In reading Children, eating disorders, and fat: striking a balance in the classroom by Kevin Beck, I felt inspired to make a comment on a growing body of scientific, pop, and blog discussion about the obesity issue and the end goal of this discussion. I hesitate to call obesity an epidemic because no consensus of data point to a disease origin of obesity (despite some interesting work on viral etiologies). Nevertheless, the rapid increase in the proportion of the population that is obese is of concern because it indicates a massive change biocultural shift.

Obesity is complex system that cannot yet be understood as a whole but the constituent parts of which can be explored more deeply. While researchers are diving into complexity as a field of study, our shift from the micro to macro levels of inquiry is still in its early days. In additional to viral etiologies and other classic gene approaches, the study of gut flora and fetal programming are promising approaches to some cases of obesity. On the cultural side of things, the removal of sodas and snack machines from schools, implementation of nutrition education programs, and healthy school catering options are working on the preventative level. Of course, physical exercise and active living are ever present in health recommendations. In short, there are many pathways to arriving at the answer but does one answer fit all?

Perhaps the individual struggling with excess weight (let alone medical or morbid obesity) is lost in this fray. With any complex problem, more attention is paid to the problem as an entity in itself and the individual is a subject and sometimes a treatment by-product of the emerging knowledge system. The individual may be socially and medically stigmatized and that lived experience, regardless of the cause of excess fat, must be the core of the focus.

I find it hard to support efforts to promote fat awareness without critical context. I do agree that there are overweight people who are healthier than their slim counterparts. One can eat poorly and maintain a good body weight but have the same set of health problems as a person with excess weight. One can eat an unhealthy diet and take little to no physical activity but not be overweight. This individual is more subject to the complex of health problems increasingly associated with obesity than a person who happens to be over-nourished (and overweight as a result) but who is active and eats well. Having tipped my hat to the synergy of diet and activity to health regardless of body weight, I worry about our orientation to food in general.

As animals, humans are biological members of various ecosystems to which we have adapted (and that means genetically and, by extension, biologically and physiologically). But, as humans, we are also members of a unique cultural environment which has played an important role in our genetic evolution as well. Bearing in mind recent cultural changes (10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture to 5000 or so years ago with the emergence of complex societies around the world), we must become more proactive in accepting our new relationship to the environment, our culture, and our bodies as energy producing and using machines. From where we are now, how can we moved forward?

The move toward local consumption and designing living spaces that promote activity are great steps to naturally maintaining our evolutionary needs as active foraging animals as well as our emerging cultural needs to stimulate economies, live responsibly, and rebuild our disturbed habitats.

There is no one solution certainly, but I would rather see a positive focus on life rather than interventions, treatments, diagnoses, finger-pointing, stereo-typing, and medical labelling. I would like the enjoyment of food and physicality to be emphasized in the education of future generations. This will make a tangible directional change with an emphasis on the positive rather than biomedical intervention and psychological buffering.