2023-11-09 17:59:00
Chronic diseases, also known as NCDs (chronic non-communicable diseases), represent a global health problem. Their characteristics, such as higher incidence in low- and middle-income countries and increases with aging populations, such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes, highlight them as focus areas for control measures. On the other hand, efforts to reduce obesity, which itself is a risk factor for other diseases, are stalling around the world. Much of this problem is related to the stigma surrounding the disease and the patients.
“As we move forward in recent decades, obese people continue to be the subject of ridicule, discriminatory comments and judgments,” says Márcio Mancini, vice president of the Obesity Department of the SBEM (Brazilian Society of Endocrinology and Metabology). Measures to control obesity include public policies aimed at promoting health, such as greater access to green areas, the availability of healthy foods, especially in schools and near industries and workplaces, and the promotion of measures to combat sedentary lifestyle.
For him, obese people are often judged as if the condition were exclusively their responsibility, without taking into account that, in addition to genetic predisposition, other factors also contribute to the increase in obesity. “Without a doubt, the responsibility is placed on the person. Society sees a thin person and an obese person eating fast food and does not judge the thin person, but judges the obese person,” he says. Additionally, he points out that people with obesity also suffer economic discrimination, as they often receive less pay for performing the same task as thin people.
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