KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The American Medical Association now recognizes obesity as a disease. Previously the association called obesity a “major public health problem.”
While the change comes with no legal meaning, the organization hopes it will help people get treatment and get doctors to pay more attention to obesity-related issues and medications.
Almost one-in-three adults and one-in-five children in the U.S. are obese. Predictions indicate that 40 percent of the country’s population will be obese by 2030.