Obesity, in recent months, has ben referred to as a medical epidemic in the United States. Is it?

That is from comidian Greg Giraldo. It pretty much sums up alot of points....

In all seriousness though, we do have a problem, but I'm not sure as I'd address it as an "epidemic."

I'm not a doctor, but the dictionary's telling me that an epidemic is "An outbreak of a contagious disease that spreads rapidly and widely." I think obesity's a disease, all right, but is it a contagious disease? I guess it's open to debate, but it's certainly an atypical epidemic if it is one.

A deterioration in health isn't necessarily a disease. These bodies were never made to be immortal. They age. Obesity affects health & therefore health care but its not an epidemic disease. Its a deterioration of lifestyle or quality of life. Its causes are a combination of things. Marketing towards children, increased reaction to handle stress with instant gratification, the increased stress which led to the need for gratification in the first place, all the intense marketing research to find what appeals to the human mind and senses to make a product as addictive as possible, namely fats & sugars in a variety of forms and all the subliminal appeals to make you buy a product. I read once about two or three common food additives have mild inflammatory effects which in turn slow metabolism. There's a combination of causes all of which are in excess here in America.

Good points. It's not contagious, so maybe it's not a medical epidemic in the classic sense.

However, some feel that the explosion in cases of obesity and the level of hazard to one's health that obesity presents constitutes at the very least a medical emergency that needs to be addressed on a national level. Should the health agencies, government agencies, and private organizations allocate the same type of attention and resources towards fighting obesity that are used for other major illnesses/diseases?

It depends. Obesity is deadly, and yes, there are some cases that this or that caused it, but I still hold to the now seemingly arcane idea that if people would shut up and eat better, a majority of the cases would go away.

You can only blame it on pop culture or working classes or whatever so far, its ultimately somewhat controlable by the person, not to the same extent say...cancer is.

That being said, we should be devoting resources to it merely do to the fact it is such an issue. Education, again, is key here.

You can't blame it on pop-culture alone, there's a good body of evidence that the mere presence of a food surplus is the main cause of obesity. People eat more than they need if they can, and the fact that we now manage to produce so much food that we pretty much always have access to more food than we need means we just get fat. Healthier lifestyles can and should be encouraged, yes, but obesity isn't an "American" thing, it's not caused by a fast-food culture (though that exasperates the problem), but humanity in general would experience the same problem with the same abundance of food.

I think this is the assertion that's in question. A lot of people who are morbidly obese have a strong genetic predisposition to it. It's that, COMBINED with the fast-food "all you can eat" culture that produces the "epidemic." I think it is being labeled an epidemic insofar as individuals can't control their genes (nature), and they've been brought up in a culture of overabundance (nurture). When both nature and nurture are stacked against you, it's hard to tell someone to just shut up and eat less.

Obesity isn't a disease; it's a combination of a lack of restraint and horrible eating habits.

The golden arches are the easiest target.

Well it seems that it's not completely due to lack of restraint and horrible eating habits:

From CDC

It seems to hit from all angles--biological/genetic, sociological (living in a culture of overabundance), and psychological (one's personal eating habits and self control). And it seems that all three factors need to be in play to result in obesity.

Some people are just naturally obese. And if you're not naturally obese, you can't get but so big.

Some people may be genetically programmed to be naturally obese, yes. But the alarm is the growing number of morbidly obese. Morbid obesity is rarely genetically programmed.

Of course not, but eatting fastfood for most of your meals doesn't help.
You can't really blame everything on society. You choose to eat whatever you want.
You can have a salad or a Bacon Cheeseburger w/fries and a coke.
It's not that we can't, it's that we don't care. So you're fat? A lot of people are.
Restricting your diet takes a lot of self-control.
Getting physically active takes time and effort.
Who would be willing to do all that?
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People are trying to prove smoking is less dangerous than junk-food.

Source: "Junk-food jihad"
Link

But are there other causes to the increase of morbid obesity other than uncontrolled eating which society should examine? Such as food additives or genetic enhancing. Should so much emphasis be placed on making food addictive by the food and restaurant industry? Should they be restrained? We ban car industry from putting cars on the street that go too fast. If there's so little nutrition in a Big Mac while so filled with empty calories then shouldn't this stuff be called candy instead of a meal? Is there mislabeling going on?

What is a serving? From what I've heard it's about half the size of your fist. A Big Mac is a meal alright, but how many meals? It doesn't matter what you labeled it though, people would still buy it. You could call it the Big 'O Nastry Gonna Eventually Kill You Mac! It's FAST, and it's "FOOD". People know for a fact it's horrible to eat, and they're still willing to come back time and time again.

Well let me clarify that just because someone is obese or morbidly obese does not mean we eat out. I am a chubby girl and I eat out maybe twice a month. Genetics plays a HUUUUGE part in the size of a person.

I agree that this is a growing problem. Today you have more media and entertainment which makes obseity more easy to obtain because people don't go outside. Not that I'm doing anything different right now.

I understand the reasoning behind this, but I mean, come on.

Obesity can be a disease, one that maybe 1 out of every 5,000 over weight people have. I have no source for that, I'm exaggerating.

But really, I can see it every day, parents just feed their kids whatever the fuck they want, I saw it at the bowling alley a few days ago, these parents, not big at all, walking around with about 5 overweight kids who never stopped eating the entire time they were there. That's where this bullshit obesity fuck epidemic is coming from. Stupid lazy parents who don't know how to tell their kids "no, you can't have a fucking lolly pop, you weight more than I do, fatass" which is really what someone needs to tell them.

And the epitamy of American fat fuck culture was at my sisters graduation. A fat family sitting in front of us, one of the girls was in my class when I used to go to that school, and referred to herself as "big boned" (she was fat, and maybe big boned, but there would have been know way of telling how big boned she actually was, because her fat consumed all of it). Her five year old brother sitting on her mother's lap, falls asleep. There is no fucking possible way of putting into words the fatness of this five year old. I'm not trying to be mean, really, but this five year old was the fattest thing I've ever seen. Probably wieghed a little more than double my weight, and at the time I was around 130. I turned to my mom, who teaches at the school, and inquired how it was possible that a kid of five be that large. She explained to me what his mother packed him for lunch, three lunch boxes filled with little snack thingies, doritoes, overy kind of meat, AND a lunchable. All of which this five year old boy ate every day. Followed by his mom picking him up with two bags of unknown foods from McDonalds. That, my friends, is a different kind of sickness. That's a mental illness, not even a mental illness from the five year old, but a mental illness from the mother. Who was so fucking oblivious to her child's weight, that she HONESTLY believed that he wasn't fat.

This "epidemic" does not deserve to be approached with a nice, pussyfoot, friendly way. It needs to be approached with a figurative slap in the face for all parents, followed by a "YOUR CHILD IS FUCKING FAT, AND ITS YOUR FAULT". Otherwise the mortality rate in this country will go down to about 40ish by 2035.

Not everyone who's heavy is to blame themselves. I was raised to eat healthy and be active and I'm still big. It's genetic with me, and I also have a digestive disorder. That's mainly the cause if it.

However I'm proud and I wouldn't change my appearance for the world. I'm kinda glad I'm not thin, because that helps me to advance the other talents I have, such as writing and interior design.


However this does not mean I'm for feeding kids all sorts of fattening foods. Every kid I have taken care of I have fed nutritious foods to, even if I had to shove it down their throat. Not because I don't want them to become heavy, but because they need it for their survival. That's just basic.