Ethical Considerations

Concerning
Human Corpulency & Clinical
Obesity
One should think that with all the attention that is allocated to health,
diet and exercise by the proud, greedy and jingoistic, there would be
at least some somebodies basking themselves in the sunshine of their
lives. We are told to eat this, drink that and do what is best for our
bodies and minds. But no. Where do we find individuals in a state of
peacefulness and psychic stability? Everyone is aflutter. Strained.
Running helter-skelter. I feel what surrounds me is too fast for my
body yet too slow for my mind. I sense I must break looserun away
from this senselessness, carelessness, and hopelessness. Where to
go? Where is it that I can escape from this spinning of the wheels of
an obsessional progress that goes nowhere, and often reaps a
bloodcurdling violence that is wiping out people throughout the world.
I feel I am smothered by self-serving simpletons who care nothing for
the society they pertain to and connive only to gratifythe faster the
bettertheir personal cravings for appointments and trappings. They
do not consume to possess; rather, they are possessed to consume,
and fail to take into account that half the world subsists on subunits
each day. When hundreds of millions of Earthlings are addicted to
such a dog-eat-dog modus vivendi, only this clear-cut conclusion
might be drawn: We are living in very precarious times. (We've
Gotta Get Outta This Place!) Ante bellum? Bellum omnium contra
omnes?
You will say that we have always lived in trying, convulsive times. The
twentieth century disrupted Europe so devastatingly, the memories of
the carnagetens of millions of combatants and non-combatants
were annihilated in two, not one, world warsare still very well fixed
in the psyches of the European peoples, desperate to turn the pages
of History and extricatefor once and for allthe nightmares that
voraciously guzzle them. Even though we still have not extinguished

the incubus of the twentieth century, today we have before us the

immanency of some threatening ambivalence, slowly but surely,
prodding us along to a manageable World War IIIthe worst of all that
would be among our already simmering nightmares. The horrors of
our Past, Present and Future are somewhat clearly defined for us.
There are armed conflicts at every point on the world's map. We are
anxious that one of these, one day, might explode into a very huge
contest between armed combatants not willing to follow the route to
what we define as common sense and amity. The tension for us is
unrelenting and consuming.
What does one do to relieve this latent hostility, this stress?
The Pill Mill, for some, offers a solution. Speedy and user-friendly.
(Relief is just a swallow away, no?) The population of the United
States, as of 20 August 2016, was 324,454,087 individualsaccording
to United Nations' estimates. That figure is 4.38% of the total world
population.
According to Peter Breggin, MD, an opponent of biological psychiatry
and psychiatric medication and author of Toxic Psychiatry, Talking
back to Prozac and Talking Back to Ritalin, Americans consume 50%
of the world's pharmaceutical production and 80% of the world's
prescribed narcotics. Consequentially, Americans possess an
unfettered drug-seeking comportment.
106,000 Americans died in 2014 from the use of pharmaceutical
medicinesmore than from the combination of illegal drug-related
deaths. There are approximately 500,000 doctors in the United
States. One American doctor, Gregory A Smith, MD, has written a
book, American Addict, describing this pharmaceutical gradual then
rapid spread.
Dr Breggin adds: Americans are not considered to be maladjusted
for life issues anymore. They are thought to be disturbed because of
bio-chemical imbalances. Literature exists dealing with political
psychiatry,
biological-psychiatric
practices,
and
psychopharmaceutical effects. (Quotes taken from May 2015 RTTV
documentary.)
If Americans possess an excessive drug-seeking deportmentthey

earnestly desire to be instantly gratifiedit should not be surprising

that they also would be overeatersindividuals looking for
satisfaction through the inordinate usage of probably the most basic
human function:
feeding. Lack of sleep, stress, use of
antidepressants, and other medicines also are related to overeating.
Anxiety draws individuals to eat to a fault. Drug use goes hand in
hand with the overweight or obese person's impulses to overeatto
seek gratification by swallowing, then expecting psychical relief.
*

Ethics is about how we ought to live (Australian philosopher Peter

Singer) or the seeing of the world aright (Arthur Schopenhauer).
Some people are burdened with metabolic and inflammatory
disorders that are beyond their control. These patients might even
have the will to diet and reduce their weights, but they are unable to
do so. The metabolic disease, elephantisis, causes a grotesque
fibrosis of body parts. We are obligated not to confuse these
individuals laden with diseases that cause overweightness with
persons who are overeaters not afflicted with any medical condition,
but just because they have chosen to be overweight, or because they
were emotionally ill-equipped to say no to the immoderate intake of
food.
Overeating is associated with hypertension, stroke, dyslipidemia,
osteoarthritis, type 2 diabetes mellitus and various types of cancer.
The first ethical consideration for those who are actively overweight is
that they are endangering their own health by being gluttonous.
Some might even have suicidal intentions as they embrace their illadvised eating habits. Whatever their intentions might be, food,
which has become a drug for them, can bring their health to a
dangerously, low-performance proficiency.
An epidemic is defined as that affecting or tending to affect a
disproportionately large number of individuals within a population,
community or region at the same time. Some estimate that 50% of
the American population is overweight or obese; that these
individuals, by putting themselves at risk of developing a serious,
even deadly disease, insist that they are not very much interested in

their own well-being, and worse, that of their fellows. This anti-social
attitude, when adopted by millions and millions of overeaters,
represents a serious medical, social, economic quandary for the
government of the United States. The cost factor that will eventually
be enormouseven extraordinarily prohibitivewill threaten the very
wholesomeness of the United States already heavily indebted.
1
We ought to distinguish between overweight individuals who suffer a
disease
and those who excessively eat for the pleasure it affords them or to
reduce their intense anxiety.
2
We ought to encourage overeaters to care for their health for their
own good,
the good of their loved ones, and the good of their fellow countrymen
and women.
3
We ought to consider that there are millions of people dying from
malnutrition and
hunger throughout the world.

Authored by Anthony St. John

La Fogliaia
31 August MMXVI
Calenzano, Italy
www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior
Twitter: @thewordwarrior