Kikosemmek said:
Eh, you guys are just playing the chicken-or-the-egg game. Though obesity is often caused by bad eating/exercising habits that may include outright addiction, obesity is a disease; it is curable along with addiction and bad habits.
A disease is a condition which prevents one from being healthy. In scientific terms, it is a deviation from a health model which must be general enough to include many variables. Obesity, though a result of many factors, is in itself a disease.
Fragile-X, for example, is a genetically inherited disease with symptoms of mental retardation. It is caused by the otherwise harmless repeat mutation of CGG codons on the X-chromosone. The repeat mutation happens to cause hypermethylation of the gene it is on, an epigenetic effect which prevents the gene from being read and a necessary protein from being produced. The disease itself is the lack of proteins; mental retardation is a symptom. Similarly, obesity is caused by other factors, some genetically transmitted but most are learned. Obesity, in that case, is both a symptom of these causes and a disease in and of itself, as it lends the body increased risks from other problems, such as cardiac arrest, blood clotting, and physical alteration and impairment, which in turn are symptoms of obesity.
A good way to think about it is an analogous to cancer. Every individual has some risk of developing cancer. For some, the risk is very small (due to inherited genetics), for some it is very large (same reason). There are ways one can increase risk (smoking, suntanning, eating known carcinogens), and ways one can decrease risk (regular screening, genetic testing, not doing the aforementioned). If you have two people go through all the same activities which could cause cancer (one who is genetically predisposed to cancer, and one who isn't), the one who is predisposed is far more likely to develop cancer.
The risk of obesity varies from person to person. For some it is very small (those with less efficient metabolisms), for some it is very large (those with efficient metabolisms). There are ways one can increase risk (sedentary lifestyle, overeating, eating junk food), and ways one can decrease risk (regular screening, genetic testing, and not doing the aforementioned). If you run the same experiment as above, using the same diet, the same exercise, the same life, the person more predisposed to obesity will gain more weight (it's been done). So, assuming that we can't know at birth what our risk is, how is it different from melanoma?
We're not all born tabula rasa. Some people have a higher disposition toward obesity. That doesn't mean they have no control over it, but just as above, it doesn't mean that they necessarily did anything different from a "normal" person. For an obesity-disposed person to avoid it requires far more effort in prevention than someone who isn't predisposed.
Would you tell someone with skin cancer "well, you sunbathed, and got cancer, so you don't get sympathy, and oh by the way it's not a disease"? Of course you wouldn't? The difference seems to come down to the fact that sunbathing is seen as (generally) "good" while the risk factors for obesity are seen as "bad". Either any disease you can "choose" to get is a disease, or none of them are.
By the by, I'm not overweight, so please don't treat this like "fatty defends being fat", okay?
). As i said previously it all depends on the persons frame of mind and/or lifestyle
