There is so much to be said and done. I envision a worldwide campaign with annual funding from multinational corporations, philanthropists, all world health associations/organisations, and every national budget globally.
For now, I am concluding my thoughts on overweight and obesity (O&O) and its effect on the mental health of individuals, especially the impact from the deep-seated biases of others.
Know this: the issue is pervasive and the discourse on how best to help humanity has not even scratched the surface. In the words of former World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan (2017): “No country in the world has managed to turn its obesity epidemic around in all age groups.” We are floundering.
Chan said: “Population-wide overweight and obesity are the signal that bad trouble is on its way, especially given the strong links between obesity and overweight and diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.”
In wrapping up her tenure, Chan’s Ten years in public health report gave us an appreciation of where we stood globally on all public health issues and dubbed non-communicable diseases, for which obesity is a major driver, as “a slow-motion disaster.”
Her summary on how best to treat issues including O&O was instructive. She said: “The approaches needed to combat such a monumental and broad-based challenge are numerous—from considering the implications of trade and foreign investment agreements to legislative and fiscal measures that enforce population-wide prevention.”
Chan continued, saying the wide-ranging approach has to move “from community engagement and a life-course approach to people-centred health services that focus on integrated care instead of individual diseases, from finding ways to shape the behaviours of powerful economic operators to persuading municipal authorities to create safe playgrounds and spaces for pedestrians and cyclists.”
Importantly, she advanced the idea that “the widespread occurrence of obesity and diabetes throughout a population is not a failure of individual willpower to resist fats and sweets or exercise more.” And for the people in the back or those up front whose prejudices about “fat people,” block their ears, I repeat: obesity is a disease, not a failure.
The failure would be the manner in which we look at this growing problem and refuse “to make bold political choices that take on powerful economic operators, like the food and soda industries.”
Chan said: “If governments understand this duty, the fight against obesity and diabetes can be won. The interests of the public must be prioritised over those of corporations.”
But until such a time of economic reckoning in T&T and in every country in the whole wide world we will continue to live with the crouching tiger of O&O where alarmingly (or not) for example, the US is projected to have obesity in 50% of its population by the year 2030 (www.hsph.harvard.edu).
Shaming people with unhealthy weights would go out of style eventually when we realise that it will result in so many losses to us – of people, economies, social fabric, effective health systems, and much more – which will impact every one of us: our lifestyle, our livelihood, and our life expectancy. The hope is that the reckoning comes before the total collapse.
On the individual level, I often wonder if the intense stress I go through not being at what I consider my healthy weight may be because I am given to stressing about things in general. But what if it were not so? What if people who are O&O are given to worry and anxiety about their condition? What percentage of our population is now living with that extra layer of stress?
And how many more are stressing because you and I think or are conditioned to think that they are a failure or that their body composition is a representation of weak-will, greed, and laziness?
And yes, I include myself in the dialogue because my mind is so habituated. Only yesterday I am going through a photo album online of the most beautiful people in absolutely fine fashion and I find my focus drifting to people’s body sizes. Despite my learning, my advocacy and having an obese weight, I have to bridle my prejudices on a daily basis because I see people as being “fatter than me.”
If our minds are so predisposed then I assume that it would take a reset to think wholesomely about O&O. It would take some interventions, education, robust messaging, and intentionality to help us fix our minds, adjust our attitudes, and see this issue as a battle for humanity, one which starts with compassion for the next person.
Shame and condescension from within your thin bodies will only add more burden to the issue.
They cripple people mentally from trusting others sufficiently to even seek an intervention. Sadly, the disparagement by health systems and healthcare workers heavily contribute to non-health-seeking behaviours of those deemed overweight and obese.
Give a thought to rethinking this issue.