To the Editor:
Obesity is a disease, not a personality flaw. The new medication treatments can offer many who have struggled their whole lives. Those that are not subject to the food brain noise that accompany this disease have no idea how hard this struggle can be.
I know because I have struggled my whole life doing what medical doctors and society told us would work. I have lost and gained over and over because the brain connection these drugs address was never treated. I was shamed and made to feel a failure and lacking will power. I’m not saying that healthy eating, exercise are not needed it is, but now that I have a normal relationship with food given to me by the weekly injection, that will help my journey.
These drugs have mild side effects for some. I have been lucky not to have any that would stop me from using them.
It is unfair to make those of us who use this new tool to feel we are not doing it the right way.
It’s time society recognizes that obesity is a disease and treat it as any other manageable disease with medical treatments.
Kathy Strope
Village of Silver Lake
