Yes, obesity is now classified as a disease by the American Medical Association (AMA). Do you agree?
Obesity is killing three more people than those who die from malnutrition. It claims more than three million lives a year worldwide, according to a landmark study.
There is no specific age required to be obese. Unfortunately even children and old people are becoming obese in most developed countries.
What is Obesity?
- Mildly obese- a person’s weight is 20% to 40% over ideal weight.
- Moderately obese- 40 to100% over ideal weight.
- Morbidly obese – 100% over ideal weight.
- Overweight – 10 to 20% over ideal weight.
This video shows the 10 Most Overweight Countries in the world with their customary foods. In this case overweight would be considered anyone over 10% of ideal weight.
Is it really a disease?
Obesity is mostly created by the obese person or by their surrounding environment and yes there are exceptions. It is not a sickness but certainly does often create disease. A person in the obese category who is otherwise completely healthy and happy is classified as sick. To classify it as being a disease allows people to not take personal responsibility for how they got there. This could be damaging.
Drug companies like this very much as it gives them the opportunity to sell even more prescriptions so more money into their big pockets.
“Calling obesity a disease could allow for obese people who require medical interventions to get the help they need. We need to be able to use this disease label to the extent that it makes people take obesity seriously, and not keep blaming people for being irresponsible.” says Marlene Schwartz, the acting director of the Rudd Center for Obesity and Food Policy at Yale University
Eating too much is a much more serious health risk to the health of populations than eating poorly, except for the sub-Saharan Africa according to the Global Burden of Disease study, published in a special edition of The Lancet.
“We have gone from a world 20 years ago where people weren’t getting enough to eat to a world now where too much food and unhealthy food – even in developing countries – is making us sick.” Said Dr Majid Ezzati, chair of global environmental health at Imperial College London.
World obesity rates on the rise: 480 million by 2022
Nine major countries (US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, Japan, Brazil and Canada) will increase from 167 million in 2012 to 213 million in 2022. According to healthcare.globaldata.com
America is no longer the most obese country among more populous nations. America is number 2 in the ranks, right behind Mexico, with 31.8 percent of its population classified as obese, and followed by New Zealand (26.5%), Chile (25.1%) and Australia (24.6%).
Almost 70 percent of Mexicans are overweight and almost one-third are obese. Mexican teenagers are also obese; they have tripled in the last decade. In Mexico 70,000 people die each year from diabetes,
“The same people who are malnourished are the ones who are becoming obese,” said physician Abelardo Avila with Mexico’s National Nutrition Institute. “In the poor classes we have obese parents and malnourished children. The worst thing is the children are becoming programmed for obesity. It’s a very serious epidemic.”
See how many people become obese every second: World Meters Info Obesity
Why is Obesity and Being Overweight on The Rise?
1. The excess of fast food available which has a large number of calories and harmful fats is the main reason for the increase in being obesity and being overweight is due to according to a survey by whichcountry.co. Fast food and home deliveries have replaced home cooking. Thank you America for exporting the love of fast food around the world! As a result it is exporting the increase of obesity around the world.
Mexico being the closest to America has had the greatest increase in obesity in the world. Mexicans drink the most soda, at 43 gallons per capita annually. U.S. agricultural policies are a big factor in fueling that addiction, says John Norris atForeign Policy.
2. Our new sedentary life style is another big reason. We sit at desks with computers, watch Television and take the car or bus to work. No walking anywhere.
3. Stress is a big factor. Eat to avoid and medicate. Eating for comfort or as a reward. Using food to feel better. Food is used to fill the void. People are lonely and disconnected from something deeper.
My Own Response to This Scary Trend
I see obesity or being over weight as a symptom of poor health. When people get healthier, weight drops off. What needs to happen is for people to get healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to get healthy.
This is why I constantly write about things like Acid/Alkaline Balance, Sugar Cravings, Smart Carbs, Food Combining and Powerfoods. I want to help people become healthy and then it naturally follows that they achieve their optimum weight.
Recently I started teaching my own healthy version of the trendy 2 – 5 Diet. In that course I emphasize getting healthy even though it has a focus on losing weight.
Eat more salads with healthy salad dressings:
Tomato Dressing Some fast food salads have more calories than the hamburger meal. They should be using a healthy light dressing like this.
Light Lemon Olive Oil Salad Dressing A classic!
Crunchy Salad Having crunchy and tasty makes you chew your salad. Good for digestion!
Alkalizing Mixed Green Salad You can’t lose weight if your body is acidic!
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Hi Diana,
Another great article.Most people just do not understand how food works in their body.I am often asked why obese people eat so much.I just throw the question back to them and I am always surprised at how little people understand obesity.
1)because they are pigs! is a frequent answer.
2)because they do not exercise enough.
3)because they have nothing else to do and are lazy.
I am always ashamed that we are not educating them better.
People are always eating just because they are always “Hungry”.Yes,their need to eat more comes from eating.They are not getting the nutrition they need and their bodies are responding by telling them,”more,more,more”.
Ask any obese person and they all would love to stop,if they could but,they cannot.
Thanks again Diana
Pierre Trudel
i think the availability of all the fast food these days encourages people to NOT eat healthy.
blessedly i am gluten sensitive and blessedly i have food allergies. because of these blessings i have to watch everything i eat. when i go to restaurants, my blessings mean that i have to be more conscious of my food choices.
i’ve also lost over 50 lbs in this process – which i like very much.
will i ever get past that mark that says i am mildly obese? maybe or maybe not. but at least i know that i AM eating very healthy. and i know, to the best of my ability, i will NOT be that top weight again.
Obviously there are those that have eating disorders, but the main cause of obesity as a disease is people just really don’t understand food. There are hundreds of great recipes on sites like yours and ours to teach people how to eat healthy.
The other factor is mental health. Depression is a huge factor on why people binge eat. If we address those issues, a lot of the obesity would disappear. Ironically, our latest post is about how Ashwagondha helps to control anxiety and depression.
Obesity is caused by high insulin. Vården refuses to explain it because it is controlled by sponsor-dependent benefit associations, educations & research fraud. Insulin rises with the degree of obesity & makes satiety impossible. Insulin is easily lowered by physical activity immediately after consuming fast carbohydrates & metformin. Diabetes care raises high insulin in order to lower healthy moderately high blood glucose based on research fraud. The world creates obesity. The people are deceived. Tragic.