"Why obesity is not your doctor’s problem."

An excellent article entitled "Fat City - What can stop obesity?" was posted by Dr. Karen Hitchcock in March 2013 in The Monthly.  I think it's well worth reading.  

Have you ever tried counseling obese patients about considering weight loss?  A lot of people will agree with the concept ("I don't want to be fat!"), but only a few make the effort needed to change.   

In some ways, scientific research has taken obesity outside the realm where it is a consequence of choices made by a more or less free-willed individual in a more or less free society, which nonetheless disapproves of excess. In current medical research obesity is often conceptualised as an unavoidable disease. It’s your genes, your metabolism, the chemicals in your environment, what your mother ate when she was pregnant, whether she fed you at her breast. It is everything but what you choose to put in your mouth. 

On a slightly-related note - if anyone's ever visited a McDonald's in Australia, you'd be surprised at the difference.  In terms of beverages, an Australian "large" is pretty much equivalent to the American "medium" and the "small" to the "happy meal size".  Oh and Reddit agrees.