I don’t know how many people have noticed this, but in the past few decades, we have learned the names of countless medical conditions by virtue of online, broadcast and print media. As a little girl growing up in the last half of the 20th Century, I wasn’t bombarded with terms such as tardive dyskinesia, peyronie’s disease, ADHD, wet macular degeneration, thyroid eye disease or rheumatoid arthritis. Advertisements on commercials use pleasant scenes of folks supposedly cured or persons with such ailments whose symptoms are under control, all the while bringing up the side effects and warnings that come with treatment (often headache, diarrhea or abdominal pain). Some even set their ads to happy musical tunes, such as a popular clip about “lowering my A1C” with a diabetic medication.
One of the biggest causes of common conditions among Americans today is obesity. An estimated 41.9% of adults are considered in an unhealthy overweight condition, according to a Forbes Health article with data gathered by the CDC. Being overweight places stress on the body and leads to other conditions such as bone and joint problems, diabetes, kidney and heart disease, and a shortened lifespan.
However, obesity has not been classified as an actual disease. It is treated instead as a human frailty which brings on unwanted results, similar to drinking or using tobacco. However, people must eat, and it seems that the foods we are consuming in the US are more processed than ever before, likely because the more unreal ingredients there are in the foods, the more profits can be made for those endowed with golden parachute incentives.
In the past I’ve brought up the discovery of chlormequat, a chemical introduced into wheat and oat plants to make the sheafs stand up taller for the machinery to cut it better; American cereal companies are allowed to import grains from other places where the chemical is used, though it’s banned in food products here. It has been found to have potential side effects because it interacts with human cells, and rats have experienced health issues when tested.
Sugar, both natural and artificial, seems to be our common enemy, yet it is being sneaked into our food because it makes things taste better. Supposedly. The truth is that sugar can act as a “feel good” dopamine trigger and encourage overindulging in what is not good for us. That last bag of chips you opened and finished in an hour is one such example, and the ketchup and salad dressing you generously heaped onto your salad plate are two more. Check the ingredient panel, and don’t be surprised to find sugar there. The rule is: the closer to the beginning of the ingredient list sugar appears, the more of it there is in the serving.
But back to obesity being called a disease. Our forefathers and ancestors were not all perfectly sized, either. Ben Franklin has been portrayed as somewhat broad in the body, and ancient figures such as Bacchus have been cartooned as rotund overeaters. Older woman have often been prone to becoming more pillowy in the middle as they age, but the problem has been trickling down to much younger persons, and from all types of backgrounds.
The argument that obesity does not warrant aggressive treatment with medications or surgery unless other conditions such as diabetes are present, is cheating patients out of a chance to regain their best physical selves. The sympathetic side of the argument indicates that often obese people are not at fault for their condition, but have become subject to their ancestry, genetics, environment, and a medical community that doesn’t seem equipped to care much about the problem. Follow any severely obese person in the media, and you may see somebody who orders a lot of takeout or prefers chips over carrots, but there is also the financial side of things. Some people are not within ten miles of a simple supermarket with affordable produce and healthier choices; their closest food source may be at best a takeout joint or bodega, and at worst the nearest quick mart.
Vegetables are too often consigned to landfills instead of being made available to people who could cook and serve them at the dinner table. We waste an estimated 60 million tons of food each year, according to the FDA, about 325 pounds of unused food per person.
There is a cause and solution to the problem of obesity. Starting by classifying it as a disease may start treatments for people who need help, but pinpointing the cause of the surge in fat in America is another one our medical community may be loath to explore. It’s better to sing about the treatments than to not need a songwriter in the first place.
Excuse me while I have my tea. Black, no sugar.
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