Redefining Obesity?

Yikes!

Everyone wants a quick fix or a magic pill or supplement. How about 'vanishing cream' that you rub on and all that gloppy fat just melts away

Can't people realise they just need to eat less?

Ana Eating disorders do have characteristics of addictive behaviour.
There is also evidence that people can be addicted to sugar.

The questions are whether and at what stage obesity becomes an addiction, whether it should be classed as a disability, and how it should be handled by employers in the context of the relevant employment law.

I have just read this crap diet advert that popped up on the side of Facebook.

It sounds just like snake oil and laxatives to me. It is full of disclaimers at the bottom of the article. It's quite amusing really.

"Raspberry Ketone Advanced has been shown to:

Increase 4 Times More Weight Loss Than Diet and Exercise
Boost Energy
Contain High Levels Of Antioxidants
Promote Cardiovascular and Digestive Health

Although we were pretty skeptical, we wanted to find out for ourselves if this product could actually do everything that it claimed. Most of the success stories talk about combining Raspberry Ketone with a colon cleansing product to achieve maximum weight loss. The idea behind combining the products is that while the Raspberry Ketone encourages weight loss and increases energy; the colon cleanse helps rid your body of toxins and allows your body to work and burn calories more efficiently. After further research, we chose Nutra Green Coffee Cleanse to test."

inorganicswetrust.com/index-2.php?vcd=30955421x741x1949

I don't know where the European court comes into whether or not this country defines obesity or drug/alcohol addiction as a disability. I do know that people who are classified as drug/alcohol dependent get whatever incapacity/sickness benefit is now called. Many obese individuals I've worked with are on similar benefits because health problems associated with obesity (arthritis, respiratory, heart etc) mean they aren't fit to work.

Sleeping?

What, eating too much is an 'addiction'?

Perhaps driving too fast could be classed as one too, or wife-beating...

I don't mean the person is talking poppycock, but the idea is.

Sorry I just think that saying obesity is due to food addiction is poppycock.

rude

Poppycock.

Could be an addiction though?!

I agree with Bags. An employee has to be physically able to perform the tasks associated with the job. This one clearly wasn't.

But I don't think the European Court will ever rule obesity in itself to be a disability. Any more than alcoholism is considered a disability. Or drug addiction.

So, from our experience, eat well, everything in moderation, exercise to the best of your ability (mine is now confined to walking and gentle yoga) and you won't be overweight. Well, not much anyway!

I wrote to the advertising standards authority recently because Graze boxes (nice business idea folks but..) were advertising all their snacks as healthy. Including chocolate cake (healthy because the portion was small!) They stopped as soon as the ASA spoke to them and changed their internet ads to "tasty". This has now changed to "inspiring". It is illegal to describe food as healthy unless it has a proven health benefit.
Lets face it folks, if we look at our school photos from the 60s or thereabouts there were no fat girls in the school. None. Not in mine anyway. I checked. 700 girls and not a chubby one in sight. And we were not a particularly sporty school by a long chalk.
It's the modern calorie rich diet and the lack of activity that are making the difference. Not fluoride, glowing lights in the bedroom or any other such factors.
Met a group of middle aged French people recently. Every single one was slim. .
There is much talk of obesity begin a "disease" these days. I think drug companies and those that make gastric bands etc are promoting this terminology to justify medical spending (especially in the USA) Health insurance more likely to pay for "treatments" for "diseases".

I usually eat six times a day and have for most of my adult life. I'm not overweight. Quantity matters, not frequency.

Good post AKA and all true.

'Grazing' as a healthy way of eating is a myth sold to the public. It just means adding extra calories between meals.

When I were a lass we ate at mealtimes and that was that. In fact as children we weren't that interested in food and meals where something to be finished quickly and off out to play. If we were hungry we were told 'good you'll eat your dinner then' or words to that effect.

Also if we wanted shopping, we were given a list to take to the local shop and we read out the items to the man or woman behind the counter and they put it into our shopping bag and then off to get fruit and veg at the green grocers. And we only bought what we children could carry. None of this walking up and down aisles very deliberately stacked with 'buy me and eat me' products so we just have to reach out and put it in a whopping great trolley.

There's nothing like having to carry it all home to stop impulse buying.

Having the builders in at the moment I realise how much sugar they take in, 2 and even 3 spoonfuls being requested! I make them tea and biscuits about 4 times a day, and they are slim and fit looking.If you are a manual worker you can take all this sugar, the problem is that tea and bicuits several times a day when you work sitting at a computer, doesn't work in your favour. In the past, we walked everywhere[ only one family in our road had a car!]Snacks during the day were not unheard of though, a slice of toast and jam /dripping, or biscuits or a scone or a slice of cake. We got away with it because we were all very active and most people worked.

'Grazing' has been recommended for a while - you can even buy graze boxes with all you need to graze for the day! It does tend to be dried fruit and nuts mainly (judging by the one my daughter bought) but even fruit and nuts are high in calories and one cup of mixed nuts will, on average, have 45g of fats; dried fruit, due the dehydration process, increases the sugar content (volume for volume) - for example: one cup of grapes will have around 104 calories but a cup of raisins will have around 434 calories. People think that because they are snacking (or grazing) on dried fruit and nuts that they are less at risk of weight gain.

A bit of subject but my DH said to me last night after watching something about obesity on TV 'when did we start to graze? In my day it was cows and sheep that grazed'.

People seem more likely to graze these days, and to allow their children to graze on crisps, biscuits, sweets, popcorn, the list is endless.

I do think that is a big part of the problem and not just for children.

I don't see sugar as a huge enemy of the waistline per se - my mother would frequently cook jam roly poly, spotted dick smothered in syrup and custard, fruit crumbles, meringue filled with cream and fruit and then sprinkled with sugar, jam tarts, treacle tarts, etc but none of us were fat (in fact, as I have red hair and was so skinny, my brother used to say that from a distance I looked like a match!). However, there were no crisps in the cupboard, chips she saw as lazy food, pizza hadn't arrived on our shores and to even think of eating biscuits or sweets anywhere near to mealtime earned a stern rebuke - yet sugar did exist in quite large quantities by today's standards. My mum used to make pop from caly (sp?) crystals for us to take out with us. She would also make lemonade, orangeade, limeade from boiling fruit and sugar. However, sitting around doing nothing didn't enter our heads - we were out playing, climbing trees, riding bikes, roller skating, making go-carts and riding them downhill only to have to haul them back up again, swimming.

Life in general seems to have changed but, sadly, not for the better in many circumstances.

When most of us were children, we ate 3 times a day. Money was tight, and the variety of foods available much more limited. Children who were hungry between meals were told to have a jam butty (in the north west they were….) or wait till dinner/tea time so as not to spoil their appetites.

People seem more likely to graze these days, and to allow their children to graze on crisps, biscuits, sweets, popcorn, the list is endless.
As others have said, there is more 'invisible' sugar, salt and other flavourings in ordinary foods like bread.

But - we all know that eating too much causes weight gain. People seem to have little difficulty blaming individuals whose health problems relate to smoking/excess alcohol etc, but will make the addiction argument where food/obesity is concerned.

Disability parking spaces seem to mostly be full of huge vehicles. When the owners return, they're often obese, struggling to walk because of their weight. I agree with others who've said it must be very hard to keep weight off when mobility is affected by significant health problems. But it was hard not to feel irritated when I always had to park illegally outside the hospital entrance, so I could abandon my my blind, deaf and frail 87 year old mother into the hospital reception area while I dashed off to park my car in the non disabled parking slots, a good distance away. Rant of the day

Aka you have a point. My post was badly worded.

Shops stuffed full of attractive and relatively cheap foods. Manufacturers stuffing those foods with salt, sugar and fat for profit, with no resistance or leadership from supine governments. A relatively sedentary population content to comfort eat their way out of their troubles. Its no wonder bellies bulge and thighs wobble.

It's not necessarily bad food but a surfeit of good food in many cases.