The article by Omole focuses on recent shift in the management of obesity and the social issues that emerge with its development, namely, the culture of fat-shaming, by considering some of the alternatives toward evaluating an individual’s weight. According to Omole, the continuous and rather harsh measures taken to promote a healthy lifestyle coupled with the culture of fat-shaming have led to the pushback in the form of MHO. The specified notion suggests that obesity can be healthy and does not necessarily entail health limitations. However, the described perspective is based on a rather flawed premise since it does not take into account the possibility of the disease progression, the development of health issues as an individual grows, and the further challenges that one may face when aging.
The current approaches toward measuring weight and propensity toward obesity in patients are also insufficient in their methodological components. Namely, one of the most common strategies for measuring obesity, known as BMI, offers a fairly rough assessment of an individual’s characteristics that do not necessarily allow for an accurate evaluation of the condition. Specifically, the correlation between weight and height are not the only factors at play in defining the presence of obesity and the related health risks. Other tools, such as the evaluation of visceral fat in an individual’s body, may lead to a more productive evaluation of one’s weight issues and management. Overall, the current focus on body positivity has spawned the idea of MHO, which deludes the process of determining health concerns linked to obesity. Therefore, it is necessary to incorporate a medical perspective alongside with the social one into the identification and management of obesity.
Reference
Omole, M. (2020).What does it mean to have a healthy body? Web.