A recent study by the World Health Organization (WHO), published in the journal The Lancet, indicates that one in eight people in the world suffers from obesity. Research warns that it can cause non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and some types of cancer. The dissemination of this report coincides with World Obesity Day, which is celebrated on March 4, an initiative established in 2015 by the World Obesity Federation with the objective of “treating obesity from a holistic point of view, from the causes to prevention and treatment.”
For some years now, various activist organizations against fatphobia have been demanding around the world “the resignification of a date that contributes to the systematic pathologization of fatness and transmits a dangerous message towards all those bodies that are different,” explains activist Carmen Godino, who was once one of those responsible for Stop Fatphobia.
This platform was one of the first to put on the table that “although it is true that obesity can be a risk factor for some issues, what is truly dangerous is fatphobia, that is, the systematic harassment that we receive. fat people,” Godino continues. For her, “it is important to give new meaning to a date that re-victimizes fat people, who are constantly defined solely by weight and who suffer multiple discriminations, starting with a health system that focuses solely on the fact that we are fat.”
Both Godino and other activists (“mostly women and LGTBIQ people”, specifically) oppose the use of the term “obesity” and prefer to talk about “fatness”. “Talking about obesity is a way of pathologizing fatness for the benefit of the medical-aesthetic business, which is why it is necessary to finally claim that there is another corporality and stop talking about pathologies.” It is also explained by the feminist writer and activist Roxana Gay, a woman who weighed up to 300 kg and recounts her experience in her book Hunger, memories of my body (Captain Swing): “I want to believe that my value as a human being does not reside in my size or physical appearance. Having grown up in a culture that is toxic to women, it is important to fight against crazy standards for what a body should look like,” she notes.
For her part, nutritionist Raquel Lobatón, specialized in intuitive eating and inclusive nutrition who works under the HAES® (Health at Every Size) philosophy, defines herself as an “activist for body diversity” and is committed to a eating model that is far from the diet focused exclusively on weight loss.” For Lobatón, “we cannot focus exclusively on the scale to know if a person is healthy or not: we cannot know anything about someone’s health based solely on how much they weigh.” For her, “all people can improve their health at any body size, starting to eat better, quitting smoking and incorporating movement, even if they do not lose weight.”
The dietitian-nutritionist María del Mar Silva, from the Dietynut center in Madrid, does not think the same, stating that obesity “is a disease that deserves to be treated as such and people who suffer from it have the right to receive help to achieve more adequate and healthy body composition.” She agrees with Godino, however, that “obesity is due to multiple factors and people who suffer from it deserve to be respected, something that has probably not always happened in the field of medicine.”
Fortunately, according to Silva, “there is increasing awareness on the part of health professionals that overweight people face greater social pressure than in other cases and that their lives are usually difficult. Therefore, it is important that obesity can be treated in a kind and empathetic way.” However, for Silva, “removing the focus from the fact that obesity is a problem not only of health, but of public health, and putting it on fatphobia distances us from what truly matters: that these people can receive the necessary help.” to modify your body composition and, therefore, feel better.”
This happens, according to doctor and nutritionist Núria Monfulleda, from the Loveyourself center in Barcelona, ??due to the understanding that “for many overweight people it is difficult to lose it and each small loss can be more difficult than for other patients. As professionals we must be aware that sometimes we will not achieve the desired results but that small advances also matter.” Monfulleda, who was once an obese woman, lost weight through a strict diet and decided to dedicate herself to accompanying other people on the same path, assures that “in a society that tends to hypersexualization, a woman who does not fit the standards that are considered attractive is immediately discarded, which does not happen, for example, with people who smoke or drink.
Godino, for his part, insists that “obesity is not a disease in itself, although it can be a risk factor, but luckily health is something broader than weight” and adds that many fat people have good health. analytics. For Silva, correct analyzes cannot be considered in isolation as a guarantee of good health. “Many obese people have good blood tests until at some point – and it usually happens – things get out of hand and problems appear, from diabetes to hypertension or high cholesterol,” among other issues. Scientific evidence supports this thesis. According to research published in the journal Medicina Clínica, obesity has a direct relationship with the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases. Another study, this time published in the journal Plos Cancer and carried out by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), in the United States, concludes that adults with extreme obesity are at risk of dying at a younger age due to cancer and other causes. , including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and liver and kidney pathologies.
However, the debate about whether obesity should be considered a disease or a risk factor, and about the possible nuances that separate both terms, is still present. This is how Francisco Arrieta and Juan Pedro Botet explain it in their article ‘Recognizing obesity as a disease: quite a challenge’, published in Revista Clínica Española. “Recognizing obesity as a disease allows us to improve access to treatment and stimulate the advancement of new therapeutic strategies. However, the term obesity is associated with great stigmatization, both publicly and by the patient themselves. Medicalizing obesity, which confers “disease” status on tens of millions of adults and children, risks dependence on expensive medical treatment and neglects preventive health policy measures to address the underlying social determinants of obesity.” .
This statement highlights something that is often overlooked when the debate opens on whether World Obesity Day is, ultimately, necessary or stigmatizing: the role of the food industry and public policies. Therefore, focus the debate on whether obesity should be treated as a disease that, therefore, requires medical treatment and behavioral reeducation, or whether fatphobia is a major social problem (something that has been seen recently in the reactions to the death of the actress Itziar Castro), means, in part, ignoring that we live surrounded by a large amount of unhealthy, high-calorie, very cheap foods with attractive marketing campaigns behind them.
This is explained by the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla: “It is necessary to work, first of all, on what we call healthy taxation, that is, that tax policies are tools to improve health. In this sense, it is important to approve policies to attract the population to the consumption of certain products, so a policy of tax benefits for healthy foods should be implemented.”
Padilla recalls that it is precisely in the poorest neighborhoods where there is greater obesogenic pressure, which has a decisive impact on public health. “We understand by obesogenic pressure the number of impacts that encourage us to consume foods that promote obesity, from advertising to the number of establishments offering unhealthy food, which occurs especially in low-income neighborhoods.” In fact, a study carried out in Madrid three years ago indicates that the density of junk food establishments near schools is twice as high in low-income neighborhoods as in those with higher social classes. And the fact is that “as in all unhealthy lifestyle habits, there is a very important class gradient in food,” concludes the Secretary of State.
