Helping People Lose Weight Via Traditional & Surgery Alternatives
Author
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:
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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.
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?
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!
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