Obesity is now a disease. Interestingly, this new, very controversial and very subjective disease was not declared by the new "psychiatric bible" (the DSM-5) but by the American Medical Association (AMA).
Against its own Council on Science and Public Health, the AMA declared obesity a disease and created some criteria for it – none of which, critics say, is pathological in design but instead very simplistic and unvalidated.
Where's the controversy?
Unlike with a new psychiatric disease or change in criteria, though, few are questioning the AMA's decision in the popular press. This means that while the debate rages about the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for psychiatry, a very controversial change by the AMA for doctors – one that will have far-reaching ramifications for all facets of the medical industry – is basically being ignored.
The tests for obesity are well-defined but based on little scientific evidence and are not generally well-accepted as objective. The common definition for "obese" is based on body mass index (BMI) levels, which are well-understood to be exceedingly generic and often out of whack with the patient's true physical nature. A person is obese if his or her height versus weight is not within a general scale that fits many, but not all, people – no accounting for bone density, body typing or any other factors.
In fact, the "clear" risks we've all been told that are associated with obesity (under the BMI definition) for heart disease and other things are not actually that clear, nor are they as statistically high as the media may have portrayed them to be.
In a move very similar to what critics of the DSM give for psychiatry, the AMA has created a disease by simple show of hands – a committee vote. Even more so than with psychiatry, however, the AMA's decision will have vast implications for insurance, health treatments, research and more.
