Judith Schulevitz wants to change how we think about the severely overweight:
What would help the most, according to obesity doctors, would be for patients, general practitioners, insurers, and even regulatory agencies to grasp that weight loss, on its own, does not cure obesity. “This is a chronic disease much like hypertension or diabetes,” says Arthur Frank, the senior physician at the National Center for Weight and Wellness. “The idea that the task is the task of losing weight is naïve and a waste of time.” As is true of those disorders, you can’t manage obesity without a lifelong regimen that includes behavior modification and probably drugs, maybe even drug cocktails. But weight maintenance is costly, and very few insurers cover limited weight-loss programs, let alone open-ended ones.
Moreover, obesity drugs are unpopular. They don’t work all that well. Then again, not much does, and it’s not uncommon for treatments for chronic disorders to achieve partial success at best.
The Dish 