Early Interventions for Childhood Obesity?

In this video from Darkhorse Podcast, they cover a new study that argues that the best way to fight childhood obesity is to offer surgery and medication from an early age to stop kids from getting fat in the first place. This is an interesting way to fight the obesity epidemic. Rather than doing sensible things like pulling sugar out of foods that don’t need it (mayonnaise being the most egregious example) and offering other dietary interventions, they have jumped right to medicalizing the issue. Obesity is something that is close to my heart because I’ve been a fat kid and a fat guy since about 1997. Medicalizing obesity has the advantage of no longer shaming people for being fat. I always wished that I had a body where I could eat whatever and not gain tons of weight. I always hoped that I could exercise or starve myself to my ideal body. It didn’t work. Clearly there is something else going on. That is where medicine can, and does, help. That all being said, children are young enough to still pick up healthy habits and change their lifestyle. We don’t necessarily need to medicalize everything at every stage. That being said, much of the dialogue around this issue is performed by people who don’t have weight issues and are “in control” of their body and eating habits. They use thinness as a cudgel of virtue on those who don’t meet the standard. This isn’t fair either. We need better ways of treating obesity and a lot more acceptance of people in society.