European Commission classifies obesity as a chronic disease

"In March 2021, the European Commission issued a brief in which it defined obesity as a “chronic relapsing disease, which in turn acts as a gateway to a range of other non-communicable diseases”. The brief provides obesity with the formal and bind categorisation status of a non-communicable disease (NCD)."

From The Lancet on June 1 2021:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...145-5/fulltext

Quote:

Policymakers charged with tackling obesity have tended to focus almost exclusively on prevention. In England, less than 1% of those who satisfy the clinical criteria for surgical treatment for obesity actually receive the intervention. Defining obesity as a disease would almost certainly raise take-up. Critics of the disease thesis point to the fact that it is possible for people to have a BMI higher than 30 while remaining in good health, free of risk factors such as pre-diabetes, or hypertension. Francesco Rubino, chair of metabolic and bariatric surgery at King's College London, stresses the importance of establishing better diagnostic criteria that distinguishes between individuals for whom obesity is a condition and those for whom it is a disease. He recommends learning from other health issues. “We are pretty comfortable with the difference between depression and clinical depression; people do not expect people with clinical depression to just decide to be happy. That thinking is missing in obesity”, said Rubino. “We have a definition that is entirely based on strict BMI cutoffs, which does not accurately predict any disease state, or the risk of future disease across different ethnic groups. We need a new, smarter metric that understands that while obesity can be a disease, it is not always a disease”. Rubino is dismissive of suggestions that patients who are told that obesity is a disease will abdicate personal responsibility for their health. “You do not see people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or hypertension suddenly decide to stop exercising or managing their diet”, said Rubino. “If anything, there has been far too much emphasis on blame and personal responsibility, including from doctors; we need to move away from those attitudes, not closer towards them”. Classifying obesity as a disease could help reduce stigma, offer a bulwark against sham weight-loss therapies, and expand research into the mechanics of weight gain. Perhaps most importantly, it matches how patients conceive of their situation.

Will this help or hinder the obese, or neither, or something else?

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/3vBrpLw