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It's no disease, it's a cultural problem.
If you drink softdrinks instead of water, eat snacks full of sugar and fat instead of fruits and are neglecting to do any form of sports, well... what do you expect?
Calling it a disease just upgrades it to a higher taboo in problematic countries. That's not a good idea, because the first step to deal with a problem is to speak about the problem.
I was a bit more chubby two years ago (I wasn't unhealthy obese, just a bit plump) and I can tell you that it is not fun - you are confronted with your problem often. This can make someone really sad, I don't really want to be in the position of a kid with such a problem.
But on the other hand, if the highly obese guy never gets reminded about his problem, he may see it as unchangeable. Until he dies because of a heart attack at the age of 35.
And genetics IS an excuse (at least to a certain degree). I can do a lot of sports and eat very healthy without seeing a lot of change (I'm talking about running 6 to 10 miles 4 to 5 times a week, doing daily workouts and eating absolutely no junkfood, sugary food - except fruits and vegetables - and drinking a lot of water - I looked healthy and stuff, but far from what you expect me to look since I did this for half a year without breaking any of those habits).
While if I'm undergoing a stressful time and can't focus on that - boom - 10 more pounds in a few weeks.
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On June 21 2013 16:18 Fix637 wrote:
It's hard to tell if this is a good choice or not.
On the one hand, obesity is a serious problem in our country and is the cause for an alarming number of health problems. There needs to be serious research done into not only preventing obesity but figuring out why it is so rampant to begin with.
On the other hand, a disease is generally perceived as being something that is out of the victim's control. It makes for an interesting semantic argument when we look at something like liver cancer, which is defined as a disease but is caused almost exclusively (to my knowledge, definitely not a doctor here) by a person's abuse of alcohol. Yet it is undeniable that liver cancer is a disease that we have to treat very seriously.
Likewise, obesity is caused almost exclusively by a person's life style choices. There are definitely people who can't control it, but those people are a serious minority. Labeling obesity as something that cannot be controlled by the victim could do more harm than good, as people who are already making excuses for their poor life style choices and health will now have a valid medical scapegoat.
Regardless, I think it's important that physicians do away with BMI as a measure of obesity. It's absolutely ludicrous. My girlfriend is 5'2'' and curvy, but not obese in any sense of the word. Yet she went and had a free biometrics test done and was labeled obese due to her BMI, which is absurd (not to mention incredibly damaging for a woman's self-esteem). So technically, according to this new ruling, she has a disease because her BMI is over 30, despite a higher BMI being an uncontrollable product of her physical makeup.
I am sorry, but you missed on almost all accounts.
A disease is not something that is outside of the victims control. And obesity is not completely within the control of a patient (though the coping mechanisms of many an obese is not exactly helpful in limiting the weightgain) - as argued plenty of times throughout this thread.
Liver cancer can be caused by many other things. Hepatitis just to mention one.
BMI should not be done away with, but it should not be used brainlessly. It is cheap, simple and very well correlated with a wide range of conditions. However flawed it is, it is still a great screening tool when applied correctly.
The AMA has specifically chosen to label obesity as a disease, NOT an illness. All of you are arguing whether or not it should be an illness. (Click for explanation)
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The only thing that worries me about calling it a "disease" is in the solution... or rather, "treatment". If it ends up as just an excuse to create new artificial medications without actually addressing the fundamental problems of the food industry, then labeling it as a "disease" could end up being a cop out and missing the forest for the trees.
Also, this is the AMA we're talking about. A politically right leaning organization with a historically strong lobby against universal health care etc.
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Disease is just an abnormal condition. Is carrying too much fat an abnormal condition?
Dont make up different definitions of the word based on personal beliefs
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Whatever it takes to protect the Food industry from getting blamed for the alarming development of obesity in Western countries...
No it's got nothing to do with "insert any snack, fast food, soda drink,etc.", it's a disease, which must be treated with medecine!
What? you've successfully protected the food industry AND are going to get more money in the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry?
Fuck AMA, you're that good. Congratz.
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On June 21 2013 16:48 nota wrote:
Disease is just an abnormal condition. Is carrying too much fat an abnormal condition?
Dont make up different definitions of the word based on personal beliefs
Same goes for you. Disease refers to a condition which impairs normal function. When you are obese and can't walk up to the third floor, you are impaired.
EDIT:
Big Pharma is not going to benefit from this unless they figure out some new pathway to target. The amount of drugs that have been tried with extremely limited or zero effect is staggering. Novo Nordisk had a somewhat promising drug in the pipeline which got delayed by the FDA for at least another 3 years.
All diseases do not requiring medication - take a broken bone for example.
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10 burgers a day cause sickness that cause physical deformities? Really?
wait to hear what Ricky Gervais has to say on the subject
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On June 21 2013 03:50 Attica wrote:
Are people going to be getting disability now because they are fat and lazy.
they already do
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On June 21 2013 16:50 Ghostcom wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 16:48 nota wrote:
Disease is just an abnormal condition. Is carrying too much fat an abnormal condition?
Dont make up different definitions of the word based on personal beliefs Same goes for you. Disease refers to a condition which impairs normal function. When you are obese and can't walk up to the third floor, you are impaired. EDIT: Big Pharma is not going to benefit from this unless they figure out some new pathway to target. The amount of drugs that have been tried with extremely limited or zero effect is staggering. Novo Nordisk had a somewhat promising drug in the pipeline which got delayed by the FDA for at least another 3 years. All diseases do not requiring medication - take a broken bone for example.
My statement was not made opposing what the AMA decided. I was more referring to people in this thread saying they dont view it as a disease because of xyz.
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On June 21 2013 16:56 nota wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 16:50 Ghostcom wrote:On June 21 2013 16:48 nota wrote:
Disease is just an abnormal condition. Is carrying too much fat an abnormal condition?
Dont make up different definitions of the word based on personal beliefs Same goes for you. Disease refers to a condition which impairs normal function. When you are obese and can't walk up to the third floor, you are impaired. EDIT: Big Pharma is not going to benefit from this unless they figure out some new pathway to target. The amount of drugs that have been tried with extremely limited or zero effect is staggering. Novo Nordisk had a somewhat promising drug in the pipeline which got delayed by the FDA for at least another 3 years. All diseases do not requiring medication - take a broken bone for example. My statement was not made opposing what the AMA decided. I was more referring to people in this thread saying they dont view it as a disease because of xyz.
In that case I would like to apologize.
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On June 21 2013 16:24 Prugelhugel wrote:
It's no disease, it's a cultural problem.
If you drink softdrinks instead of water, eat snacks full of sugar and fat instead of fruits and are neglecting to do any form of sports, well... what do you expect?
Calling it a disease just upgrades it to a higher taboo in problematic countries. That's not a good idea, because the first step to deal with a problem is to speak about the problem.
Too true. If I go to a McDonalds here in Japan a large size fry or drink is roughly equivalent to a small in America. All portions here are toned down extremely from what I grew up knowing. After living in many other countries besides America I have learned truly it really isn't a disease and people are just stupid and don't care about what or how much they are putting into their body, and how quickly it all adds up to becoming obese.
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On June 21 2013 17:04 yokohama wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 16:24 Prugelhugel wrote:
It's no disease, it's a cultural problem.
If you drink softdrinks instead of water, eat snacks full of sugar and fat instead of fruits and are neglecting to do any form of sports, well... what do you expect?
Calling it a disease just upgrades it to a higher taboo in problematic countries. That's not a good idea, because the first step to deal with a problem is to speak about the problem.
Too true. If I go to a McDonalds here in Japan a large size fry or drink is roughly equivalent to a small in America. All portions here are toned down extremely from what I grew up knowing. After living in many other countries besides America I have learned truly it really isn't a disease and people are just stupid and don't care about what or how much they are putting into their body, and how quickly it all adds up to becoming obese.
Whether or not a person's actions can affect obesity has no affect on it being defined as a disease.
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what the shit.. is this real life ?
Im just waiting to see carrots and apples in drugstores..
brilliant..
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If you smoke tobacco, you might get lung cancer.
If you drink sodas everyday, you might get fat.
Fat as a symptom of a disease means it is a disease, just like how other diseases can lead to other problems as well. The reason it wasnt considered a disease before is because you had to eat a lot of food in order to get obese to the point where it starts causing hypertension, heart problems, etc.
The bigger problem behind this is what the pharmaceutical companies and doctors are going to do with this...
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On June 21 2013 17:18 imBLIND wrote:
If you smoke tobacco, you might get lung cancer.
If you drink sodas everyday, you might get fat.
Fat as a symptom of a disease means it is a disease, just like how other diseases can lead to other problems as well. The reason it wasnt considered a disease before is because you had to eat a lot of food in order to get obese to the point where it starts causing hypertension, heart problems, etc.
The bigger problem behind this is what the pharmaceutical companies and doctors are going to do with this...
If big pharma had an adequate treatment, it would already be implemented. Disease or not wouldnt affect people
wanting to lose weight.
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On June 21 2013 03:50 Attica wrote:
Are people going to be getting disability now because they are fat and lazy.
oh yeah ofc you are lazy if you are fat. what a stupid comment
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On June 21 2013 17:28 arkedos wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:50 Attica wrote:
Are people going to be getting disability now because they are fat and lazy. oh yeah ofc you are lazy if you are fat. what a stupid comment
If you were fat and not lazy, you wouldn't need to collect disability.
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On June 21 2013 17:36 Dfgj wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 17:28 arkedos wrote:On June 21 2013 03:50 Attica wrote:
Are people going to be getting disability now because they are fat and lazy. oh yeah ofc you are lazy if you are fat. what a stupid comment If you were fat and not lazy, you wouldn't need to collect disability.
Still dumb. Being fat does not hinder you to do the same work as your normal weighing colleagues or do your studies with the same effort and sucess. If you really think this, you are either a douche or a fascist who thinks that only a healthy body can be useful and all that weird shit.
Well except for physical exhausting work (which is done by only a small percentage of the workforce in modern industrialized countries.).
Well sure you should do something against it (like a diet change + sports and stuff) if you are weighing too much, but still bash over those people is something that really freaks me out, because they've nothing done to anybody by being fat.
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On June 21 2013 17:56 arkedos wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 17:36 Dfgj wrote:On June 21 2013 17:28 arkedos wrote:On June 21 2013 03:50 Attica wrote:
Are people going to be getting disability now because they are fat and lazy. oh yeah ofc you are lazy if you are fat. what a stupid comment If you were fat and not lazy, you wouldn't need to collect disability. Still dumb. Being fat does not hinder you to do the same work as your normal weighing colleagues or do your studies with the same effort and sucess. If you really think this, you are either a douche or a fascist who thinks that only a healthy body can be useful and all that weird shit. Well except for physical exhausting work (which is done by only a small percentage of the workforce in modern industrialized countries.).
There are already people with severe obesity who do not work and collect disability as a result, taking no action to change their situation.
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On June 21 2013 17:58 Dfgj wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 17:56 arkedos wrote:On June 21 2013 17:36 Dfgj wrote:On June 21 2013 17:28 arkedos wrote:On June 21 2013 03:50 Attica wrote:
Are people going to be getting disability now because they are fat and lazy. oh yeah ofc you are lazy if you are fat. what a stupid comment If you were fat and not lazy, you wouldn't need to collect disability. Still dumb. Being fat does not hinder you to do the same work as your normal weighing colleagues or do your studies with the same effort and sucess. If you really think this, you are either a douche or a fascist who thinks that only a healthy body can be useful and all that weird shit. Well except for physical exhausting work (which is done by only a small percentage of the workforce in modern industrialized countries.). There are already people with severe obesity who do not work and collect disability as a result, taking no action to change their situation.
But thats something very different. If you are sooo fat (which is far beyond simple obesity) that you cant work at all, than it is often too late and you need help from outside like surgery etc..
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EPT
