 20-30 minutes maximum. At the end I just started to take my own food, as I preferred eating this rather than the large meals at the place we ate at. Cheaper and I do not like leaving food on my plate after eating.

These might play quite some role in the overweight problems. When eating, it takes time when one won´t feel hungry anymore. Smaller amounts are enough calory-wise, but when eating too fast, as the bodies reaction speed is slow, one does feel hungry even though he/she has already gotten enough calories and eventually eats far more than actually needs. It is an illusion, which is hard to break when it has become habit.

Being overweight isn't bad. In america, at least, being overweight is linked to a longer lifespan versus being normal weight or underweight. Being obese is linked to a shorter lifespan, though.

HO'WEVER, this is just what we see in the USA. When you examine other countries, you get a range of average BMIs and average lifespans. Japan, for example, has an average bmi of about 22.5, yet its average lifespan is #1 in the world. France's average BMI is about 24.5, yet its average lifespan is in the top 10. The US, by comparison, has an average BMI of 29 and an average lifespan ranked at #33 globally. Denmark has an average BMI of about 25 and its average lifespan is about the same as the US. Clearly, there's more to lifespan than what your BMI is.

Generally, countries with bmi's lower than 25 have shorter lifespans, but this doesn't mean you cannot potentially live long. It's just that MOST people - globally - will not live AS long. Sri Lanka, for example, has a average bmi of about 20.7 and an average life expectancy of 75. Singapore is another rare example that's closely aligned with Japan in terms of low-normal bmi and high life expectancy. China has an average bmi of 24 and a average life exptencancy of about 76.

(the US has an average life expectancy of about 78... Japan is 82)

Note: In all cases where I use "lifespan," just replace it with "life expectancy".

Originally posted by teamcommander
I guess this will finally allow me to get help with my "triple cheesburger" addiction.
Well, I don't really eat a lot of triple cheeseburgers, just three cheeseburgers at a time.

Why is it that everything that tastes so good is so bad for you. I mean half-dozen eggs and half pound of bacon for breakfast is just a good way to start the day. And a half-gallon of ice cream in the cool evening air is just right.

Absolutely nothing wrong with the above, as long as you're feeding 3 people for breakfast (and those cheese burgers).
For the ice cream, half a cup is a serving size although I do like to top my half a cup ice cream with caramel, and chocolate chips.....


If obesity is now a disease, does that mean those people that are obese now have a pre-existing condition? What does that do to the health insurance of people that have diseases that could be caused by obesity, like type 2 diabetes, etc? Is their obamacare cost going to rise even more