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Are we fat because we are sick?
Are we sick because we are fat?
More than 35 percent of U.S. adults and 17 percent of children and teens now have a disease, after the American Medical Association formally voted today to classify “obesity as a disease requiring a range of medical interventions.” That is 100 million Americans if you need the total.
The shift is aimed in part to get doctors to tackle obesity as if they were treating a disease instead of a lifestyle condition in need of modification.
While obesity may not have formally been considered a disease by doctors until now, the health condition has certainly been linked to diseases by growing bodies of research.
Studies have linked obesity to risk increases for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, stroke, liver disease, sleep apnea, breathing problems, osteoarthritis and joint pain, infertility, sexual side effects and cancers of the breast, colon, esophagus, pancreas and kidneys
The current definition of obesity is a 30 BMI or Body Mass Index.
So if you are under 30 BMI you have no disease. Then you gain weight, beyond the 30 BMI reading, now you are officially have a disease. So if you drop back under 30 BMI are you cured?
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National Institutes of Health has a cool BMI Calculator. Just click on scale to enjoy.
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This morning I weighed 201 pounds. I am 6 foot 2 inches. That puts me at 25.8. Dammit. I am overweight. If I lose 6 pounds today, no food, double my hot yoga session this evening and get down to 194 pounds, I will come in at a normal 24.9!
Long story short. None of this makes sense. The AMA wants my doctor to tackle obesity and force insurance companies to pick up the tab. If I don’t have a 30 BMI am I denied treatment. Hold on Doc, let me scoot over to McDonald’s real quick, be right back. The argument suggests my doctor now has the ability to aggressively treat my obesity, with drugs and surgery. Oh, I didn’t realize we had a cure for obesity not being offered to the public currently. So happy I finally hit that 30 BMI threshold. Hope I can maintain my weight.
What is the message?
Last week, Kaiser Permanate recommended its 17,000 doctors urge a plant-based diet to their patients. Kaiser said: “The future of health care will involve an evolution toward a paradigm where the prevention and treatment of disease is centered, not on a pill or surgical procedure, but on another serving of fruits and vegetables.”
This completely contradicts the AMA‘s push towards urging doctors to treat obesity not as a lifestyle condition but as a disease. In essence to treat obesity with anything available as a pill or surgical procedure.
The bottom line is neither the government nor the medical industry is going to save you. It’s semantics. You are fat, you’re not fat, you are diseased, you’re not diseased. The only person that sincerely cares about your health is you. If you believe you have a weight problem and it is causing other health issues then fix it. There are very simple solutions to weight loss that require nothing more than an effort. No doctor appointment, no pill, no surgery. Solutions that begin at the end of your fork.
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