The "Obese" Dilemma

Populations world-wide, particularly in the developed world of access to plenty, have become increasingly overweight, obese and morbidly-obese. We are not, generally speaking, disciplined as consumers of anything marketable, let alone the food we consume. We are not attuned to the practicality of the golden mean, taking things in moderation, seeking a fine balance between sufficient and enough, choosing to select for ourselves more, far more than is good for us.

We seem unable to contain our greed, unwilling to recognize that we do ourselves harm.

A recent survey points out that physicians view their obese patients in quite a personal aesthetic, as "awkward", "unattractive", "ugly", and "non-compliant". Overly weighty people can be all of those descriptives, and more. They consign themselves to a life of physical awkwardness, incapable as a result of the extra, unneeded weight they carry around, to perform perfectly ordinary physical tasks. Walking is too great a strain, and eating to their heart's strain is a delight.

They become complicit in their own physical incapacities, and by extension psychological imbalance, recognizing their newly-acquired and difficult-to-shed bulk, but lacking the will to embark on a more sensible style of living. Exercise doesn't appeal, but food does, enormously. It is so available, they succumb to advertisements that entice them to indulge, and live for the moment that the pleasure of consuming gives them, unwilling to admit that they are actively working toward a shortened life-span fraught with ill-health on the way to death.

And they heartily dislike the way they are seen by others. Regarded with a distinct lack of respect, as though their weight issue superimposes itself on the issue of their intelligence, capability or character. Well, it does, doesn't it? A lack of self-discipline, a surrender to the urge to over-indulge does speak of a certain lack of character, capability and in the end, intelligence. The bias and prejudice that obese people bemoan is a very real phenomenon and in a way it's not quite fair that others sit in judgement upon their choices.

On the other hand there is the very real issue that obese people are not particularly well people; their lifestyle habits of sedentary over-eating lead them steadily toward heart problems, compromising their entire physical well-being, leading to diabetes which itself can lead to blindness, kidney breakdown, neuropathy and other ultimately life-threatening conditions. All of which could be avoided with a little common sense and a lot of determination.

They could avoid being targeted as objects of dark humour, of 'disrespect', of being short-changed in the areas of opportunities, employment, friendships if they made a concerted attempt to control their instincts to over-consume. In over-consuming food they don't need they impair their health and by extension use the public health-care system far more than most other people content to live reasonable lifestyles that benefit them and society at large.

Obesity-based discrimination is unfortunate, but it does reflect human nature to spurn and to hold in low esteem those whose physical condition is a self-imposed one, through neglect and succumbing to the temptation to overdo needs. Adults who raise young children who then go on to inherit a familial lifestyle that is so obviously at want are neglecting their duty to their young.

Canada, a country of just over 30-million people, claims a demographic of 7 million overweight, and 4.5-million obese individuals. That's a lot of unnecessary consumption looking for a disaster to settle on.