Is Obesity a Disease?

Today's post come from reading a comment on  a Linkein forum that metabolic syndrome is a disease.

Metabolic 'syndrome' is not a disease.

The word 'syndrome' is medical speak for 'We don't know the cause.'

If you're in the fitness business you'll know the cause. It's just that you're too far down the medical feeding chain for anyone to take any notice of you!

Better to use the term 'metabolic dysfunction' to describe what the medical industry calls 'metabolic syndrome'.

And, when push comes to shove, the underlying cause may well reside in our thinking.

What AILS you?

It could be

- Attachment
- Ignorance
- Laziness
- Stupidity.

There was quote from the film, 'Fight Club' (Chuck Palahniuk), 'Never under-estimate the predictability of stupidity', which when it's all boiled down means knowing what to do, but not doing it. This could well be THE major 'disease' of our time.

All the symptoms of metabolic dysfunction - elevated blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, obesity, depression (yep, depression is positively correlated with metabolic dysfunction), lack of energy, headaches, cardiac insufficiency are related to body systems that have become dysfunctional, due principally to a poor diet and lack of aerobic fitness.

And if it's personally generated I wouldn't classify it as a disease. And being personally-generated there's a good chance that it can be personally-ungenerated (though not in all cases.)

Despite whet the medical industry thinks, heart disease isn't a disease; type 2 diabetes isn't a disease, just symptoms of personally-generated dysfunctions. Because they're classified as diseases by the medical industry, the medical industry has levered its way into the front line of treatment. And what misguided treatment it frequently is, when drugs to mask the symptoms are the first prescriptions of choice, rather than the last.

It's time the  has fitness industry elbowed the medical industry out of the way for the treatment and prevention of the personally-generated, body system dysfunctions.

You'll know the personally generated dysfunctions from the usual junk medical treatments:

- a heart attack is not caused by a lack of bypass surgery
- headaches are not caused by a lack of Panadol
- high blood pressure is not caused by a lack of Avapro
- high cholesterol is not caused by a lack of Lipitor
- depression is not caused by a lack of Zolof
- type 2 diabetes is not caused by a lack of Gliclazide
- reflux is not caused by a lack of Tims
- a crook guts is not caused by a lack of Prilosec
- lower back pain is not caused by a lack of Oxycodine
- bad breath is not caused by a lack of Spearmint
- piles are not caused by a lack of Anudol.

So, nope, being fat is definitely not a disease.