If a person is overweight, obese, or has severe obesity and it is not due to medication or a medical condition they cannot help, what makes them do nothing about it?

Laziness or lack of mobility,pain etc.. That said, it’s our diet and infrastructure layout. Change that and we’ll start to trend thin and healthy.

Many reasons:

They enjoy eating.

They don’t realize they are overweight, because most of the people they are around look similar to them.

Some foods trigger addiction chemicals in the brain.

It’s hard to change routines.

What makes people who are addicted to alcohol and drugs do nothing about it. It is the same thing. It is an illness.

Oh, good grief. Some of us who are what you would consider to be overweight just don’t worry as much as the Fat Police want us to. I am healthy and strong, and by Fluther standards I am overweight. If the attention I still get is an indication, in the real world I am not unattractive, and I just don’t want to put the time and energy into losing weight. My doctor and a few specialists have signed off on my good health. I have better things to do with my time than think about how many calories I am burning at any given time, or to so distract myself while being with friends and loved ones to worry about exactly how many calories I am consuming.
I am more comfortable in my skin than many who are trying to achieve someone else’s idea of beauty, and likely happier for it.

My idea of passing the “pencil test” @Hypocrisy_Central, is using the pencil for the purpose for which it was designed, writing.

I am obese. I weight twice what I did when I was 18 (over 30 years ago). I was average through childhood and adolescence, then the pounds creeped on over my adulthood. About 6 years ago, I worked hard to work out and eat right, and I lost 40 pounds, which probably equaled a fat loss of 50 pounds and a muscle gain of 10 in under a year. I felt the best I had since I was a teenager.

Then life happened – I started a long-distance relationship and we could only see each other on weekends – so the chores I was doing on weekends were moved to weeknights, and the gym fell to the bottom of the priorities. We were also going out to eat on the weekends and being indulgent. The weight started to creep back on. Throughout my adult life, my blood pressure, blood sugar, and other health markers were well within normal limits – I was heavy but not unhealthy. Then I developed autoimmune rheumatism – not caused by my obesity, but definitely impacted by it and contributing to it. I know a lot about the struggle with body image, food and fitness.

Food is the hardest bad habit to break: you can’t quit cold-turkey, and it is everywhere. Most cultures use food to celebrate and people harass you if you try to decline a slice of birthday cake, and such. Unhealthy food and beverage products are heavily advertised, fairly cheap and very convenient.

Exercise is hard – and becomes even harder the more out of shape you become. Our electronic entertainment services and products make it way too easy to spend hours and even days with our asses on the couch. Weight loss is a very long and arduous process, in our instant-gratification society, it is difficult to stay motivated when the benefits aren’t clearly evident. When you do start to see progress, you hit a plateau and struggle to find ways to to lose again; or you get a cold or something and lose whatever energy you were starting to feel, etc. It’s so easy to get derailed.

Self-esteem and depression and other mental health components also play a huge role. Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are much better understood as mental illnesses, but binge and compulsive overeating are also eating disorders and tied in with mental health. For some people, the decision of what and what not to eat are the only thing they feel they have any control over in their lives. For others, food is a comfort, the only way to feel indulged. For many, they don’t think highly enough of themselves to believe that they are worth the effort. Then the culture fat-shames and feeling ashamed makes the self-esteem even lower, or even makes people motivated to eat and be fat in defiance of society’s unrealistic expectations and cruelty.

Whether a person doesn’t look like a top model because of genetics making them too short or their hair too coarse, or having asymmetrical facial features; or whether they become maimed by and accident or illness; or just because they choose to age naturally and not fight the natural process; each of us is a human being deserving of kindness and respect. As Dr. King said, it is the content of one’s character that we should regard, not their appearance; and people who are petty, superficial and judgmental are the ugliest humans of all.

I honestly wonder what you look like, HC. As harshly as you seem to judge others based on the stuff you post here, you must be a fucking Adonis…

Fear of failure. Lack of education/understanding about how to respond to the problem. Poor information (the food pyramid for instance). Economic issues (it’s cheaper to buy Maccas than healthier food). Eating what they perceive to be ‘healthy’ food, that’s actually loaded with sugar etc. There are a million reasons.

There’s an excellent documentary you could watch @HC. It’s called The Men Who Made us Fat. It’s very disturbing. If you can’t access that site, do a Google search and see if you can access it elsewhere. I found it really intesting.

If you have netflix, the documentary Fed Up is worth watching. There’s hidden sugar in basically every processed food, even things that don’t taste sweet. For instance, there was a thread on reddit a while back comparing US food with food in other countries. Everyone on there said that American bread tasted sweet to them. On American nutrition labels, everything has a percent daily value except sugar, because there is a shitload more sugar in everything than we’re supposed to be eating.

Perhaps some psychological reasons are involved here. I don’t understand it. A lot of over-fat people have to watch their diet and activity closely in order to not gain any more weight. Thinner people have to do the same thing so why not work very hard to lose the excess fat and then continue to work to maintain their weight at the lower and more healthy level? I would guess the answer to be: It’s easier to just let yourself go, eat like a pig and point to your thyroid glad as the reason you’re obese.

@gondwanalon As someone who was thin my entire life and struggled to put weight on, and who just learned a month ago or so that something is wrong with my thyroid and absolutely contributed to very recent weightgain, I would like to point out how insensitive and messed up your comment comes across.

You have no idea who does or doesn’t have a thyroid problem, and they’re more common than a lot of people realize.

Likewise and as a general response to the question: there are all kinds of body types. There are some people who look overweight, but are literally healthier than thinner people. Additionally, why doesn’t anyone ever post questions or criticisms about people who are too thin? Oh, right, because it would be fucked up, because sometimes people just can’t help being the way they were born. Or they might have _hyper_thyroidism.

I have been criticized for being too thin at 5’9” and weighing 120 pounds, even though there was nothing I could do about it. I haven’t been criticized for the weight I am now, but for some fucked up reason, I’m a lot more comfortable saying how thin I was – even though I was technically underweight – than I am stating what my current weight is. That’s a problem, because I’ve been on both sides of the fence and there’s no reason I should be more comfortable with stating one weight more than the other.

Because either way, it was out of my control. And a lack of understanding and insensitive comments suck – no matter what side of the spectrum you fall on.

If it were as easy as getting off a certain drug that would be nice, I am on no prescriptions and yet I am just over a hundred lbs over weight, am I proud of it NO.
But tell me I put in an excess of over 200 hours at work per month drive just over 16000kilometres through every weather condition under the fucking sun, all of it extremely fatiguing but not physical on my days off I am just plain tired sorry if I don’t want to hit the gym, I have to try and rest up just to do it all over again.
Telling an overweight person they should just lose weight, is as smart an educated as telling a depressed person, you know what ,you should just cheer up, it’s just not that easy.
But of course this comes from idiots that have never had to deal with a real problem such as over weight.

Hasn’t anyone ever heard of Ectomorphs, Endomorphs and Mesomorphs before?

These are the three basic body types. And if one has the good fortune (or good genes) to have been born primarily an Ectomorph then you would actually have to try hard 24/7 stuffing your face to even approach the outer edges of overweight. Haven’t you ever watched Anthony Bourdain packing away more food and booze than most of us ever could and still be tall and slim?Do you think that’s just some weird TV illusion or something?

No. He is a classic Ecto. Likewise, Julianna Rancic who catches hell from the press all the time because they assume she has an eating disorder. She doesn’t. She has a classic Ecto body, plain and simple.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you were born an Endomorph and want approval from society, you will need to spend every single day of the rest of your life policing every morsel of food you eat and compensating for any errors with rigorous daily exercise and then some.

Oprah is a classic example of the typical Endo. Even now, since she has basically gotten control of herself, there is no way she would ever be considered skinny or even average weight.

When her show was still on the air, it was interesting watching all of her different approaches to her weight situation.

The sheer amount of work and attention to detail on everything she ate or drank was exhausting to contemplate. And that had to be coupled with a hefty daily exercise regime if she just wanted to retain the status quo.

To ignore the fact that people come into this world with certain body types and genetic predisposition is ignorance indeed.

Does that mean that some people are just doomed to be overweight and can’t do anything about it? No, of course not.

But to pretend that fighting your genetics and body type isn’t going to be a constant, unrelenting and exhausting uphill battle every single day of your life is just ridiculous.

If you haven’t walked in the shoes of someone with an Endomorphs body, stop spouting judgementalism all over the place as if you actually know what you’re talking about.

Because you don’t know.

Kindly do a little basic research before coming out with all your pronouncements and assumptions.

@gondwanalon

You wrote “thinner people have to do the same thing”

No they don’t. If they are thinner because they basically have an Ectomorph body type they have to work hard to gain weight not lose it.

You statement bears no relationship to reality.

….....

I bet the last thing everyone says right before they die is “Thank god I spent my entire life living up to strangers opinions of me!”~

And then there are those who haven’t quite adjusted to getting older and having their metabolism change. I spent nearly half my life around 150 pounds (about 20 pounds underweight for my height), but once I hit 35, I started packing on pounds despite no change in lifestyle; same activity level, same diet…

Now, I qualify as “overweight” at ~200 pounds, but I can still do most of the stuff I used to do, and the things I can’t do any more are the result of things other than weight. SO I don’t plan to do anything about it; most of the things an overweight person needs to do are things that those over-40 need to do anyways, like watch their blood pressure, sugar, and other things normally associated with aging.

Fun fact; while most animals have a lifespan proportional to their mass, humans live far longer for their size than other animals. Of course, that is due to modern medical science. Normally, on average, our teeth would start to fall out around age 35 and we’d have a hard time making it to 40 if not for things like better nutrition than our ancestors, dentistry, etcetera.

An extremely obese person will develop medical problems. One would be a slower metabolism. Another is most don’t get a good nights rest. Then there are the emotional disabilities that come from being judged and made to feel unworthy.
All these things can lead to a dependency on food for comfort and make it a struggle to lose weight. Trying an failing over and over or trying really hard and seeing no results can lead to giving up and eating more than before.
If it was just as easy as to try and get it right the first time, than there would be a lot of thin people.

@marinelife What makes people who are addicted to alcohol and drugs do nothing about it. It is the same thing. It is an illness.
Let’s run with that idea for a minute. Even if someone wanted to do something about their chemical dependency, trying to kick it there body will physically rebel and become ill. Alcohol after a while causes the body to become dependent on it and getting off causes DTs, same with some drugs, but I would have to speculate that getting on them is due to some psychosis. If you know of a study that says people cutting their caloric intake and I am not talking drastic fad diets etc., that they will become physically ill or have things like withdrawals or DTs, and not just psychologically, I would love to read it, it might give me a different take on it. Then, the obese people should be thanking the diet industry for doing them a service, since it is such an epidemic that 5 out of 7 people somehow develop it and cannot do anything about it themselves.

@canidmajor Oh, good grief. Some of us who are what you would consider to be overweight just don’t worry as much as the Fat Police want us to.
So, you’d say the US. Department of Health and Human Services are in reality the “Fat Police” because they post that more than half of the US citizenry they are doing so just because of aesthetics? What is the Cancer Society, the “Lung Police”? I guess they just put out papers saying how bad smoking and secondhand smoke is because they were paid off by the booze industry and not because smoking is actually harmful?

My doctor and a few specialists have signed off on my good health.
How many people who are severely obese do you think has a clean bill of health from their doctor? Had you not had one from your doctor you would still do nothing so long as you got a few eye ogles and wolf whistles?

@hearkat We were also going out to eat on the weekends and being indulgent.

Food is the hardest bad habit to break: you can’t quit cold-turkey, and it is everywhere. Most cultures use food to celebrate and people harass you if you try to decline a slice of birthday cake, and such. Unhealthy food and beverage products are heavily advertised, fairly cheap and very convenient.

Our electronic entertainment services and products make it way too easy to spend hours and even days with our asses on the couch. Weight loss is a very long and arduous process, in our instant-gratification society, it is difficult to stay motivated when the benefits aren’t clearly evident.
Each one of those things are real, but it is not as if they are immovable mountains. If you know you are eating to excess, you can make changes to not do it. Here in the US we like everything big, houses, cars, TVs, BBQ grills, fast food. With all that some people still eat healthier even when it is not supposed to taste as good or be as enjoyable as the fattening stuff. If the very fact junk food was so easy to get and hawked everywhere, and that is the reason people cannot avoid it, why do we still have vegans? Should not they capitulated and gotten back on the “burger wagon”?

Self-esteem and depression and other mental health components also play a huge role. Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are much better understood as mental illnesses, but binge and compulsive overeating are also eating disorders and tied in with mental health.
Are you trying to say ⅔ of Americans are overweight to severely overweight because they have low self-esteem or have mental problems, not that over indulgence or lack of motivation for exercise has any part in it?

As harshly as you seem to judge others based on the stuff you post here, you must be a fucking Adonis…
I was fat, when people started making comments like of there were two of me in those jeans, or teasing me with ”moo, moo” when I had a plate in my hand, topped off I could not see ”it” or my toes when I got out of the shower, I knew I had to do something about it or I never would have. Giving it straight is seen as harsh, so be it. I am not going to blow smoke up anyone’s ass just to make them feel good when the facts speak otherwise, any more than I will tell those I know who smoke 2 ½ packs a day that they are in no way harming themselves just because they can still go mountain biking, box at the gym, or chop 2 cord of fire wood. Am I in the shape I was when I lost the weight, no, but I know it is because I am not making the time and the effort to do it.

@DrasticDreamer You have no idea who does or doesn’t have a thyroid problem, and they’re more common than a lot of people realize.
Shouldn’t Big Pharm be making a magic pill that will correct the thyroid problem ⅔ of Americans must have that will allow one to eat as they wish and not get fat? Even if they charged $80 bucks a pill they are doing a service to all those poor souls with this thyroid problem making them fat. Why wouldn’t they, ⅔ of the population has to be at least a couple of billion people.

@jerv Now, I qualify as “overweight” at ~200 pounds, but I can still do most of the stuff I used to do, and the things I can’t do any more are the result of things other than weight.
If you were a 3 pack a day smoker but you could still do what you did before you started smoking, you would believe the smoking would have no consequences for your health, either on going that you can’t detect in real time, or in the future?

No, @Hypocrisy_Central, I would not and did not say that. Re read my post. I spoke very specifically to my own experience, as I am not so arrogant to assume that I know the motivations of others, and I find the classic attitude of “fat people are lazy or mentally ill” to be cliched and/or ignorantly outdated. I thought I made it pretty clear (with examples) that it is simply not a priority for me to focus so much time and energy (and at my age it takes a LOT of time and energy to lose weight if one is not genetically or metabolically set up to be thin) on looking the way someone else would like.
I addressed “overweight” alone, not anything else. Your desire to equate my term “Fat Police” to other examples is inappropriate and doesn’t apply.

@Hypocrisy_Central No, though given my family history, I think genetics would kill me before cigarettes could.

@Hypocrisy_Central Because it’s not that easy to fix real thyroid problems. There are pills for it that you have to take for your entire life. And it’s not about eating whatever food you want. I don’t eat like crap, at all, and I still gained weight once my thyroid started acting up.

Anyone who tries to tell me my thyroid problem isn’t real can fuck right off.

Lack of inner fortitude. Being a bit overweight isn’t a big deal, but there comes a point where a person should look in the mirror and realise that they’re killing themselves. At that point, they should have the inner strength to correct their diet and exercise. Some do, and are all the better for it. Those that don’t usually simply lack the strength to admit that they’re not perfect, and to go down the hard road of diet and exercise.

I have never met an obese person that I could admire for their will power. More often than not, they come across as incessant complainers, because the world isn’t what they think it should be.

Food is just as much an addiction as drugs and alcohol, even if it is only psychological. Do you really think that overweight people are unaware of the drawbacks of being overweight, both healthwise and social? It is not for lack of trying that I and many others remain overweight. Go to any bookstore and you will find plenty of books claiming guaranteed weight loss plans, none of which actually work. Think of all the groups like Weight Watchers promising weight loss, none of which will release statistics regarding their effectiveness, presumably because they also don’t work. Food may not be your particular addiction, but don’t go around saying that people are overweight due to lack of will or moral depravity.

@Hypocrisy_Central There are drugs for hypothyroidism. Part of the problem concerning the thyroid is the experts will not agree on what is normal. For many years normal range was .5–5, but many want it to be .3–3.5. That means many many many people are in the 3.5–5 range and not being treated at all, or are possibly under-medicated.

Some people are difficult to regulate. My thyroid numbers don’t stay put. They slide up then they slide down with a mini small dose change. I don’t blame all my extra pounds in my thyroid, but I do think 25–50% is thyroid related. I’m not technically overweight, but I’m really close.

Estimates of what percentage of the US population is hypothyroid varies from 5% to almost 20% depending on what you use as the normal range. 20%!

Something is wrong. It’s ridiculous how many thyroid problems there are. Thyroid cancer is on the rise, I don’t know if hypothyroidism is.

I don’t think hypothyroidism accounts for the majority of obesity in the country, but it accounts for done additional weight in more people than you might think.

Not only does a slow thyroid slow metabolism, it also increase lethargy and depression. It screws you more ways than one. It’s harder to be active when your thyroid is slow.

@canidmajor I addressed “overweight” alone, not anything else. Your desire to equate my term “Fat Police” to other examples is inappropriate and doesn’t apply
If someone cannot mention anyone’s destructive behavior or actions when it is associated with weight, why should they have the right to say anything about anyone’s destructive behavior when it is associated with tobacco, booze, or drugs?

@jerv I think genetics would kill me before cigarettes could.
I was speaking, in general, if a person in general smoked 2 ½ packs of cigarettes a day just because they feel fine there is no damage being done to their body, in general?

@DrasticDreamer Anyone who tries to tell me my thyroid problem isn’t real can fuck right off.
I am not saying that thyroid problems do not exist, but does ⅔ of the US population suffers from it that they can use it as the reason for being obese to severely obese?

@LostInParadise Do you really think that overweight people are unaware of the drawbacks of being overweight, both healthwise and social?
More than it is believed. With so many people overweight and overweight being rather normal, even heavy women can find dates, and if they can why would they see having to be thin to compete or land a man when they don’t have to, they can just stay the way they are. And with the ”Fat but Fit” notion going around, with people saying they can be just has healthy as someone who is not overweight, why change? I don’t think some address it until their knees start to hurt, they are huffing and puffing going up a short flight of stairs, or they cannot fit in the booth at the diner.

Food may not be your particular addiction, but don’t go around saying that people are overweight due to lack of will or moral depravity.
I would say it is because they are eating too much for their activity level. You don’t have to stuff yourself like a spring hog to get fat if you are as active as a sloth or hibernating bear. It is not what you eat, it is what you keep.

@JLeslie I don’t think hypothyroidism accounts for the majority of obesity in the country, but it accounts for done additional weight in more people than you might think.
Out of the ⅔ population that is overweight, how much is not blamed on the thyroid and what causes that then?

Exercise is not an effective way of losing weight, for the simple reason that exercising makes you hungrier. If moderate exercise led to weight loss then there would not be any overweight people. Try as you might, you will not find any weight reduction plan that actually works. Similarly, there is no cure for compulsive gambling, another psychological addiction.

If someone is happy with the way they look and live their life, then I guess it’s really just your problem, not theirs.

Here is a relevant article showing the ineffectiveness of exercise for losing weight,

In general, if a problem has a simple solution then it will cease to be a problem. For example, there used to be a serious problem with buildings being destroyed by lightning strikes. Then the lightning rod was invented and this is no longer a problem. New books on the same self-help topics keep being written all the time, testimony to the uselessness of self-help books.

Addictions of all types are a serious problem, and there is no simple solution. In particular, Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step programs are pretty much bogus. The success rate of AA is between 5 and 10 percent, nothing to get worked up about. A good number of the people who succeeded might very well have been successful without joining AA.

@Hypocrisy_Central I don’t know the actual stats. Let’s see, if 20% of the population has a thyroid condition and only 5% are treated, and of the 5% only about half stablize well, then that’s about 16% of the population, so 66–16 means 50% of the population is overweight and likely does not have anything wrong with their metabolism. Then there is a percentage of people who are sick or injured and it makes it harder to keep of weight either because they can’t move around easily or their meds make them fat.

I answered way at the top why many people are overweight. Mostly we just eat too much and too much bad food for a variety of reasons.

@DrasticDreamer I’m sorry to distress you so. I mean no harm. Believe it or not I meant to be helpful. We are all different and medical conditions are very complex. My comments were intended for generally healthy people. The question clearly indicates it is for non-medical conditions. FYI: I get comments about being too skinny also (5’11” and 146 lbs + or – 2 pounds). You would think I’d gain weight as my TSH has been creeping up and is above the normal range (TSH 7) and I’m elderly. My wife is a dietician and has been trying to get me to gain weight. But the more calories I eat the more active I feel (even at age 64). Also at my age it is very difficult to gain muscle mass and pretty easy to gain fat. So I just keep eating healthy and keep moving. Good health to you!

@gondwanalon Do they test your T4 free and T3 also?

@gondwanalon One more question, do you eat very little? Very low appetite?

@gondwanalon Yeah, you’re right. I got a little too defensive, so I’m sorry. Thank you for not snapping back at me.

@DrasticDreamer No biggie.

@JLeslie My cardiologist is the one who was monitoring my TSH only because the drug I was taking is known to damage the thyroid gland (also eyes, lungs, liver, nerves and about everything else). He never tested my thyroid directly with a T3 or free T4. He was just trying to keep my heart beating normally. And that was cool with me.

I seem to have a lower appetite than others. Food really isn’t something that I enjoy doing. I just eat to fill my belly and move on to whatever I’m up to. My wife just told me that I eat about 2100 to 2500 Kilo calories per day. She makes sure that I eat a lot of protein (whey, soy, fish and a little chicken and beef), fruits and vegetables, and whole grains. I probably exercise far more than is needed to maintain good health which is at least a couple hours every day with calisthenics, swimming, walking, jogging. Also I canoe paddle nearly every day and dragon boat paddle 3 times a week (total paddling per week is between 50 to 70 miles). I also belong to two paddling clubs that work out very hard and compete.

@gondwanalon Appetite usually decreases as your TSH goes up.

Is your resting heart rate low?

Is your blood pressure higher in recent years?

@JLeslie My resting heart rate is in the high 40’s to low 50’s beats per minute.
My blood pressure is always on the low side and does’nt vary much. I measure it every morning. It was 98/68 this morning.

Your heart rate would go up if you got your TSH down. I don’t know why you go to the cardiologist, but I can tell you getting my heart rate into the 60’s was a gift! People always dismissed my low heart rate as me being athletic, but at night, the middle of the night, sometimes I would wake from my sleep and I felt like I could not get enough oxygen. Speeding up my thyroid to normal helped me tremendously. All my cardiac whackado things, like my arrythmia and what I just described were resolved. My arythmia still exists, but I don’t feel it when my heart rate is up more from my thyroid meds. Maybe it actually has fewer irregular beats, I don’t know, I just know how it feels. I have no idea if that relates to you, but I thought I would share it in case.

However, your blood pressure is quite low, so I don’t know if it would further lower your blood pressure, which might be a bad thing.

Thank you for the information. The relationship of TSH function and blood pressure and heart function is intreging. Sounds like you are on top of it. Sorry that you have heart arrhythmia. That’s my problem that I’ve been stuffing from it since 2001. Atrial fibrillation is my main issue. My heart is in normal sinus rhythm 90% of the time now without drugs (after >$500K in medical procedures). I just get a very few pre atrial contractions at a slow rate when I’m tired (about one every minute or so). It doesn’t bother me and I watch it like a hawk by regularly doing my own ECG’s .

@LostInParadise Exercise is not an effective way of losing weight, for the simple reason that exercising makes you hungrier.
I guess it is back to relying on Big Pharm to create a ”stop over eating pill” so those who do not have the mental dexterity to not over eat can have the pill do it for them? Wait, are there not tons of pills that promise that now? Oh, well, I guess we are left with surgeons, best talk the insurance companies to cover lap band surgery and lower the bar for people to get it or they are doomed to be fat.

@cheebdragon If someone is happy with the way they look and live their life, then I guess it’s really just your problem, not theirs.
As nice at it may sound, it is their problem, not mine. I don’t care if they choose to walk around in a purple polka dot gorilla suit, but if they dye in that gorilla suit is toxic, then whose problem is it? I don’t complain of back pain, bad knees, sleep apnea, diabetes, and other things I hear overweight people complain about all the time. Even if I loved all of their rolls and bulges and was the king of chubby chasers, their health problems would still be their health problems; so it is in the end their health problems.

@JLeslie Let’s see, if 20% of the population has a thyroid condition and only 5% are treated, and of the 5% only about half stablize well, then that’s about 16% of the population, so 66–16 means 50% of the population is overweight and likely does not have anything wrong with their metabolism.
How can it be said that 20% suffer from some form of thyroid problem if only 5% (if that can even be verified) are treated? That would be saying 50% of the population is bipolar and that is the reason for the violence but only 12% actually get diagnosed and treated. Those who actually have thyroid problems and somehow do not have doctors who can treat it, they have my sympathies. I was having a discussion about this not long ago with some of the Brethren and one said he had a thyroid problem from his teens up until he got in hos mid-30s, and that was back before they knew what they knew now, and had medication and treatment that was not as good as now. He said by his experience the thyroid is either _overactive (making it hard to put on weight normal, or slow (making it hard to keep weight off or not to gain it). If I remember he had one overly active, and though he was eating like a shrew trying to keep from starving his body was not using enough of the food he was eating to keep his weight up.

But since people want to toss that in the hat as a viable reason why people are fat, even at 20% of the population that would be close enough to say it was an epidemic. If it were any other condition would people say ”Oh, that is the way it is, there is really nothing that can be done to combat it so as long as they feel healthy no harm done”? What if 20% contracted some illness that woke them up in the middle of the night giving them the compulsion to scram at the top of their lungs, not out of pain, but some psychological reason or maybe just to calm their mind, would people simply say, if they can still do what they did before they contracted it and they feel healthy, don’t bother them to do anything about it, or blame it on gluten in the food and just ignore it?

@Hypocrisy_Central the problem is a whole bunch of people, especially women, feel like crap! That’s part of what has sparked this controversy about what thyroid level is normal.

Lots of illnesses are considered normal until they aren’t. Vitamin D range was changed significantly a while back. Chlamydia used to be considered normal flora and only treated if the person was symptomatic. Then they realized Chlamydia was often twisting the tubes and causing infertility, so now they treat everyone who is positive for it.

There are more examples.