[Brandon]

Originally Posted by dr2005

I'm steering clear of this from now on, but I will clear up one thing:



Obesity is a medical condition with a wide range of physical components and consequences, but it is not possessive of any criteria which make it a mental illness. In particular there is no evidence of being consistently associated with a psychological or behavoural syndrome - in short, it can often have physical symptoms only. It can be a symptom of certain mental illnesses such as binge eating disorder, but being a symptom of a mental illness and being a mental illness from the outset are very different things, and as such obesity was considered and rejected for DSM-V. I would recommend reading the following on this point:

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/jo...al-health-myth
• http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Resear...oupReport.aspx
• http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-01/h...2?_s=PM:HEALTH

This is very solid evidence. Probably the first legitimate evidence that's been thrown at me, so we're on the right path. I also read my article thoroughly and it threw around the "psychological" a lot, but I was under the impression that it would talk about obesity being a mental illness. It did argue that if America wants to solve the obesity problem, we need to add a fat tax (like tobacco tax) and stop promoting fast food through commercials and such. So it did support most of my viewpoints, but it didn't talk about the one that mattered the most in your argument. Therefore, yes...obesity is not a mental illness. It may have symptoms of a mental illness, but that doesn't make it a mental illness. Perhaps it can, but there hasn't been any proof to suggest that obesity is. But I'll still make myself perfectly clear that this doesn't really alter any of my viewpoints. Sure, it's a mental illness, but it can be treated and therefore not impossible. But I'm the type of person who doesn't hold people back from people doing something stupid (unless we're talking about little children who don't know better).