Aarontology: FTA: the stigma surrounding obesity and belief that it is not a disease are keeping the government from addressing the crisis.

"At the root of this is that people still have a real problem thinking about obesity as anything other than a willpower issue," said Ferguson. "It is still perfectly acceptable to think about excluding treatment."

This is where I find an issue. While I agree that obesity is a disease, it's a disease in the same sort of way that addiction is a disease. You don't just suddenly come down with obesity, like you can with cancer or any other number of diseases. It all depends on what the person decides to do with their body and what they decide to put into it. I'm sure there are people out there with slow metablolisms or other legitimate reasons why they would put on more weight, and have trouble getting rid of it, than most people.

And to say that the government doesn't do much about it, is also somewhat false. Given that the government can't really regulate what people eat without infringing too much on people's personal freedom, their hands are tied. They can promote healthy lifestyles through information campaigns and so on. Whenever a city or state tries to ban some food product, like trans fats and so on, there's always an uproar about the government getting too involved with our lives. From my reading, it seems that the doctor in the article is biatching more that various state programs won't cover those stomach surgeries, rather than any sort of meaningful complaint.

But going back a little bit, if obesity is a true disease like cancer, wouldn't the rates have been relatively consistent over time, and across the world where there are similar living standards? By trying to pass it off as a real disease it can give people a sense of justification for their obscenely unhealthy lifestyles and lack of desire to do the hard work and get back into shape.

The over abundance of cheap, sugary food isn't helping us any. I just bought a box of day old donuts for $2.50 and am on the second one; I've probably already ingested 500 calories of pure sugar. If it weren't for weight lifting and MMA I'd be 900 lbs.

All that being said, still a will power issue for 99.9% of fat people. People shouldn't need the government to protect them from their own stupidity and inability to not eat so much crap food; banning junk food just hurts the people who know how to eat it without ending up with diabeetus.