Is Obesity a Disease or a Cause of Disease?

In 2004 the Centers for Disease Control estimated that obesity is killing 400,000 people a year. The difficulty with obesity as with any kind of chronic health issue is that we really don't know the causal linkages between weighing too much and most diseases. If you're a woman, it causes an increase in certain kinds of hormones which can contribute to higher rates of certain kinds of cancers. Being very, very heavy is hard on your body. It's very hard on your joints. But if we look at heart disease, if we looks at most cancers, if we lookat stroke, even if I look at diabetes, this is probably the most contentious issue.