© OBESITY ACTION COALITION.
(First published in The Huffington Post)
Last week, an article in the Washington Post announced a new program of the Obesity Action Coalition (OAC) to fight obesity bias. They want the media to change from portraying obesity in a negative unflattering light, which they are known to do. They want the media to use more positive images when portraying obese people and the OAC is providing them with free stock images to use when showing obese people. The photo with this article is an example of one of these images. As OAC’s James Zervios points out, the headless bodies with plates of junk food often used in the media promote a false stereotype about overweight people that is abusive as well as untrue. Many overweight people are hard-working citizens who eat healthy foods and are attentive to their health needs. They are not fat, lazy and stupid, an image the media is used to promoting.
At the same time there is a fat-acceptance movement you may have heard of that also fights bias and discrimination against overweight people and promotes acceptance of the condition as well as the people who have it.
In the Washington Post article, Zervios maintains that “Obesity is a disease whose sufferers are no different from those afflicted with breast cancer or asthma”. This leads many to take the position that there is nothing that can be done about it, and that people who are overweight should accept it.
Is Obesity Something we should Accept?
I am a clinical member of both the Obesity Action Coalition and The Obesity Society, an association of health professionals that treat obesity and its related medical conditions. I am also a behavioral therapist who solved my own 25-year obesity problem and helps others to do the same.
While I am a staunch supporter of efforts to fight obesity bias and discrimination, I disagree completely with Zervios’s position that obesity is a disease no different from breast cancer and asthma. Obesity can be reversed. By adopting habits of eating less, obese people lose weight and lose the medical problems they have because of it. It is not a matter of “perhaps” it can change. It will change, no if’s and’s or but’s. Cancer and asthma have no similar guaranteed way to get rid of the condition.
While creating change in habitual and addictive behavior can be difficult and complex, it can be done. There is no guarantee that the person can easily change, but it can be done. Like it is with alcohol and drug abuse, when the behavior changes, the problems caused by the behavior resolve. In 30 years, I have never had a patient not lose weight when they are able to eat less.
I and thousands of my patients, clients and readers have reversed our obesity and the medical complications of it. Please don’t let people think that being overweight and sick with it is acceptable. Don’t let them think that getting better is beyond their control. They need not be ashamed or abused because of it, but they need not stay overweight either. There is a sure-fire way to reverse the condition, unlike cancer and asthma.
William Anderson is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who specializes in weight loss, eating disorders and addictions. He solved his own long-time weight problem, losing 140 pounds 30 years ago and has kept it off since. He is the author of The Anderson Method.
It seems to me that obesity is a disease in the same sense as Type 1 Diabetes. Without proper discipline, the juvenile diabetic faces escalating co-morbidities, yet, with adequate discipline, that diabetic can lead a very healthy life. My sister became diabetic at the age of eleven, and her daughter at age six. While my sister, currently 60, has had a few health issues stemming from diabetes, her daughter has been very lax and has already undergone an amputation before the age of 30.
Interestingly enough, one researcher at the University if California at Davis has found a correlation of obesity in families that show Type 1 Diabetes and alcoholism. While that may be a contributory factor to my obesity, daughter of an alcoholic father and sister to a Type 1, the solution remains the same for all three conditions: self discipline.
Self-discipline is the answer to ending self-destructive behavior, but it can be extremely difficult when there is a world and a household pushing your buttons to engage in the tempting self-destructive behavior. And when the patient is a child who has no knowledge of the danger of what they are doing, no awareness that they need to change, and no desire to change, it is impossible. The responsible adults in our society need to shape our households and world to push the buttons that create health, not disease.
Hello, I believe when you say that obesity is greatly influenced by a person’s behavior. It is a matter of self-determination and the want to change to improve one’s quality of life. I also agree that obesity is not related to other medical conditions because this one is reversible. Studying nursing made me realize a lot of factors contributing to weight gain especially in today’s society with all the fast food chains available and instant meals in the local supermarket, these phenomena about obesity will always be there but it is AVOIDABLE. I am very glad to have discovered your article. It can help raise awareness about obesity and what it is really all about.
Thank you for sharing this!