Given our culture (and perhaps its interaction with biology) it is unsurprising that people would give up a great deal to avoid obesity. However, what people said in this study is pretty amazing.

Nearly half of the people responding to an online survey about obesity said they would give up a year of their life rather than be fat, according to a study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale.

The 4,000 respondents in varying numbers between 15% and 30% also said they would rather walk away from their marriage, give up the possibility of having children, be depressed, or become alcoholic rather than be obese. Five percent and four percent, respectively, said they would rather lose a limb or be blind than be overweight.

On reflection I guess I would give up a year of my life if it was a choice between that and being grossly obese (though I would give up a year of my life for a lot of things). I might even prefer giving up a limb or going blind than being really overweight. I mean people missing a limb or who can’t see simply don’t generate the same sort of social disgust that overweight people do and it is difficult to overestimate how horrible that sort of rejection and disgust can be.

I suspect the bit about depression just reflects the difficulty in comparing abstract badness to a concrete bad situation (surely people only want not to be obese to make like more worthwhile). However, this sort of result does suggest serious changes in how we treat obesity. While medically serious obesity is treated often lesser forms of obesity are regarded as merely cosmetic concerns or not really important. However, it doesn’t matter if they are merely cosmetic concerns. If people would rather lose a limb than be obese then we should treat obesity with the same vigor and tolerate the same risks as we would an infection that threatens to destroy a limb.

We have drugs (stimulants among other things) that will treat obesity. These drugs do carry serious risks but we would hand them out without question if they would save someone’s arm and probably hand them out to extend life for a year. Hell, we hand them out just to treat ADD. Thus if it is really worse for people to be obese than to lose an arm or a year of their life then we are just being cruel by insisting this isn’t a serious enough concern to warrant the risks.

Of course it would be better if society didn’t make life so difficult for people who are obese. However, this is not within the power of medicine to change. It is just a fact that even cosmetic obesity has grave psychological consequences, consequences so bad that many people would prefer physical injury. Thus our medical practice should treat obesity as if it was just as serious as these physical ailments.

All the suffering that happens in our modern world that we could prevent if only we didn’t righteously insist that mental/social/cosmetic issues aren’t serious makes me furious. It is unfair to blame the medical profession for this, they are just taking their lead from social attitudes at large. However, it is possible for the medical community to get out in front of this issue and change attitudes thereby eliminating much pain.