Comments on: Is Being Fat A Disease? (Obesity)

By: The Disease of Obesity – A Personal Perspective | WLS Support

The Disease of Obesity – A Personal Perspective | WLS Support — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:23:44 +0000

[...] By Ron Merk, December 22, 2009 7:30 pm After thoughtfully considering the recent article Is Being Fat A Disease? (Obesity), I felt compelled to offer my opinion. The short answer is yes! Obesity is certainly a disease but [...]

By: suzanne

suzanne — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:30:32 +0000

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!

By: Frances

Frances — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:13:24 +0000

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.

By: jeanh

jeanh — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:42:53 +0000

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.

By: Ron Merk

Ron Merk — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:00:54 +0000

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?

By: Colleen

Colleen — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:04:06 +0000

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!

By: sunita kumar

sunita kumar — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:14:51 +0000

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.

By: Adele

Adele — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 06:25:03 +0000

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?

By: nina

nina — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:45:55 +0000

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.