FOR KIDS: Fat becomes a disease

Medical group decides it is time for doctors to view ? and treat ? obesity as a disease

Medical group decides it is time for doctors to view ? and treat ? obesity as a disease

By Janet Raloff

Web edition: June 21, 2013

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Heavy reassessment

One in three U.S. adults is obese, as are many children and teens. The excess flab puts them at elevated risk for a range of life-threatening diseases, from cancer to diabetes.

Credit: iStockphoto

On June 18, the American Medical Association?s House of Delegates signed off on a statement arguing that obesity is a disease. It said that obesity ? the condition of being excessively overweight ? meets all of AMA?s criteria for defining a disease. These criteria include impairing normal functions of the body, having characteristic signs or symptoms and leading to harm or poor health.

Some people have argued that obesity is not a disease but just the unhealthy result of lifestyle choices to eat too much and to exercise too little. But the new AMA policy statement rejects that idea. It states that such an attitude makes as little sense as ?suggesting that lung cancer is not a disease because it was brought about by individual choice to smoke cigarettes.?

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/351171/title/FOR_KIDS_Fat_becomes_a_disease

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