The new definition of clinical obesity attempts to define obesity as a separate unique disease but is only able to do so when it combines visceral obesity together with a concurrent physical or organ dysfunction at the same time, meaning clinical obesity is a dual diagnosis: it is disease when causes another disease but isn’t when it doesn’t.

So, is obesity REALLY a DISEASE by ITSELF? YES. This is because toxic lipid accumulation in modern society affects over 90% of the US adult population whether overweight or not and research shows those who are overweight while healthy inevitably succumb to visceral and ectopic fat that makes them unhealthy. The ubiquity of processed foods and processed ingredients create a deranged hormonal response that replaces satiety and nourishment and therefore health with hunger, cravings, disease (whether overweight or not), and fuels our need for medications to stop our drive for the opioid reward response that underlies our addictive drive to perceive survival even if it kills us.

We are born to love Calories as part of a natural survival instinct. This instinct is satiated by an internal opioid reward response. But when that response drives the creation of a toxic food environment to achieve repeated stimulation it becomes nearly impossible to escape the co-dependency of that internal reward and the external obesogenic environment it has created. In the modern world, a steady stream of toxic foods repeatedly triggers our false perception of survival, which in turn leads to a steady stream of diets and medications in our desperate effort to break the cycle. Fake food triggering fake survival therefore leads to fake medical hormones for fake satiety so we stop wanting so much fake food. How is this NOT both an individual and societal addiction? The effectiveness and craze for the Ozempic GLP1 and other satiety hormone mimicking medications makes clear that what we have been arguing is an infinitely complex disease of biology is really just our drive to survive being repeatedly satisfied by tasty, cheap, and convenient processed food. This is a Trojan horse that we create and repeatedly invite in.

Even healthy foods like yogurt and oatmeal are usually consumed with added sweeteners. Processed ingredients are so prevalent it is nearly impossible to eat healthy like we did before the 1973 US Farm Bill that initiated the obesity epidemic by subsidizing the crops supplying the processed food industry. Research shows that this epidemic turned into a global pandemic linearly with free trade. Unfortunately, simply eating less toxic food to reduce disease does not actually create health any more than reducing financial debt creates wealth. It is a step in the right direction, but not the same thing. Satiety meds do not nourish us. We must do that separately in parallel with dieting, fasting, or the meds that reduce our survival instinct to eat garbage. We are now discovering how many health benefits occur by reducing our addictive desire to survive with satiety, which makes weight loss meds erroneously seem like “wonder drugs” as we discover they cause other disease risks at the same time.

1) If a bullet hits a central organ it is worse than if it does not. Processed food is a bullet with excellent aim for our central organs whether we gain weight or not. This is why gaining weight from processed food and processed ingredients has become inextricable from toxic lipid accumulation in our organs. This means obesity defined by weight only indicates disease risk (not actual disease) but the sharp-shooter aim of processed foods for our central organs makes obesity’s link to disease as strong as being in a sniper’s cross hairs. Obesity is therefore a disease and not a disease at the same time depending on whether it is viewed by its traditional definition or its pragmatic impact in the same way that a bullet is not a danger by itself but very much is in terms of an impact. The new definition for “clinical obesity” sorts this out by defining it in terms of whether or not we see the effects of the obesity bullet in the form of either physical or organ dysfunction, which is exactly how we would ascertain whether or not a bullet had hurt us.

2) We are addicted to survival, which is not to say we are addicted to the individual things that help us to survive. However, a shortage of food or whatever else is desperately needed leads to a search that mimics addiction even if it is not. Putting anyone into a setting where they are surrounded or overwhelmed by something they have a mild interest in can also lead to an experience that mimics addiction, such as modern society’s experience within the toxic obesogenic food environment that has been created by the mild interest we have in our reward response to Calories run amok into a vicious death spiral. Obesity and toxic lipid accumulation more generally whether overweight or not that is hurting both our physical and mental health must therefore be treated as an addiction even though it is not. The power of our drive for reward is evidenced by the effectiveness of the Ozempic weight loss medications that mimic satiety hormones, meaning they send a signal to the brain that we are nourished when we are not. This makes the most powerful weight loss medications ever discovered psychological.