Disability or Addiction?

The flurry of headlines over the previously obscure Danish child-minder Karsten Kaltoft recently underline our society’s confusion and anxieties surrounding food addiction and obesity. For those who are unfamiliar with the case Mr Kaltoft, an obese employee of the Billund Kommune, a Danish local authority, was sacked for being unable to carry out his duties. His weight and body size prevented him from bending down and carrying out tasks such as tying children's shoe laces. Mr Kaltoft appealed against the decision to the European Court Of Justice, claiming he had been discriminated against, claiming that his weight should be counted as a disability. The ECJ is still deliberating over the ruling, but whatever it decides will have profound consequences for the treatment of the obese across the EU. Already countless column inches have been devoted to this issue, and one does not need to read between the lines in order to draw out a common theme; Eurocrats have gone too far this time and the nanny state is about to reward sloth, gluttony and lack of moral and nutritional fibre. Britain’s most rabid commentators have targeted the issue of obesity and explained it as a moral failing, one which now affects two thirds of the British population; the fact that a majority of people are now either overweight or obese should tell us something however, or should at least suggest that the tabloid cries for the nation to buck up or show some fortitude are inadequate solutions. The fact that we face an epidemic of obesity in Britain suggests that the causes of obesity lie far beyond Bunter-esque gluttony and are deeply rooted in the food economy that surrounds us every day and is infused with processed sugar (we now eat three times as much of this addictive substance than people did 50 years ago). It also suggests that instead of seeing obesity as a disability or a lack of grit, another paradigm might be employed to explain it. Obesity, like alcoholism or gambling problems, is a food addiction, and with high calorie food stuffs peddled in as cheap and as irresponsible a way as alcohol currently is, there is no shortage of ways to feed that addiction. All of us are probably familiar with comfort eating and most of us have probably engaged in it at one time or another; who doesn’t enjoy a warming meal on a cold, miserable winter’s day or a sugary treat as a reward for dealing with something challenging or difficult? The food addict is used to medicating emotional wounds and hurts with food, in the same way that the alcoholic seeks oblivion through drinking - both are seeking substances external to themselves in order to change how they feel. Seen from this point of view, a decision to classify obesity as a disability would be a catastrophe for people who struggle with food addiction, it would permanently classify them as no longer able or capable of recovering from their condition. It would give the cruel, the bitter and the intolerant carte blanche to criticise and vilify food addicts even more than they already do. A far better solution to our current crises over obesity would be to recognise over-eating as a powerful compulsive behaviour with deep seated emotional roots, but to do that we as a society would have to adopt a language that we are unfamiliar with and unaccustomed to; one that seeks to engage, empower and to find solutions instead of our current discourse which mocks, ridicules and hurts.