danny_fitz wrote:
I think describing excessive weight gain as an 'addictive disorder' is incredibly infantilising and shifts blame away from individuals.
For the vast majority of overweight people their predicament is a choice, a choice to drink too much beer/wine, a choice to eat too much processed high calorie low nutritional value food, a choice to do minimal physical activity.
64% of adults in the UK are classed as being overweight, or put another way that’s 29,508,608 people. For a minority of unlucky sods they have conditions, physical or psychological that make weight control exceptionally difficult, what excuse does everyone else have and why should the NHS pick up the tab for those piss poor choices.
What about drink related disorders, or smoking, or drug addiction, gambling addiction, sex addiction etc etc? All involve individual choice, all are stigmatised to an extent but in most cases we recognise the basic fact that there is a disorder and support of some kind is generally required to overcome it.
Again, it is self-evident that over-eating, under-exercising and being obese is unhealthy, unattractive, and damaging to life prospects in so many ways. Token nonsense in the fashion press about plus-size models, or the odd person on social media being "fat and proud" doesn't change this. From my perspective, it is quite clear that the morbidly obese are either living in denial about the nature of their disordered relationship with food/their weight (much like an alcoholic might be about their relationship with alcohol), or aware of an issue but struggling with taking the steps needed to 'recover' (much like an alcoholic might be). I'm not trying to argue the two conditions are completely the same, but again, my view is that being obese is - must be- a disorder, because if it really is so straightforward for individuals to avoid obesity, we would see vastly reduced rates of obesity - because being obese is so self-evidently a problem in the eyes of pretty much everyone.
So talking about personal responsibility just doesn't seem an effective strategy to me, that is the general tenor of the general view of obesity and it hasn't prevented rising rates of obesity.
Just to belabour this parallel with alcoholism (and I really do want to stress that I don't know enough about alcoholism to know if I'm way off base, I'm just seeing certain basic similarities, so apologies to anyone that objects to the comparison for whatever reason) - you mention the vast millions of people who are classed as overweight. I am one of them (actually my BMI is 34 so I'm obese - I leave it to those who have seen me recently to report back on whether that bald (heh heh) description sums up my actual physical appearance). With these 29 millions, are we not talking about the equivalent of the people who drink too much but not at crisis point (as in the recent Adrian Chiles drinking documentary). Yes, all those people could take steps to lose weight - as I am doing at the moment - and no doubt a high proportion of them are at any given point. And yet - the numbers are still there. What does that tell you about the relationship society as a whole has with food, activity, and weight? Is there no parallel with the relationship society as a whole has with drink? Is there not some underlying, I don't know, delusion about what is necessary, healthy, good for longevity etc etc?
I just can't see it as such a simple issue.
happyhooker wrote:
And womack, didn't realise you were stigmatising me last week
Ye've lost me. I'm not into stigmatising anyone, man.
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