So last week I was just minding my business, going about my life, and BAM! Suddenly I had a disease. Weird, because I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t have any symptoms, I wasn’t experiencing any weird side effects, and I didn’t feel lousy. Nevertheless: I was suddenly – and without even having to go see my doctor – diseased.
The American Medical Association, against the recommendation of an internal committee charged with studying this issue, has decided that obesity is a disease. The AMA asked the Council on Science and Public Health to consider this, and the group spent a year thinking about it. Then they came back and said nope, not a good idea. Their reasoning? “The council said that obesity should not be considered a disease mainly because the measure usually used to define obesity, the body mass index, is simplistic and flawed.”
Yes! This labeling of obesity as a disease is based on the dreaded and awful BMI. So, why did the AMA make this decision? According to the NY Times, it’s “a move that could induce physicians to pay more attention to the condition and spur more insurers to pay for treatments.” Oh, right, because physicians are currently ignoring obesity. In fact, I think we need a wake-up call for the entire medical community. No, the nation! No, the world! Start paying attention to fat people, everybody! Remind us over and over again that we’re fat, because that will totally help us not be fat anymore!
The truth is, classifying obesity as a disease will make it easier to recommend and have insurance companies pay for things like weight-loss drugs (two new ones just came to market this month, what a coincidence!) weight-loss surgeries, and counseling. It’s sad to think that this decision was motivated by money, but it probably was. After all, in the U.S. alone, we spend sixty billion dollars a year trying to get thin. Every year.
When can we stop using BMI to measure and classify people? I am not unhealthy, but according to the BMI, I’m obese. And now, according to the American Medical Association, I’m diseased. How about we stop wasting time making these pointless declarations, stop emptying our pockets (and filling the medical, pharmaceutical, and diet industry’s pockets) based on this one pointless number, and start building a world that focuses on health for all of us, joyful movement, nutritious food, and the acceptance of bodies of all shapes and sizes?
I know, I’m a dreamer.
