Is obesity a fatality?

I read an interesting article in NewsWeek –September 21st – about recent findings that will certainly change our perception on the increasing problem of obesity.

While it is widely known that about 60% of Americans are overweight or obese, recent studies from Scientist of Harvard School of Public Health pointed out a new tendency observed in infants under 6 months. Obesity in this segment of the population has risen by 73% since 1980. It is clear that conventional explanations like bad eaten practices and inactivity cannot be applied to babies!!

Indeed, it has been found that pollutants in the food chain could modify some genes that will generate more fat cells which stay for life and altering metabolic rate which results in the accumulation of calories rather than burning them.

This article has had a great impact on me and I took time to think about it.

First I think we have to remain very tolerant with people concerned by obesity. There are various reasons that can lead to obesity. Most of them are said to be due to personal choices but some are not under personal control, like hormonal disease or consequence of heavy medications. The new findings explored in the article show that nobody is sheltered from being concerned by this epidemic phenomenon far beyond individual control.

Overweight people are often marginalized and caricaturized. Marginalized because they are different, because they require more medical support to treat diabete, heart disease related to the obesity increasing health-care costs at a time politics try to reduce health care bill. Caricaturized as indolent people responsible of their condition as a result of personal choices. I think we should be more open-minded and try to see how much they probably suffer from their condition.

Then I was a little bit frightened by the article as it demonstrates once again how we can be exposed to risks without any knowledge of the consequences on our health and on the health of future generations.

I hope that NIH and FDA’s scientists’ determination will be strong enough to alarm politics and that appropriate decisions will be made to protect us and future generations.