Obesity as a Disease
Updated on November 24, 2007
Genetic Diseases
A disease is a physical dysfunction with identifiable symptoms. A genetic disease is a disease that is caused by our genotype.
Everything you see on your body, everything your body does, everything you physically are is a product of multiple genetic mutations. Some genes mutated to make light skin while others mutated to make dark skin. Is one better than the other? That depends on who you ask.
Imagine a world without shade, where you are constantly exposed to the burning rays of the sun. To survive such conditions, you would need to have skin that could tolerate the sunlight without burning (which could lead to shock, infection, and death). Naturally, people in those conditions would evolve to have dark skin because everyone with light skin would die off early in life. If somebody was born with light skin, the color of his skin may be considered a disease, and treatments for the light-skin disease might be developed. The light-skinned person would be considered perfectly normal, just different, in our own society because having light skin doesn't interfere with the function of our lifestyles, and light skin in itself won't kill you.
Obesity as a Genetic Disease
The dysfunction of obesity is that your body is hoarding calories when it doesn't need to. Our ancestors needed to hoard calories for survival, but it's just not necessary for most of us in industrialized societies today.
Some genetic diseases interfere with our survival no matter what environment you're in. No matter what you do, it's going to kill you. Fortunately, obesity is not one of those diseases. We have the power to control obesity.
Is There Anyone Who Doesn't Need to Control Obesity
Yes, there are some people who have difficulty gaining weight. If we didn't have an abundant supply of food in our society and happened to live as our ancestors did, these individuals would die during times of famine.
I've known several individuals who spent many hours a day drinking high calories protein shakes and incredible amounts of food because they quickly developed a skeletal appearance if they didn't. (No, they weren't bulimic.) It was obviously genetic because it was a problem for the majority of their family and even relatives outside of the home.
The cause of weight gain deficiencies range from genetic influences to illnesses that affect digestion and metabolism.
Difficulty gaining weight is just as (if not more) dangerous as difficulty losing weight and needs medical attention to rule out treatable underlying diseases.
Symptoms of the Obesity Disease
The symptom list is simple:
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Easily storing calories as fat
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Increase in body fat
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Excessive body fat
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Difficulty metabolizing body fat
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