- Position‹2 of 3›
- Obesity is not a disease
- Argument1 of 3›
Obesity is caused by overeating
Obesity is most often caused by poor food choices. When a body burns less than the calories provided, people gain weight.
The argument
The claim is that obesity is produced by choices rather than by a disease process, and that this distinction is what the question turns on. The pattern described is one of habituation: once people are obese they are used to eating unhealthily and used to large quantities of food, and they don't want to stop. The eating is not something that happens to them but something they continue doing, and on this account the continuation is what sustains the condition. A second observation is offered to show that the condition is not self-correcting in the way an illness might be. A lot of energy is used to move a heavier body, so the physical demands of being obese work against the weight rather than with it. If the condition persists despite that, proponents argue, something must be maintaining it, and what maintains it is the continued intake. The body is not failing to respond; it is responding to what it is given. From this the conclusion is drawn that the cause lies in decisions. People in this position continue to live an unhealthy lifestyle due to their own decisions, and a condition produced by repeated decisions is one that different decisions would alter. That is not how diseases are understood. A disease is something a person contracts or develops independently of what they choose, and it does not resolve because they resolve to behave differently. Because obesity on this account is caused by overeating, and overeating is a course of action rather than a pathology, the condition is self-inflicted, and on this view obesity is not a disease.
Context
As the years go on, the percentage of Americans and other first world countries' citizens who have unhealthy lifestyles is rising. One-third of the world is overweight or worse and is usually self-inflicted.
Premises
Counter-arguments
When someone smokes regularly and gets cancer, is their cancer not a disease simply because it was self-inflicted? Just because the person's lifestyle was the reason that they are struck with a condition doesn't make it any less of a disease.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] Diseases inflicted by oneself are just as valid as those naturally occurring. Obesity is a disease.