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CHICAGO -- Obesity should be called a disease and not simply a condition, the American Medical Association's policy-making House of Delegates voted on Tuesday.
The vote -- approved by roughly 60% of the AMA's full House -- goes against the recommendation of its Council on Science and Public Health, which issued a report earlier this week saying that calling obesity a disease would be problematic.
The resolution was backed by delegates from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and the American Society of Bariatric Physicians.
"We felt it's time to take a stance and say we're going to identify this as a disease," AMA committee on public health member Douglas Martin, MD, told ľֱ. "We think that's going to send a message not only to the public but to the physician community that we really need to make it a priority and put it in our cross hairs."
The council report struggled with the definition of a disease and the impact that calling it a disease would have on patient care.
The council concluded that because obesity lacked a clear definition and was tough to measure that it was difficult to call a disease.
"Just being of increased weight if there's no other impaired function, doesn't fit any of those definitions of a disease," council member Robert Gilchick, MD, MPH, said.
Others argued that just because a person's body-mass index makes them "obese," they may not be unhealthy.
"Why should a third of Americans be diagnosed with a disease if they're not necessarily sick?" Gilchick said.
Furthermore, calling it a disease may shift emphasis away from prevention.
Martin said the committee viewed the conflict as it would clinical guidelines when the science is unclear -- base it off consensus.
"Let's acknowledge that there's not a lot of science, not a lot of literature we can point too, but let's also recognize that there's consensus in the House of Medicine where it should be identified as a disease," Martin said.
Supporters of defining obesity as a disease said doing so would help highlight the epidemic in this country and spur health insurers to take greater responsibility for obesity.