Is being Obese an illness?

[agel]

Yes or No
Im really not trying to start an argument. I want to understand what people actually think/know/believe about this.

I am obese and am trying to gain some sort of control over my eating through therapy at the moment. I’ve tried diets and exercising that do work but long term I don’t seem to be able to change my lifestyle enough to keep the weight off. I hate living like this and how people treat me differently because of my size. My family don’t understand at all. My partner is not understanding and it’s seriously affecting our relationship in many ways. It seems unfair because I don’t feel I have much control over this. It’s actually very lonely being in this situation. I rarely mention the topic of my health or weight to others because pardon the pun it’s always the elephant in the room! But you can almost hear what people are thinking. I hate the judgemental looks and comments. I rarely go out now because of anxiety and panic attacks brought on by this situation.

It is a lifestyle choice, the person is choosing to overeat. No one else is putting the food into your mouth.

For most of human history people were very physically active and food was often scarce.

Worldwide obesity is being classed as a disease or illness so that drug companies, doctors, and psychologists can make money out of obese people. In the UK doctors employed by the NHS are fairly ethical because they are not driven by the profit motive.

I think I was obese, and am still over-weight, and on a diet (again) because I like delicious calorie laden foods and I tend to over eat.

I'm fat because I'm a species of ape (like most mammals) that has evolved the survival mechanism of storing body fat during times of abundance. My body evolved to reward me with pleasure for eating those calorie rich foods. In modern Western society there is no end to food abundance, and, unlike for my hunter gatherer forebears, rich food is available without much expenditure of energy. It's a biological condition; it's my nature. I am a cookie monster.

Surely it’s a symptom?

Yes, if food became scarce again, obese people would become slimmer.

No, but in a minority of cases it can be a symptom of an illness

A person would not remain obese during a state of true, sustained food scarcity, even in the presence of underlying medical conditions.

Can you give a few insights and tips. I would genuinely be interested to hear experiences of what worked from someone who has had success with it. And congratulations. I need to lose about a stone and I find it really hard.

If only it was that simple. If someone is addicted to a substance is it still choice? Is heroin addiction a lifestyle choice?
If someone has binge eating disorder they suffer with compulsion to eat. If another person has difficulty with regulation and impulsivity such that they have functional differences in the ability of processes in their frontal lobe to inhibit behaviour it causes them to eat. If yet another person has interoception deficits they cannot sense when they are full. And then there are the environmental, developmental, and economic situational factors that I mentioned in my previous comment none of which feature the individual's ability to choose.
Further still the British Psychological Society published research some years ago on findings of a substantial amount of people who overeat due to abuse they have been victim to. Again not their choice.
When we look at behaviour it is far too reductionist to assume that someone is doing something because they have chosen to without anything else at all influencing that supposed choice. Behaviour happens via an interplay of cultural, psychological, social, developmental, and economically situational factors.

@Daygloboo ah, sorry, I have done it the "wrong" way and have been supported by medication, specifically Mounjaro. So I have nothing helpful to say other than eat less and move more.

Arguably if you are overweight and find it easy to store fat your body is efficient.
In a famine you may well survive. People who cannot store fat so easily will not.

Sadly, in Western society being fat is not useful. In the main the majority of people in the West do not experience a famine. So slim is the desired shape. The need to be able to store fat is not of any use whatsoever. You never need to use it up.

So? How is that relevant to what I said?

What stopped people from becoming obese in the 1960s for example? Obesity was rare then.

@scoutzx are you suggesting that as a society we move back to a 1960s model of food supply and availability? How would that practically work?

Obesity isn’t a symptom of an illness. That was why I wrote my post.

We didn't have the food environment we have now with junk food and upf advertising. We also didn't have the convenience of Deliveroo and JustEat. We also didn't have anywhere near as much UPF hyperpalatable foods available and pushed in advertising and all cheap. We didn't have scientists being hired by food companies to help make foods purposefully addictive.

Probably eating foods that are UPF, dont satisfy/ induce saitety and are addictive

The massive amounts of these foods available also mean bad habits develop
Eating because of boredom/ tredness/ stress

No. the population is too high now.

No it's a disability / weakness (unless caused by medication / other disability)

I genuinely cannot understand people not having control over what they consume. I don't smoke because it's damaging. I don't over eat for the same reason. I just don't buy that it's not a self control issue (usual caveats).

Obesity on its own is not automatically classified as a disability under the Equality Act 2010 in the UK.

Set meal times
Smaller portions
Women housekeeping
Fewer snacks
Drinks were water, tea and squash
Whole foods, home baking, seasonal fruit and veg
Home cooked foods
Sitting at the table to eat
Lack of central heating
No 24 hour access to tv/ screens
Walking/ cycling
Misogyny

You're speaking as though obese people are binging (yes some people do, but many of us don't)

When you don't have the fullness feeling, it's very easy to eat 200 extra calories - that's a cup of rice, or a glass of milk, or a matchbox of cheese. If you do that every day, that's potentially a kilo a month you're putting on. Just by putting a slightly thicker smear of butter on your sandwich, adding one more spoon of pasta to your plate.

@Notmycircusnotmyotter I get that many people don't understand it. I'm not sure what you are asking here though - do you think that it's a character flaw, or some sort of moral failing or some other personal characteristic that you don't have? Something that's really easy to sort out, and people just choose not to bother?

I don't smoke because it's damaging to my health. I don't drink for the same reasons. I don't do illegal drugs, ditto. And so on. I have lots of self control in loads of areas of my life, basically every other aspect of my life apart from food.

I (did) overeat, all my life, from childhood onwards. I don't know why food and eating is the one area that I have failed to control for decades.

We have control, what we don't have is feedback.

If you are deaf, and you're asked to set the volume of the TV, you're just going to guess half-way round, you don't know if that's uncomfortably loud or too quiet to hear. If you're blind, you can't tell if the outfit you're putting together has matching colours or not. If you can't feel when you're full, you're always just guessing if you've eaten the right amount of the right things.

I have 2 cats, they have free access to food. Neither is obese. Other people have cats with free access to food, and they get obese. Why is that? Because those cats are missing whatever it is that my cats have that tells them they've eaten enough. There's no reason humans would be any different.

Rationing. It's what they had during "the war", Britain's finest hour. Declare war on obesity. The nation was never fitter than when it had to dig for victory. Woolton pie. [I am joking 😀]