Obesity, disease and the social determinants of health

With the American Medical Association’s recent decision to reclassify obesity as a disease (it was previously "a condition"), the Canadian Medical Association may well begin considering a similar stance beginning at their August meeting and continuing into the fall. In practice, doctors in Canada may already treat obesity as a disease; however, a formal decision to label it as such would have policy implications. A review of the CMA’s discourse on obesity over the years appeared in a 2012 issue of the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, and it highlights some concerns with medicalization of obesity. The author, Angela Eileen Wisniewski (University of New Brunswick), describes how the CMA has often focused on the economic costs of obesity, using the economic size of the problem (so to speak) to validate new research and prioritize obesity among other public health issues. At times this has gone hand in hand with a neoliberal-style focus on individual responsibilities and the need to ration scarce resources. The CMA’s initial use of the term “the obesity epidemic” was reflective of this line of thinking. At other times, however the CMA has actually, and strongly, introduced ideas of social inclusiveness and equity into policy debates by describing obesity as a structural (still economics-related) problem requiring government intervention such as increases in social assistance rates or regulation of advertising. Wisniewski suggests that when the CMA argues that it ...
Source: Open Medicine Blog - - Category: Medical Publishers Authors: Source Type: blogs