Is obesity a medical problem or a behavioral problem?

Transcript

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Is obesity a medical disorder or is it a behavioral problem? Many doctors nowadays say that obesity is basically a medical problem caused by genes and other such factors. Is this true? Answer.
Genes and other factors may contribute towards obese tendencies, but ultimately it is also a matter of lifestyle. The modern tendency is to mechanize everything. So, we have mechanized nature by treating, by removing all the divine from it.
That nature is just a mechanism which works on its own. Now, we are mechanizing the human being also. So, mechanizing the human being means that saying that everything that we do is ultimately a product of our own bodily nature and it is not involving any exercise of the free will.
This is a very dangerous tendency. It is at the least unhealthy because it takes away individual responsibility and minimizes the importance of character building values like self-control and discipline. So, therefore, as devotees, we have to take the findings of science, especially when they extend to jurisdictions that are not really in the realm of science.
They take such assessments of science with a pinch of salt. So, that means that especially when science starts talking about behavior now and not just behavior, but beyond behavior starts talking about the factors that cause behavior. Just as many scientists try to ascribe all our feelings to just the surges in neurochemicals in the brain.
Similarly, they try to ascribe our decisions to certain chemical factors. So, now all of us know implicitly that if we overeat, then we become a obese. If we regulate our eating, then the size of the waist and the size of the body also changes accordingly.
Now, the important point is that for some people, no matter how much they eat, they may still stay thin and others even if they eat a little bit extra, they may become obese. So, there may be some variation in tendencies that may be caused by genetic nature, genetics. Just as some people have a tendency, they just expose themselves to some little bit, they become sunburned.
Others, they expose themselves and nothing happens to them much. So, there are certain patterns of functioning that are associated with a particular body based on the past karma of a person. But that doesn’t mean that totality of everything that happens is just determined by bodily function.
We have to recognize that there are limitations to how much bodily factors can contribute to behavior. So, when scientists, not all scientists, reductionistic scientists, who try to reduce human behavior, who try to reduce spirituality to psychology to physiology, eventually, they reduce all human behavior, including spiritual and then they reduce the mental to neurochemical. So, that’s how they reduce spirituality to psychology to physiology ultimately.
So, obesity is definitely not just a medical problem. It is a behavioral issue and resolving it involves not just taking some medical treatment, but it also involves exercise of one’s willpower, which is based on the understanding that we may be pushed by our body to behave in particular ways, but we have the capacity to counter push. And in fact, the more we become spiritually minded, the greater becomes our capacity to counter push.
And that’s how we truly become free