HEALTH – Obesity, a disease recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “an abnormal or excessive accumulation of body fat which represents a risk to health”, has been talked about a lot in recent days. In France, the hashtag # PlusDe100kgEtSereine on Twitter recently revived the debate on the definition ofobesity.
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According to one new canadian guideline, weight shouldn’t be the only factor to consider. Published Tuesday, August 4 in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association, she wants to define obesity by state of health and not just by the BMI (body mass index) of sick people. And particularly warns against the stigma related to the weight of patients in the health system.
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Don’t blame obese people
“The dominant cultural narrative about obesity fuels assumptions about personal irresponsibility and unwillingness and throw the blame and shame on people with obesity ”, is it written in the guideline, intended to be used by doctors to diagnose and treat the disease.
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Because according to Ximena Ramos-Salas – director of research and policy at Obesity Canada and one of the authors of the guideline – many doctors discriminate against obese patients, which can lead to problems of more important to them, we learn about BBC.
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These factors “contribute to increased morbidity and mortality regardless of weight or body mass index”, as stated in the guideline. However, “food is an antidepressant, an addiction that often occurs when we have failed to cure the initial ailment, a big emotional shock, a bad diagnosis, a genetic inheritance, a hormonal dysfunction. There are a thousand reasons that can lead to obesity for which you are not responsible ”, explains the doctor in the tv movie by Murielle Magellan “Me, fat”, broadcast in 2019.
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Lifelong medical follow-up
In France, 17% of the adult population is obese. The Ministry of Health has put in place a system to better prevent and take care of this illness. And the new Canadian guideline suggests that physicians provide patient supports such as medication, surgery or psychological therapy, instead of simply advising them to “eat less, move more”. With one objective: to support them as well as possible physically and psychologically.
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Because reducing your weight by 3 to 5% could lead to improvements in the health of obese people, without this “best weight” being the ideal one according to the BMI. But the patient needs to be monitored regularly so as not to resume weight.
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For Ximena Ramos-Salas, diets alone do not work, since the brain, for fear of lack, encourages eating more at the end of the diet, to compensate for the possible deprivation of food. Doctors therefore have a key role to play, and must be trained accordingly.
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Obesity remains a complex chronic disease that must be managed for life. As the WHO states, those affected have “major risk factors for a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer”.
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