AMA: Obesity is a Disease

Off Topic
41

[quote]FISCHER613 wrote:
Actually your wrong in the aspect of food not being addictive. Case in point being sugar.

So why is it when people go on an elimination diet like no carbs people get

  1. Headaches
  2. Dizzy
  3. Nauseous
  4. cold sweats
  5. Irrational

Sure sounds like a person detoxing from Cigarettes or some other “addictive” substance.

Your right on the hormones but wrong on the psychology side.

I deal with this all the time with Clients who are overweight and most are pre-diabetic as well .[/quote]
Food is not addictive. Sugar is not addictive. It depends on how you want to define “addictive”. I go by the strictest definition of a chemically addictive substance like an opiate. In the case of sugar, the human body does NOT become physically dependent on the substance.

The fact that your body responds poorly to cutting out all carbs has nothing to do with addiction. It’s the same as if I cut out food altogether. I would start dieing. That is not however how an addiction is defined from a medical perspective.

42

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
There may be some question as to how/why someone becomes obese; but there should be no doubt that this change was pushed through by the industries that stand to make huge profits from it. This has nothing to do with health…follow the dollar. [/quote]

Agreed, follow anything far enough and it all comes down to money.[/quote]

That’s how life is. That’s why we will never see a boom in prevention. How do those companies make money if they only see people once. They need them coming back over and over. [/quote]

So perhaps…dare I say…healthcare is an industry that doesn’t lend itself well to the profit model.
[/quote]

I hate healthcare. No idea why I am becoming a doc. FML [/quote]

cuz you want to help people. Just stay in the cash only business and you will be ok. When the government starts to tell you how to do you job run away very quickly.

43

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:
Some funny quotes from the article:

“This will force primary care physicians to address it, even if we don’t have a cure for it.”
A cure for obesity! LOL! It’s called less food, and it’s free even if you don’t have any health insurance.

“the semantic change may reflect a growing awareness that obesity is not someone’s fault”
… speechless. You just keep eating those bon-bons and not exercising honey, it’s not your fault.

[quote]Bauber wrote:
Great more reasons for the obese people to stay obese. OMG it is a disease I can’t help myself. It is not my fault.[/quote]
Look Bauber called it.[/quote]

To be fair. Everyone saying its just because they eat and don’t exercise need to some extra reading on physiology and genetics. Also as fat accumulates gene expression changes, hormone expression changes making the body act very differently

FYI I am not advocating for getting obese just saying its not black and white like ppl like to think[/quote]
I’ve been easily over 25-30% as a kid, and I’ve now been very lean for over a consecutive year, and my all time heaviest. It’s not genetic, it’s called stuffing so much food down your throat that you are murdering yourself. Oh by the way, if you are going to say “Blah, blah, blah, you are just a minority, blah, blah, blah you don’t understand anything about this blah, blah, blah.” my Dad, Mom, and eldest brother are obese.

44

[quote]TDub301 wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
There may be some question as to how/why someone becomes obese; but there should be no doubt that this change was pushed through by the industries that stand to make huge profits from it. This has nothing to do with health…follow the dollar. [/quote]

Agreed, follow anything far enough and it all comes down to money.[/quote]

That’s how life is. That’s why we will never see a boom in prevention. How do those companies make money if they only see people once. They need them coming back over and over. [/quote]

QFT[/quote]

I think you guys are being short sighted.

Not only is the boom in prevention more dependent upon personal responsibility than any response by the medical communities, but to think there isn’t a ton of money in prevention is silly. We just have to be at mission critical before prevention becomes ultra-lucrative.

If we tried hard enough we could likely go back 100 years and find people saying the same thing about Polio… There will always be sickness and death, doctors and health insurance isn’t going to go broke “curing” obesity.

45

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]FISCHER613 wrote:
Actually your wrong in the aspect of food not being addictive. Case in point being sugar.

So why is it when people go on an elimination diet like no carbs people get

  1. Headaches
  2. Dizzy
  3. Nauseous
  4. cold sweats
  5. Irrational

Sure sounds like a person detoxing from Cigarettes or some other “addictive” substance.

Your right on the hormones but wrong on the psychology side.

I deal with this all the time with Clients who are overweight and most are pre-diabetic as well .[/quote]
Food is not addictive. Sugar is not addictive. It depends on how you want to define “addictive”. I go by the strictest definition of a chemically addictive substance like an opiate. In the case of sugar, the human body does NOT become physically dependent on the substance.

The fact that your body responds poorly to cutting out all carbs has nothing to do with addiction. It’s the same as if I cut out food altogether. I would start dieing. That is not however how an addiction is defined from a medical perspective.[/quote]

This is quick research on my part due to time constraints with kids and work. Lets stick to the point of sugar not restricting water or all carbs or all foods for that matter. Lets please stick to the topic at hand.

46

can’t believe this hasn’t been said yet but…

fattie’s gon’ fat

47

withdrawal symptoms of caffeine.

http://www.growyouthful.com/remedy/sugar-addiction-recovery.php

Withdrawal symptoms of sugar.

Now I am not defending obesity as a disease at all but when people state that Sugar is not an addiction or does not cause changes in the chemistry of the brain it astounds me.

I am a PT whose main type of client are overweight pre-diabetic individuals of 30-45 yrs of age. I see and hear these complaints from every single one of them. Now when a detailed and gradual approach to slowly reducing the sugar in their diet over a period of a month I see drastic changes in personality, energy and a fitter person.

48

Profit Margins for HI carriers isn’t all that stellar, particularly when you figure in they can control costs to the degree they can.

http://www.iedc-consulting.com/profit-margin-for-health-insurance-companies/

Drug Manufactures on the other hand:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/510.html

21% margin… Get the fuck out with this. Ludicrous. (These are Financial statement figures, I’m sure their tax figures would be net loss position, lol.)

I believe though, that these are the name brands. Can’t find the source, but I read generic manufacturers were around 5%. Part of this issue is government intervention though, so you can’t instantly call foul on just the Pharma co.

49

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]FISCHER613 wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:
you are painting it black and white which it is not. Not even close. Just like some can gamble or smoke and not give a fuck if they ever do it again. Some people’s brains are wired different and the reacton is the exact opposite. They are addicted immediately. Again they chose to pick it up but even then their brains seek it out. So to say they are lazy and eat too much is just plain too simple and flat out wrong [/quote]
No it’s not. It is about as close to black and white as you can get. There is a TINY minority of people with actual hormone imbalance issues and whatever else that makes weight gain nearly impossible to deal with, but you’re fooling yourself if you don’t think pretty much everyone suffering from “obesity” didn’t get there from eating too much and never exercising.

I don’t give a shit if they think they’re “addicted” to food lol. Food is not a chemically addictive substance. What they are is habitualized. And guess what, that’s all in your head (not genetic, not biological), and you can fix it by manning the fuck up, finding some willpower, putting your fork down, and picking up a barbell.[/quote]

Actually your wrong in the aspect of food not being addictive. Case in point being sugar.

So why is it when people go on an elimination diet like no carbs people get

  1. Headaches
  2. Dizzy
  3. Nauseous
  4. cold sweats
  5. Irrational

Sure sounds like a person detoxing from Cigarettes or some other “addictive” substance.

Your right on the hormones but wrong on the psychology side.

I deal with this all the time with Clients who are overweight and most are pre-diabetic as well .

[/quote]

I don’t consider refined sugar a food.

Nor does eating food necessitate ingesting large amounts of sugar.

Addiction is such an arbitrary word though. Without water, we all get thirsty and endlessly crave water, is water addictive?

If you sit on a couch being lazy your whole life, it can be really difficult to go outside. Are you addicted to sitting on the couch?

Much of the time, addiction is a label applied to do little more than remove personal responsibility.

Everything we do and eat effects the way we feel. Why do we sometimes blame the feeling and other times credit ourselves? Only when we fail to do what we know we should do we blame feelings instead of self.

When was the last time a wold class marathoner remarked “it isn’t my doing, I can’t help myself, I’m addicted to running, please don’t place any of the credit on my determination or hard work?” Even though the guy may feel a high running and withdrawal when he stops. [/quote]

Please see my last 2 posts in regards to sugar.

I agree that determination and a well thought out plan is important to succeeding in weight loss but with the mind set people are in that it is instant gratifcation or it is too hard to lose weight most people give up.

A lot of people on this board give up when dieting down to contest level because it is too hard getting to single digit bodyfat levels and these are “dedicated” individuals let alone obese people just trying to get healthy. Does this make sense.

50

Sorry for the hijack about sugar.

I agree it is for money.

In the next 3-5 yrs Personal Training will be covered by Insurance. I already train 2 people referred by a PT and their training is covered by insurance.

51

I think it would be fair to say that there are medical and mental conditions (such as Prader-Willi Syndrome) that lead to obesity. There’s thyroid malfunction, pituitary malfunction etc On the other side of the coin there is obesity caused by personal choice. You can’t always tell just by looking at someone.

52

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
So is this gonna go down like ADHD, where suddenly everyone is now eligible for prescribed meds, bringing tons of $ in through insurance claims?

S[/quote]
There’s a new one now: ODD (oppositional defiant disorder).[/quote]

You’ve got to be kidding me. Nothing a good spanking or ten won’t fix. Get the wooden spoon and start early. Fuck.

53

[quote]theBeth wrote:
I think it would be fair to say that there are medical and mental conditions (such as Prader-Willi Syndrome) that lead to obesity. There’s thyroid malfunction, pituitary malfunction etc On the other side of the coin there is obesity caused by personal choice. You can’t always tell just by looking at someone. [/quote]

the occurrence of willie prader is EXCEPTIONALLY low, so 99999 out of 100000 fatties can’t blame it on that, i know many people with thyroid problems that do just fine (including myself, by no means brad pitt but def not obese).

Most people are responsible for their own obesity and did it through being lazy and making EASY choices, very very very few obese individuals had so much going on that it was out of their control

54

[quote]csulli wrote:
Well like I said in the PWI thread, if it’s based off of BMI, I’m not above milking some dumbass government policy and riding that gravy train for whatever benefits they feel like I “deserve”. My BMI is 29.5, so with a trip to Craker Barrel I could be over 30 and classified as like super obese. I have no idea if they’ll use BMI to “diagnose” obesity though. Lol sounds funny to talk about diagnosing obesity. “Well sir the results are in. I’m afraid you’re really fat.”[/quote]

Dude, if they deny you because everyone can see you are not fat, sue them for their obvious swolism.

Them laws are them laws and I want a fucking scooter right now!!!

55

[quote]rehanb_bl wrote:

[quote]theBeth wrote:
I think it would be fair to say that there are medical and mental conditions (such as Prader-Willi Syndrome) that lead to obesity. There’s thyroid malfunction, pituitary malfunction etc On the other side of the coin there is obesity caused by personal choice. You can’t always tell just by looking at someone. [/quote]

the occurrence of willie prader is EXCEPTIONALLY low, so 99999 out of 100000 fatties can’t blame it on that, i know many people with thyroid problems that do just fine (including myself, by no means brad pitt but def not obese).

Most people are responsible for their own obesity and did it through being lazy and making EASY choices, very very very few obese individuals had so much going on that it was out of their control[/quote]

meh, i guess i can’t really argue with that.

56

[quote]rehanb_bl wrote:

[quote]theBeth wrote:
I think it would be fair to say that there are medical and mental conditions (such as Prader-Willi Syndrome) that lead to obesity. There’s thyroid malfunction, pituitary malfunction etc On the other side of the coin there is obesity caused by personal choice. You can’t always tell just by looking at someone. [/quote]

the occurrence of willie prader is EXCEPTIONALLY low, so 99999 out of 100000 fatties can’t blame it on that, i know many people with thyroid problems that do just fine (including myself, by no means brad pitt but def not obese).

Most people are responsible for their own obesity and did it through being lazy and making EASY choices, very very very few obese individuals had so much going on that it was out of their control[/quote]

Yeah well, you know those families where everyone is fat?

Them kids are fucked before they even get to start.

Adult onset diabetes in a 5 year old is no joke.

57

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
So is this gonna go down like ADHD, where suddenly everyone is now eligible for prescribed meds, bringing tons of $ in through insurance claims?

S[/quote]
There’s a new one now: ODD (oppositional defiant disorder).[/quote]

You’ve got to be kidding me. Nothing a good spanking or ten won’t fix. Get the wooden spoon and start early. Fuck. [/quote]

Lol I see no reason for striking your kids. I had insane ADHD actualky still do my mom refused to put me on mess. Instead she learned other ways get me under control. Hitting not needed though I am sure she wanted to pertly of times

58

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
So is this gonna go down like ADHD, where suddenly everyone is now eligible for prescribed meds, bringing tons of $ in through insurance claims?

S[/quote]
There’s a new one now: ODD (oppositional defiant disorder).[/quote]

You’ve got to be kidding me. Nothing a good spanking or ten won’t fix. Get the wooden spoon and start early. Fuck. [/quote]

Lol I see no reason for striking your kids. I had insane ADHD actualky still do my mom refused to put me on mess. Instead she learned other ways get me under control. Hitting not needed though I am sure she wanted to pertly of times[/quote]

repressed memories?

Just kidding.

59

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
So is this gonna go down like ADHD, where suddenly everyone is now eligible for prescribed meds, bringing tons of $ in through insurance claims?

S[/quote]
There’s a new one now: ODD (oppositional defiant disorder).[/quote]

You’ve got to be kidding me. Nothing a good spanking or ten won’t fix. Get the wooden spoon and start early. Fuck. [/quote]

Lol I see no reason for striking your kids. I had insane ADHD actualky still do my mom refused to put me on mess. Instead she learned other ways get me under control. Hitting not needed though I am sure she wanted to pertly of times[/quote]

This is dumb. ADHD like most other conditions is just lack of will power. No one “suffers” from ADh…

Ohh… something shinny…

60

[quote]theBeth wrote:
I think it would be fair to say that there are medical and mental conditions (such as Prader-Willi Syndrome) that lead to obesity. There’s thyroid malfunction, pituitary malfunction etc On the other side of the coin there is obesity caused by personal choice. You can’t always tell just by looking at someone. [/quote]

I certainly agree with that, but agree more with rehanb that you simply cannot justify extrapolation based on such a tiny minority. It is against every statistical and scientific rule there is.

The fact of the matter is that Prader-Willi and pituitary malfuction are so low on the statistical scale as to be nearly immeasurable. Same with thyroid malfunction that’s pre-existing, although thyroid problems can also be STARTED as a result of being a fat fucking pig by personal choice, just like type 2 diabetes.

There is a slim, slim contingent of people that get pre-diabetic and/or type 2 from normal eating habits. My mother is one of them and she is not even close to overweight (she’s also very borderline to normal and sadly old, so it’s not entirely surprising). One of my grandpas was another, with full blown type 2, and he was fit and throwing fenceposts around in the midwest summers until age 90. HOWEVER, that is under no scientific of statistical grounds to extrapolate to the current decision of “disease”.

The changes in personality and chemistry are real. And in a small, small minority of people they are in fact debilitated by this from childhood on, through chemical or genetic pathways. But you simply cannot justify the jump made.

RE: sugar being addictive. I despise that notion, and argue that it is borderline if anything. However, sugar does cause the dopamine pathways to go haywire and it is a fact that many things that are “habituated” to do cause physical withdrawal symptoms when stopping them. So in a sense it is, but it is nowhere near the clinical term of opiate addiction either. It also–again, in the infinitely vast statistical majority–takes a direct series of long term choices to bring it upon yourself. It is not the same as trying a drug and getting hooked after a time or two. Not remotely.