Let’s get something out of the way up front. Dealing with weight issues is an incredibly emotional and sensitive subject, and as a society we should not focus on shaming, shunning, or victimizing the nearly half of the country that is overweight or obese. By creating a societal image of beauty and attractiveness that ostracizes over a hundred million people in the USA alone, we have done ourselves a terrible disservice.
At the same time, we cannot ignore the medical realities that are strongly correlated to being overweight. The amount of diseases and medical conditions with direct causal relationships to weight are staggering, and the evidence is strong and tested. NASH is emerging as perhaps the single largest affliction in terms of both prevalence and incidence, with estimates of over 30 million people currently living in the US with the disease, and the vast majority of them unaware that they have it until it is too late. Continue reading “The missed opportunities of the “Body Positivity” movement”