^exactly. An alcoholic can go to AA and stop drinking. Some one who may overeat (for a variety of reasons) still has to eat!
Sure, they have to eat but not as much or have to eat the "wrong" kind of foods.
This is a overly simplistic way of viewing the situation, and can lead one to jump to some inaccurate and inappropriate ideas about weight gain and weight loss.
Please bear with me, everyone, as I state the obvious. It just seems to me that a lot of people are obviously not getting it:
To begin,
Trippy, was comparing overweight to an addictive disorder, therefore we can assume she was talking specifically about eating disorders, and was reminding us that it is especially hard for some one with an eating disorder to get well because their "addiction," i.e. food, is something they require to survive. Can you imagine telling an alcoholic that he must stop drinking too much, yet forcing him to have a shot of whiskey three times a day?
Now that's out of the way, let's look at some of the causes of overweight and obesity. Most people would probably divide the causes into two categories: physiological and psychological. I'd argue that this isn't very accurate, but for simplicity's sake let's start there.
Physiological conditions could be many, including illness. Some one up thread made an obviously sarcastic remark about "cripples" getting their electric wheelchairs in his way. We all know it was a joke, and an intelligent, sensitive, modern-day person would never say such a thing seriously -- we'd think him a boor. Yet I recall very clearly not so long ago, some one here started a thread about fat people using power carts at shops; how lazy fat people are who've let themselves go so far they won't walk in Wal*mart. Yet many, many people sided with the OP, though the thread was controversial, it was nothing compared to the outrage that would meet a poster who seriously bemoaned a person with an easily apparent disability.
People forget that illness can be a major
cause of overweight and obesity, not just an effect. One of my friends gained 50lbs after the treatment for his Lymphoma fried his thyroid. Another gained 60 while she suffered from pre-eclampsia (spelling?) during her second pregnancy. If you saw these apparently healthy looking young people, would you consider that an illness, and not poor dietary or exercise habits, led to their overweight? Or would you just assume they were lazy over-eaters?
Of course, physiological conditions also include genetics. Some people naturally have a propensity towards overweight. Genetics can lead to a higher risk of illness that can cause overweight (like diabetes, which can be both the cause and the effect of overweight). I have juvenile diabetes, which is different from type 2 diabetes and is not caused by unhealthy dietary or exercise habits (though I'll note that while type 2, especially these days, is most often caused by overweight, among other lifestyle factors, not everyone who has type 2 leads an unhealthy lifestyle or is overweight -- sometimes the genetic component and/or age is enough to bring it on), I've always led a healthy lifestyle and am at a healthy weight. I'd like to lose 5 to 10 lbs to help improve my blood glucose levels, but because of the diabetes that weight-loss will be much more difficult to me than for a healthy peer. How do you know these people aren't doing what they can to lose weight or be healthier?
There are of course many other physiological causes for overweight, I'm sure I know only about a handful of them -- do you know them all? Can you tell just by looking at a fat person whether or not she is suffering from one? If not, how can you expect that if she eats a little less she'll get better?
There are also psychological reasons for overweight, and unfortunately our society breeds them like bunnies. Even as I'm writing this there is an ugly ad at the right of my screen for Judy's Weightloss ("Drop twenty pounds in no time!"). As far back as the '40's, studies concluded that even your most average Jane
and Joe, are susceptible to eating disorders. Manipulating a person's eating habits by putting them on a diet practically ensures some pathology will develop. For example, nearly 80% of teenage girls with type 1 diabetes suffer or have suffered from an eating disorder, and the statistic for boys is startlingly high as well (though I can't remember the number). The regimented diets for diabetic children cause them to hyper-focus on food. They even have an eating disorder all their own, diabulimia (which I can tell anyone about from personal experience, having suffered from it myself).
Any reasonable person knows that physical and psychological are intertwined. A little over a year ago I had a severe manic episode (I'm bipolar). I stopped sleeping (I went for 7 days without sleep), and I stopped eating. I just wasn't hungry. Something snapped in my head, and all the obsessive thoughts I had about food ever since I was diagnosed with diabetes and made to think of food, blood sugar, and exercise constantly -- all those thoughts disappeared. Food just wasn't on my mind. I'd eat three tiny meals a day and think not a thought more about food. A bite of a cookie would satisfy me and I'd have no desire to finish the rest. The loss of appetite wasn't just physical, it was mental. It came with no effort at all. This lasted for three months (even after I'd started medication for the mania), then, as suddenly as it came on, it went away. All the obsessive thoughts that were drilled into my Little Diabetic Girl's head came back. I had to start working at weight again -- I run, I do yoga, I rarely over-eat, and I worry obsessively if my waist gets larger than 26 inches, when, for just a little while, I had been free.
Neither I, nor my doctors know what caused it. But I do know what it taught me: Overeating is not necessarily about self-control. The physical and the psychological are one, and anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant or foolish.
Lastly, there are social causes. Some aspects of society help to engender eating disorders. Others, like socioeconomic status, lack of education, poverty, limited opportunity, etc, are simpler to understand. (At least I think they're simpler -- some thick-headed folks can't seem to "get" the connection between economics, education, and overweight.)
I think there are people who are fat because they are lazy and indulgent. But I think there are more people who are fat because of much, much more complex reasons, genetic and environmental in nature, individual unto themselves, and perhaps invisible to the rest of us. Overweight is something that must be addressed both individually and as a society (by improving education and resources, and hopefully attitude -- some day).
Turn your brain on before you make judgements and assumptions about others. Ignorance is the foundation of discrimination.
But I've been fighting the good fight for over a year now (diabetes runs in my family, so I want to avoid that at all costs...my mom died way too young from it 
)
