They almost said it like it is

[firecat]

An abstract bemoaning the difficulty in treating "obesity":
http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Publications/HCR/Detail.aspx?id=6184

Obesity may be the most difficult and elusive public health problem this country has ever encountered. Unlike the classical infectious diseases and plagues that killed millions in the past, it is not caused by deadly viruses or bacteria of a kind amenable to vaccines for prevention, nor are there many promising medical treatments so far. While diabetes, heart disease, and kidney failure can be caused by obesity, it is easier to treat those conditions than one of their causes. I call obesity elusive partly because of the disturbingly low success rate in treating it, but also because it requires changing the patterns, woven deeply into our social fabric, of food and beverage commerce, personal eating habits, and sedentary lifestyles. It also raises the most basic ethical and policy questions: how far can government and business go in trying to change behavior that harms health, what are the limits of market freedom for industry, and how do we look upon our bodies and judge those of others?

My rewrite of the abstract:

" 'Obesity' may be the most difficult and elusive thing that people looking to make money have tried to categorize as a public health problem. Unlike the classical infectious diseases and plagues that killed millions in the past, it is not caused by deadly viruses or bacteria of a kind amenable to vaccines for prevention, nor are there many promising medical treatments so far. In fact it doesn't affect health that much for the vast majority of people who are labeled with it, and is not really a big deal at all. While diabetes, heart disease, and kidney failure can be accompanied by 'obesity', it is easier to treat those conditions than the plumpness that sometimes accompanies them. Also, treating those conditions actually works a lot of the time, whereas temporarily changing the plumpness doesn't do anything in the long run. I call 'obesity' elusive partly because of the disturbingly low success rate in scaring people about it, but also because creating that fear requires changing the patterns, woven deeply into our social fabric, of food and beverage commerce, personal eating habits, and sedentary lifestyles. It also raises the most basic ethical and policy questions: how far can government and business go in trying to change behavior that doesn't harm health, what does it even mean to call obesity a behavior when it's actually a descriptor, what are the limits of market freedom for industry, and how do we look upon our bodies and judge those of others?"

Comments

[shehasathree]

Nice editing work! *thumbs up*

[sharpest_asp]

+woo hoo+

I love your edits!

[elynne]

Your editing ++++++ would read again

[ironed_orchid]

Your editing makes it all so clear.

[wordweaverlynn]

Is this linkable?

[firecat]

Yes! Anything I post publicly is linkable.

[ailbhe]

Would totally tumblr.

[firecat]

Go for it!

[megpie71]

Given the current panic over the "obesity epidemic" (and pardon me, but I thought an epidemic was something that spread via contact very rapidly, so aren't they misusing that term too?) which is being spread about very helpfully by the mainstream media, I'd argue they've been extremely successful in making people afraid of it to no purpose. Which is about the only thing I'd alter in your re-editing of the extract.

Is there any way you can put in that the fear of the OMGbeesity! "epidemic" (and I LOVE "OMGbeesity!" as a term; is it your coinage?) is actually a very profitable thing for the weight-loss industry? Because when we're talking about "market freedom for industry" one of the things I'd love to see is the curtailment of the freedom of the weight-loss industry to sell a product which is well known to not work, which is biologically known to fail for nine out of ten of their customers in the short term, and nineteen out of twenty of them in the long term (where "long term" means "five years" - which isn't even long term in politics, FFS), and for which failures they then blame their customers! It's worth noting that no other "industry" is allowed to get away with this - even in the world of finance and economics, people who sell stuff which fails ninety percent of the time get a bad reputation and tend to wind up being investigated for scamming.

[firecat]

I agree they've made people afraid. As I said on LJ about that: And yet their whole abstract was about how they didn't think they were scaring people enough.

OMGbeesity! is not my coinage; I'm just spreading the meme. Isn't it great?

How about this:
"It also raises the most basic ethical and policy questions: how far can government and business go in trying to change behavior that doesn't harm health, what does it even mean to call obesity a behavior when it's actually a descriptor, what are the limits of market freedom for industry (we'd really like even more freedom to sell products that don't work while blaming the users of the products for their failing to work), and how do we look upon our bodies and judge those of others?"

[megpie71]

Sounds good!

And I suspect the reason they don't think they're scaring people enough is because there are all these people out there, and not all of them are purchasing "weight loss" plans from the diet industry.

[bibliofile]

OMGbeesity! is my new favorite word.

Also, love this post. Never mind the subtext....?!

[firecat]

...here's the sex pistols?