Consider this: from the perspective of a profit-maximising medical and pharmaceutical industry, the ideal disease would be one that never killed those who suffered from it, that could not be treated effectively, and that doctors and their patients would nevertheless insist on treating anyway. Luckily for it, the American health care industry has discovered (or rather invented) just such a disease. It is called “obesity.” Basically, obesity research in America is funded by the diet and drug industry — that is, the economic actors who have the most to gain from the conclusion that being fat is a disease that requires aggressive treatment. Many researchers have direct financial relationships with the companies whose products they are evaluating.
Campos, Paul. “The big fat con story.” Guardian Unlimited. 24 April 2004. <www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1200549,00.html> (25 April 2004).