by Lou Belcher

Created on: May 14, 2009

Whether being fat is a disease or a choice is not an easy question to answer. Obesity is such a complex problem that it takes a good deal of digging into feelings to determine the cause or causes of the problem. If you believe that emotional problems can be classified as diseases, then being fat definitely can be classified as a disease. The tricky part is that it is a disease that often results from irrational choices.

There is no rational reason for a person to lose weight and then make the same inappropriate choices for food and gain that weight back. Therefore, it is important to conclude that there is something driving that behavior that pushes the person to make choices that are not in the best interest of his/her health and well-being.

In order to determine if being fat is a disease in the physical sense of the definition it is important to start with a good physical examination to rule out physical disease causing your obesity.

If the tests come back normal, indicating for instance that there is no physical cause for the overeating, then it's time to look at any medications you are taking. You will want to consult with your doctor regarding whether any of them have the side effect of weight gain. If they do, you will need to consult your doctor to determine if there are substitutions that can be made. It's never wise to stop a medication without consulting your physician.

If there are no physical causes or medications causing your overeating or weight gain, it is time to look at emotional causes. To do this, you need to set up a list of questions to look into when and why you reach for food.

The first question to ask yourself when you read for food is whether you are hungry. If the answer to that question is no, then you must dig deeper. Are you eating because you are unhappy, depressed, angry, agitated or bored? Or are you eating to celebrate or to pass the time, or in response to urging of another person? It's important to be honest with yourself and attribute your eating to the right thing. Once you do, you will be able to take a look at possible remedies or ways to overcome your overeating.

The answer to the question of whether being fat is a disease or a choice may not be a clear one, but if you can determine the combination of physical and emotional causes you can attribute to being fat, you can begin to work on the causes one at a time.

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