Should obesity be treated as a disease?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Should obesity be treated as a disease?
Position‹3 of 3: Obesity is a mental illness
Argument: Mental illness can cause obesity

Depression is a major cause of weight gain as is anxiety and eating disorders.

The argument

Individuals that eat poorly in response to depression continue to overeat once they they are on medication due to an increase in appetite. Many people suffering from poverty end up being obese due to easy accessibility to unhealthy food, and stress from living in poverty. Mental illness usually has a reason or a trigger. To be diagnosed with a mental illness symptoms must have lasted several months. Obesity is certainly not something that can come and go in less than a month. Also, mental illness can be a reaction to a stressor or trauma. If the stressor is poverty and the reaction is overeating then that means obesity can be defined as a mental illness.

Context

Poor mental health causes many problems with weight. Depression causes a lack of motivation to eat healthily or exercise in many cases. In addition, many antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers cause weight gain and hunger.

Premises

[P1]Mental illnesses such as depression, and the medications used to treat them, frequently cause overeating and sustained weight gain. [P2] Stressors like poverty can trigger overeating as a prolonged reaction, matching the duration and trigger-based criteria used to diagnose mental illness. [C] Therefore, obesity arising from these psychological causes should itself be treated as a mental illness.

Counter-arguments

Obesity is a result of mental illness, not the source. Depression causes weight gain as do many antidepressants. School is a source of anxiety, and anxiety is a mental illness. But school isn't a mental illness and neither is obesity.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Obesity is the result of mental illness, not the source.