Obesity Epidemic? Ooh, That Word!

Aargh! I hate my soapbox. It's held together by rusty nails and it splinters every time I step up on it. But this is important. So up I go...

Obesity epidemic! Obesity epidemic! Quick, to your quarantines! Obesity's out and spreading!

All right, all right, I have no beef with "obesity." Well, there is the fact that, through no fault of its own, "obesity" sounds a bit too much like "obscene." But I can live in the same room with obesity. It's "epidemic" that gets my goat. And when they get together, they become the anti-phrase as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe I'm overreacting. But really. I mean, after seeing the phrase plastered all over the newspapers this week, it's dawned on me that this is the new catch phrase for obesity.

Did a big worldwide obesity conference happen that I missed? Who coined the term "obesity epidemic?" Please, tell me if you know.

What I suspect is that somebody figured yelling "obesity epidemic" would nicely butt-kick all the fat folks out there who seemed to lack the motivation to lose weight into doing just that.

Right. All those fat people who somehow missed getting the message that fat is bad. All those fat people who just feel society's love pouring in on them. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

It's not necessary to tell fat people that there's a problem. The very turnstiles they walk through say so loud and clear.

The flu is an epidemic. The plague is an epidemic. The Internet, some might say, is an epidemic. Obesity is not an epidemic.

Obesity did not enter our culture as a sudden outbreak and it is not a disease. Obesity has gradually and continuously increased in Western-influenced populations since, if memory serves me, the late 19th century. And obesity is associated with some diseases, yes. But--as the classic rant goes--association is not causation.

And all the association of obesity and disease means is that some medical researchers asked themselves, "Is obesity associated with X disease?" It is so, so likely that if the same researchers ever decide to ask whether blond hair is also associated with X disease they will find that it is so. That's because in nature, tons of things are associated with each other without causing each other, like spit and bubble gum.

The use of "obesity epidemic" is deeply scary. It's a powerful way of telling the entire insecure population of the world that they're mortally sick and a threat to the endurance of civilization on par with AIDS or the bubonic plague.

So that's why I feel the use of the phrase "obesity epidemic" is becoming pandemic. And I don't know what to do about it.

Oh, wait. Yes, I do. I started this blog. I'm blogging. Blogging's pandemic. So it's only right that one pandemic combats another. Hmm, is there an epidemic of pandemics out there, or is my mind playing tricks on me...?

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