Calling obesity a disease will likely lead to more problems

The American Medical Association recently labeled obesity as a disease. I think of obesity as more of an addiction problem, which I guess can be a disease? (e.g. alcoholism), but I think of addiction as more of a mental disorder/issue. I'd like to state that I'm not well informed when it comes to medical terminology, but I think labeling obesity a disease could have negative impacts.

First, the lesser problem I foresee are people using the disease label as an excuse for why they are obese. The major problem I foresee is more complex and it involves shifting the obesity problem to professionals who are not prepared to address it appropriately. There seems that there will be three groups more responsible for the obesity problem now that obesity is considered a disease: medical professionals, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare companies.

I am very skeptical of pharmaceutical and healthcare companies. I generally trust medical professionals are well-intentioned, but I do not think they are well educated in nutritional and exercise science. I think most people will agree that prevention is the answer to the obesity problem, which involves educating people about nutrition and exercise (especially young adults/teenagers). The worst scenario is the medical industry looking to address obesity too heavily with non-preventative methods such as drugs or surgery. Unfortunately, I believe that this will likely occur to some degree as there is a lot of money to be made with non-preventive methods. With obesity being a disease, healthcare companies will be responsible, which will further increase the cost of healthcare for individuals and the government. Higher taxes will be needed, so it will end up being an added burden to the general public.

The only thing that may happen that I support is an increase in healthcare cost for overweight or obese people (just how smokers pay more). This increase in cost should be a great incentive for people to take responsibility for their weight. I think this probably could be done without labeling obesity a disease. I hope that preventative programs will be further developed. Maybe we could better educate our medical professionals about nutritional and exercise science, or we could encourage obese people to see dietitians or trainers through healthcare programs rather than developing diet drugs or surgically putting in lap bands.