Been wanting to rant about this…
I keep forgetting to talk about the article I read the other day, how the AMA now is officially classifying obesity as a “disease”. You know, like it’s something you catch like the flu or a common cold, beyond your control. Here are a few quotes from the article that made me see red and my thoughts about each…
Identifying obesity as a disease may also help in reducing the stigma often associated with being overweight, said Joe Nadglowski, president and CEO of the Obesity Action Coalition.
Reduce the stigma? More like provide an excuse or a victim mentality. “I’m obese, I have a disease that needs to be treated by the medical community”. This to me is utterly ridiculous. What is the point of providing obese America with yet another crutch to rest their sizable rear ends upon to support the lack of personal responsibility? This flows right into the next quote…
“Obesity has been considered for a long time to be a failure of personal responsibility — a simple problem of eating too much and exercising too little,” he said. “But it’s a complex disease… we’re hoping attitudes will change.”
Complex disease = complex cures that cost huge amounts of money to fix “professionally” instead of people just looking in the mirror and be honest with themselves. Labeling obesity as an official disease is a cash cow for anyone in the medical/pharmaceutical community. NEW FLASH – for the overwhelming majority of obese individuals the problem IS simply a failure of personal responsibility!
Nadglowski thinks the AMA’s support is also an important step in helping people gain access to obesity treatment. Most forms of insurance do not cover obesity alone. For instance, an obese patient cannot hire a nutritionist or a trainer and have it covered by his or her plan simply to lose weight”.
So the key to fighting the disease of obesity is having others pay for nutritionists or trainers to “fix” the obese population?? Again, simply moronic from my point of view.
To me this declaration is all about money as most things seem to be nowadays. Declaring fat people as diseased adds another large chunk (no pun intended) to the pool of humanity that can get treatment under insurance. Of course eventually this comes back to the rest of the population as higher insurance premiums and medical costs.
How will you feel when Fat Sally down the street just got put on permanent medical disability because she can’t stop stuffing pizza down her throat? Disabled via pizza, what a world we live in…
Rewarding bad behavior only encourages more bad behavior.
Devyn Damore
Let me preface by saying that I am certainly not the poster child for healthy lifestyle, and could certainly benefit from more visits to the gym. (although I do go) and a few less slices of pizza. However I share your opinions. Get this… at Disney World, (and likely most other amusement parks), the obese, whom often navigate the park on scooters, go right to the front of the line with the other handicapped people who legitimately can not stand in line. Now, take it a step further, there are businesses popping up in Orland that essentially “rent” out fat people to act as tour guides for families wanting front of the line access. Business is booming because the fee to rent a fatty for the day is a good bit less than Disney’s VIP front of the line program.