Obesity

[Bork]

And so, with the stroke of a pen, one third of Americans have a medical condition. What is their illness? Well...in a few cases it has to do with hormones or metabolism or other stuff you can't really do a whole lot about. In the vast majority, the illness is being too friggin' lazy to walk to your mailbox instead of taking the car, or to make your own dinner instead of picking it up at McDonald's or Taco Bell.

...or as Gary & Naples (imaginary god rest their imaginary souls) would have said: More proof that Nobama is the worst president in history. Four times as many Americans were sick during his second term than when he took office. Not gonna listen to any argument against. This is fact.

[Guest]

DAMN OBAMA RAISIN' MY GAS PRICES

[Jackwc]

You know what's weird? The last two major spikes in obesity both occurred under Democratic presidencies, whereas the numbers seemed to stabilize under Republican ones. There has to be some kind of correlation.
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[Guest]

Guys, studies have shown that almost 100% of people who have never smoked pot have also never cooked a baby. You can't argue with numbers like that.

[meccalecca]

[Bork]

[junodog4]

[meccalecca]

[EyeKanFly]

Calling it a result of "laziness" is an extreme oversimplification. A more correct way to phrase it is that obesity results from a "sedentary lifestyle". The common American drives (or takes public transit) to work and then sits in front of a computer all day, drives home, eats dinner, and sleeps. There's just no room for exercise. Even if you do all you can to eat healthy (which really isn't that difficult if you have access to a decent supermarket, a refrigerator, and a stove), it can be very difficult to find time to exercise. The problem stems not from laziness, but from genuine problems deep within the American style of life. Even when we hate our jobs, we put work above all else: our family, our hobbies and interests, and our health. America (not that I use America only because I've never been to Canada, the UK, or Ireland so I don't know how it works there) has such a 24/7 culture. Anything you want you can get at any time of the day, any time of the year. Need a hamburger at 11pm on Thanksgiving? go to the McDonald's down the road. Need a leafblower at 4 in the morning on a Thursday? Head to Wal-Mart. Need to buy a car at midnight? Go down to the Honda dealer (seriously, 24/7 car dealers exist). Some other places in the world, everything shuts down on Sundays. I understand hospitals and other such places need to be kept open all the time, but do we really need to go out to a mall or a restaurant on a Sunday? I'm disgusted with the American way of life. Not with the American people themselves, they all do what they can to get by. They do what they have to. But "what they have to" is the problem. If we keep going on the track we're going, we'll be the first generation with a shorter lifespan than the last generation (our life expectancy is already less than that of our parents). We need dramatic changes, and not from individuals in the way of lifestyle; we need something bigger.
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51 Washington, D.C. albums!

[EyeKanFly]

Oh and with the whole concern of obesity being a disease, I think you all might need to re-look at the definition of disease: "an abnormal condition that affects the body". Now of course even though obesity is completely "normal", it's still abnormal in terms of our biology. Our body isn't MEANT to be obese, and in that way it is abnormal.

Cholera's a disease, right? And you get that from ingesting human feces (unknowingly or otherwise). Alcoholism's a disease. So is lung and skin cancer. Cholera was an extreme example, but obesity, alcoholism, skin cancer, and (smoking-related) lung cancer are all "diseases" which can be avoided with a change in lifestyle. There's no guarantee there, there's genetic alcoholics who've only ever had one beer in their life; there's people who are extremely cautious with sunscreen and never go tanning and still have skin cancer; there's people who have never smoked who have lung cancer; and there are people who eat healthy and exercise who are still obese. They're all still diseases. I think if we were to revoke the decision to classify obesity as a disease, we would be further worsening the situation. Classifying obesity as a disease is a way to say that there's something wrong with obesity. If you have a disease, there's biologically something wrong with you. It's not necessarily something incurable, and it's not necessarily something that can only be cured with drugs, but it's still something wrong with the human body. And obesity is something wrong with the human body, so I think it should definitely still be classified as a disease.
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