Is Being Fat A Disease? (Obesity)

8 Comments

Posted by Ron Merk on December 18, 2009 at 12:53 pm

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Ron Merk

This question is the heart of all the problems associated with the lack or support and treatment for people with obesity. Almost all Governments consider obesity a life style choice. Life style choice equals “your fault” and “fix it” yourself.

If you’ve read my articles before, you know that I urge people to be advocates for Weight Loss Surgery reform. Certainly in Canada we have a long journey to go before we get Provincial Governments and Health Authorities to view Weight Loss Surgery as required treatment for a disease called Obesity. I’m afraid that many of us have targeted the wrong issue when it comes to weight loss surgery. The obvious and most visible result of bigotry against obesity is the reduction of budgets by Health Authorities to fund surgery. Classifying Weight Loss surgery as “elective” insures that it comes last after all other surgeries are funded. Frankly you can get a hang-nail dealt with easier and way quicker than you could ever get weight loss surgery.

All of us have asked why funding has been cut for WLS and demanding that funding be re-established, but I beleive that we’re asking the wrong questions.

What we really need to ask is why are our Governments and Heath Authorities minimizing Public health measures and preventive medicine for Obesity that other conditions often receive generous funding for?(eg Heart Disease/healthy diet, annual physical examinations, immunization programs, smoking cessation campaigns, promotion of exercise and active lifestyles). Whether and how our institutions and organizations pay for obesity treatment should ultimately depend on what health outcomes we value, how much we value them, and the cost of achieving them.

Right now our Health Authorities and Government consider Obesity to be a “self inflected” condition or situation which is not a diseases but does represent serious risk factors to health. These attitudes are driven by the professional consultants and team members of the Provincial Ministries Of Health, Health Authorities and College of Physicians. (in other words – Doctors) – yes, I said Doctors!

I beleive we will not see any major gains in funding for WLS until we see a shift in the way the medical profession views Obesity and consequently policy makers in our Health System. In future articles we’ll examine the specifics of why Obesity should be considered a disease. Until then consider expanding your advocacy to not only ask for funding but to also begin to “educate” our medical professionals and political policy makers on Obesity. Here are some suggestions:

Write a letter to you Provincial College of Physicians explaining why you beleive Morbid Obesity is not just a life style choice, but is a disease.
Write the same letter to your MOH – Policy Makers
Write more letters to all those politicians again, but this time , don ask for funding – rather explain Obesity as a disease that is treatable via weight loss surgery.
Share this article everywhere!
Comment here on this article
Stay tuned for future coming articles which will provide facts that Obesity IS a treatable disease.

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8 Comments

On December 18, 2009 at 3:45 pm nina said

I am going to follow the suggestion you’ve laid out in your article. The fact is, in my opinion, the general population will eventually come to the same conclusion regarding obesity as it did with smoking ciggerettes. But only when the problem is so big it is costing tax payers billions and billions to try to fix the problem that could have been minimized if only they took a second to really understand the benifits, long term and immidiate, to society and to the individual as a whole.

On December 18, 2009 at 11:25 pm Adele said

Frankly, when you have PCOS, which is a myraid of different symptoms, that are all treated indivdiaually, you never get to treat the obesity side of it. You do eventually get Type 2 diabetes, however many individuals live with Insulin resistance for years.

If I ate smaller potions I would eat less than my 7 year old. If I exercised more, I would seriously hurt myself as my lower body can not handle my upper body. I can’t do more to loose weight, and so my depression spirals out of control.

Why can the controls that be not realize that like PCOS, there are a variety of reasons that contribute to obesity. I am Insulin Resistant. My body does not process sugars like it should, how is that a lifestyle choice?

On December 19, 2009 at 10:14 am sunita kumar said

This article makes me mad that our health care professionals are so ignorant……I guess not alot of politicians are morbidly obese, otherwise they would be pushing for more funding.

On December 19, 2009 at 11:04 am Colleen said

maybe its just me…..but it seems like most doctors like to blame alot of whats wrong with me because of my weight….even if it was a lifestyle choice….how is it so much different than drinking or smoking?. those too affect your body…. i saw a commercial on ythe food network one daythat said eating bad effects your liver much like alcohol abuse. Doctors will treat you for diseases associated with drinking and smoking….food is an addiction too, and it makes me angry cuz i cant just stop eating and people dont understand that. i think i have been waiting for more than 4 years now….im 27 and by 24 i hadto have my gallbladder out, and by 25…. my hair started falling out because of a bad fattty livcer. why wont they help us!

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On December 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm Ron Merk said

Great comments – There must be more of you out there that have feeling about this??
Take out latest poll – Side-Bar: I beleive doctors understand that morbid obesity is a disease and treat it as such? Yes, No, Maybe?

On December 19, 2009 at 8:42 pm jeanh said

Being that most, if not all obese people at some point of time in their lives did not believe obesity was a disease themselves, hence I can lose the weight on my own theory, we have a lot of hard work ahead of us to convince the medical professionals (including research), politicians’ and the general population that obesity is a disease, as we first must believe in order to be convincing.
I personally believe that obesity is a disease that comes from many levels (hereditary, emotional and mental), which makes it hard for anyone to fully understand it and for a number of people if they do not understand something they do not believe it. There is no way to formulate a cookie cutter treatment, which means we all must advocate our individual issues, so that others can start to understand and believe what we (the obese community) are living with on a daily basis and that obesity is a major health issue with severe consequences if left untreated.

On December 20, 2009 at 6:13 pm Frances said

I think that people with obesity such as myself are treated much like people with other illnesses, particularly mental health issues. Both are pushed aside,as people try to look right past anybody with either disease and yet both illnesses are interconnected with the rest of the body. Society in general tries to departmentalize what part of health is acceptable and what isn’t, what they loose sight of is the person. Instead of treating signs and symptoms separately, a person needs to be treated as a whole. I think Obesity is as much an illness as any other disease.

On December 20, 2009 at 8:30 pm suzanne said

Great points as usual Ron! What really bothers me is when you go to these WLS specialists and they tell you to loose 50lbs or so FIRST! Obviously if we were able to do so, we already would have!

I actually got a email from my MLA on Friday and he wants to speak to me more about the cutbacks and surgery I’m going to bring your points up with him!