Obesity V. Smoking and Drug Use

Is obesity really a disease like we say it is? Certainly some children are brought up to eat certain foods and live certain lifestyles that lead to obesity but that does not make it a disease. What about children who are raised around smoking and grow up to be smokers? Do these people get the benefit of there in bred negative habit being called a disease? No these people get told to stand out in the cold and smoke. They get told that they are killing themselves and those around them. They get told that they are killing their children. They get told they smell bad because of the smoke. The same holds true with Drugs. Both smoking and Drugs are considered horrible habits. On top of this people who do not quit these habits are considered either lazy or stupid for not stopping these habits.

Why should Obesity be any different? You can walk up to a man in a restaurant and tell him to put out his cigarette if it is bothering you. You can tell your grandfather that he is killing himself by smoking all the time. Why then cant you tell your grandfather that he is eating himself to death. Why can't you tell a 500 pound woman that feeding her kids and herself big macs for lunch is killing her and her kids?

I say obesity is not a disease, it is combination of a bad habit and ignorance. It is true that some people are more susceptible genetically to obesity but these people can still live healthy life styles that prevent early death and heart disease. Obesity should not be considered a disease. That is just giving people an excuse to be morbidly obese.

What if you gave your 5 year old a cigarette, would you get your child taken away? Yes. So the same principle should hold true for those parents that feed their children 3 big macs and 2 bowls of ice cream everyday. In either case the child is being pointed toward and early death.

I ask you to just considered that deaths from heart attacks directly caused by obesity are almost as high per year as the amount of deaths due to lung cancer caused by smoking. Soon the number will be higher.

Something must be done to change our attitude about the way we eat in this country. Great strides have been made already. There have been Dare programs and Just say No in our schools to stop smoking and drug use. There have also been programs about safe sex and abstinence. There need to be more programs geared toward directing America's youth into healthy life styles. They same way we should not trust all parents to keep their kids of drugs we should not trust all parents to feed their children properly or encourage healthy lifestyles. School programs should teach that exercise and the correct diet are as key to a healthy lifestyle as not smoking and not taking drugs.

I will leave you on this note. Their are drug addicts and smoking fiends all over that are healthier than some of the obese people I have seen in my local Wal-mart.