SSA disability list/was: Re: Re: Obesity as an illness

[Guest guest]

Severe, morbid or super morbid obesity is extremely disabling. It's

a fairly recent addition to the list. The list, fortunately, doesn't

depend on behavior or whether an illness/condition is self-

inflicted. Therefore, a person isn't excluded because he smoked,

played sports, used dirty needles, shot himself in the foot, drove

too fast, etc. There are many illnesses that have a behavioral

component, such as heart disease and complications from diabetes;

they aren't excluded because a person wasn't compliant with a diet.

I might add that while sports injuries (a completely voluntary and

unnecessary activity), alcoholism, STD's, diseases from smoking are

all covered by insurance, treatment for obesity, for the most part,

is not. I got to take my life in my hands and go out of the country

(alone) to have surgery and recover (alone) in a hotel, and spend

$15K out of pocket to have my obesity treated. Fortunately, I had a

surgeon and care in Brazil that puts our hospitals to shame.

For those willing to learn, the best program I ever saw about obesity

was a PBS program. You can view it online. It's well worth

watching. Obesity is a poorly-understood illness, and the

conventional treatment, diet and exercise, is 95% unsuccessful.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/takeonestep/fat/video-ch_01.html

Z (180 lbs down from peak weight - 130 since surgery in 2005,

and doing just fine, thanks)(Bitter? Moi?)

> Well, obesity can be considered an illness. Sometimes it is

> brought on, of course, by our own actions. Sometimes it truly is

> some malfunction of the body such as thyroid problems. (Most of

> the time it is our own actions of overeating). However, obesity is

> an illness because it brings alot of other risks into play such as

> high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, immobility and etc.

> Also sometimes obesity can be linked to eating disorders which are

> illnesses (psycological in nature) .... such as compulsive overeating.

>

> So, in some sense it is an illness. Let's use the example of

> emphysema.... it is an illness caused by smoking (most of the time

> that is). So, overeating which is our own action brings on disease

> much the same way we link smoking to lung cancer and emphysema.

>

> Just my thoughts.

>

> hugs,

> Debra V.

>

>

>

> Mystic mystic_102164@...> wrote:

> Have a question, why do they list obesity on the list of

> illnesses for

> disability when obesity is not an illness nor a disease??

>

> N.

>