Call: Obesity is not your fault
Posted: Feb 04 in Obesity Medicine by Dr. Lazarus
Blaming a person for their weight is about as helpful as blaming them for their height. While science has shown that obesity is a disease largely driven by biology, many people living with obesity continue to be blamed for their weight by others, or worse, blame themselves for their weight.
Studies have shown that obesity is a disease because when a person with obesity tries to lose weight, the body fights back, both by slowing metabolism and by increasing hunger. That’s why so many people who have worked hard to lose weight find it so hard to keep the weight off.
Many people who lose and regain feel like a failure. You are not a failure. It is the treatment that failed you. Why did the treatment fail? Perhaps you chose an unsustainable food plan, or a physical activity regimen that was not realistic. Perhaps underlying drivers of weight gain were not addressed – medications that increase weight, sarcopenia (low lean weight), improperly managed hypothyroidism, or pre-diabetes / insulin resistance. Or, perhaps you were not offered anti-obesity medicine that can offset these metabolic adaptations, or you weren’t offered the best anti-obesity medication.
Obesity is not your fault. It is a complex neuro-behavioral disease, and losing weight and keeping it off can be a real challenge. Much like medications can be an effective tool to treat high cholesterol or high blood pressure, medications can also be an effective tool to treat an elevated body mass index (BMI).
Remember, losing weight only to regain it is not a failure. It is the natural history of any chronic disease including obesity. If you want to discuss strategies that can help you with chronic weight management instead of just focusing on acute weight loss, give us a call at (303) 750-9454 and we can find strategies that will work for you.
After all, what do you have to lose?
Hey Dr.Lazarus, losing weight and keeping it off are definitely a challenge. People often go into diets and workout routines as if their bodies will change over night. It takes incredible willpower and focus to lose weight and most people won’t keep it off. But, obesity is no disease. Unless there is an underlying medical condition everyone who reduces their caloric intake will lose weight. Sure, the body slows down the metabolism when some people diet, but that’s because of the way they diet. I put my email in the comment query and would love to talk to you more about this!
Thank you for your comment. I think many people would agree with you; however, I do not. The AMA recognized obesity as a disease in 2013, and the WHO years before that, defining it as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that affects health. Evidence based treatments include lifestyle intervention, healthy eating, physical activity prescription, medical management, and surgery. Even with treatment, the disease of obesity is resistant to change – therefore, chronic treatment is needed. By all means, I agree that there are environmental and personal contributors. Just because a person drinks alcohol does not mean they have alcohol use disorder. Similarly, not everybody truly has obesity – when the body fat negatively affects health, and the body resists changes to the body fat, then it meets these definitions and is deserving of evidence-based treatments to prevent complications including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.