I couldn't agree more.

The problem with deciding that obesity is a choice for most people (which I'm not sure I believe anymore) is that you can't tell by looking whether the person has a medical condition and even if they're overeating, whether the overeating is due to a medical condition. And is it any more appropriate to ask than it is with other disabilities?

We don't say "it's ok to discriminate against physically disabled persons if the disability was their own fault, or if we dib;t bekueve they're doing the maximum possible to reduce the disability.


If that were true whe could discriminate against the people iin wheelchair, if they were injured because they drove drunk." Or it would be ok to discriminate against persons with HIV if they contracted the disease from promiscuous, unprotected sex.

We don't say, it's ok to disciriminate against blind people, if their blindness was caused by failing to manage their diabetes. Or against the person with lung cancer, if they smoked.

It's also difficult to determine whether the medical problems are causing the poor choices or the poor choices are causing the medical problems (or more likely - both, many disabling conditions are lifestyle-affected).

For most of my life, I thought that the only reason I was fat, was that I overate. I didn't know why I overate, or why I couldn't seem to stop myself from overeating, or why I was hungry all the time, or why dieting only seemed to make the problem exponentially worse. I thought I was lazy, crazy, or stupid (though why I was lazy, crazy, and stupid in only one area of my life, sure stumped me).

In the work environment, I always felt I had to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. I burned the candle at both ends (probably making the obesity and my other health problems worse) to prove I wasn't lazy or incompetent.

I put more effort into trying to lose weight than I did at everything else in my life, and I only got fatter and fatter. It seemed that dieting only every resulted in weight gain.

I accidentally discovered that there was a physiological component to my weight loss. I'd resisted birth control until my late 20's (because of the substantial risk of weight gain), when I finally started taking bc (because of severe PMDD symptoms that were actually worse than the prospect of gaining weight), I learned that the insane monthly hunger disappeared.

I also learned that on a low-carb diet, the "rabid" hunger completely disappeared - ironically a diet I had always avoided because of its reputation for being unhealthy.

When it comes to obesity, I don't think we really have a clue as to how much is voluntary, and how much is physiological. I would have never believed that low-carb could have made such a difference, or that following low-carb would be so incredibly difficult (imagine how difficult heroine addiction would be if everyone, including grannies and kindergarten teachers were the pushers).

I used to think the "carbs are poisons" dieters were dangerous fanatics, but the incredible health improvements I've experienced since going low-carb/paleo have made me reconsider. I wish I had learned most of this at 16 (or earlier) rather than AFTER 30 years of trying and failing (because I was trying the wrong strategies - even though it was the best advice doctors had to offer at the time).

Only in hindsight can I say that I've probably had carb-sensitivity (and insulin-sensitivity) all of my life. And that most of the advice my doctors gave me over the past four decades has been complete horse crap. I almost didn't try low-carb because "everything I I knew" said it was unhealthy. So sad that I nearly rejected a miracle solution because common wisdom and the nutrition/medical community rejected it as extreme and unhealthy. I didn't know what I didn't know.

I think it is terribly sad that so many of our disabled citizens are disabled because of preventable illness and injury, but we're also a society that largely has little interest in preventive medicine. I had been on NSAIDS and asthma medications for more than two decades before learning that the NSAIDS were causing/aggravating the asthma. I didn't have asthma symptoms until I had been on NSAIDS for years. The asthma got worse and worse, and doctors just prescribed stronger asthma drugs. When I discovered accidentally (running out of meds when we also had run out of money to pay for even an otc NSAID) that the lung issues disappeared when I stopped taking the NSAIDS, and told my doctor I was told this was actually quite common. In 25 years and in dozens of doctors - not one had ever told me that there was a possible connection - nor did any suggest that I consider stopping the nsaids to see if it helped. That seems ridiculous to me.

In hindsight, I wish I had rejected "common wisdom" much earlier, but I didn't know what I didn't know - and I think that's the most insidious aspect of the "obesity epidemic." People aren't overweight because they're lazy, crazy, or stupid - but because they don't know what they don't know. A lot of the "best" diet advice is misleading or just plain wrong. Add to that, the fact that it's a problem that is considered shameful and inappropriate to discuss openly, and you've got a recipe for an epidemic.