Obesity, when caused by an unhealthy lifestyle, is a personal responsibilityEwan Munro

With one in four adults now classified as dangerously overweight, most agree that obesity is a scourge of modern day society. However, there is no consensus over the means to tackle this generation-defining problem.

Two contrary treatments of obesity have surfaced recently. Underlying each is a fundamental difference in interpretation vis-à-vis the nature of obesity. First, in light of the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in December 2014, obesity can now be seen as a disability in its own right. Employers will potentially face future claims from disgruntled ex-employees of unfair dismissal for being overweight. As Omer Simjee, Employment partner at Irwin Mitchell, commented in the light of the ECHR ruling: “It would appear as though there does not need [to be] an underlying medical condition.”

By contrast, the Tories, wishing to display their opposition to a bloated welfare budget, have suggested that the obese are often not doing enough to help themselves. In a recent keynote speech, David Cameron declared that “too many people are stuck on sickness benefits because of issues that could be addressed but instead are not… people have problems with their weight that could be addressed, but instead a life on benefits rather than work becomes the choice.” This conception of obesity will be used to justify plans to deny benefits to overweight people who refuse to receive help to treat their condition.

Deciding which conception of obesity is the more appropriate, that espoused by the ECHR or by David Cameron, is perhaps a moot point. Suffice to say, I should not wish to underestimate the deep-rooted causes which may lead to obesity in the first place and the subsequent difficulties in overcoming the condition. Ascribing blame fully to individuals for a problem which has encompassed a large part of society over recent decades is all too easy – by doing so, we will not discover the solutions necessary if we are to tackle this seemingly intractable issue. A lack of information surrounding the dangers attendant upon obesity, an insufficient provision of sport in our schools, and the rise of a consumer culture are surely all fundamental factors in the rising rate of obesity. Addressing these factors, however, would be expensive. Politicians are, unsurprisingly, not interested.

Whilst Tory motivations should be questioned in raising the issue of obesity, their underlying conception of obesity (not related to underlying medical issues) as falling within the realm of personal responsibility is surely more helpful than the ECHR’s suggestion that overweight people should be viewed, in certain circumstances, as ‘disabled’.

At stake here is more than the potential for the odd benefits claimant to be wrongly stripped of his or her benefits or for the occasional claimant in the courts to be wronged by his or her nefarious employer. The message we propound when engaging with obesity is crucial in ultimately tackling this scourge. Accommodating obesity, labelling those who are overweight for reasons which are not medical as ‘disabled’, risks entrenching a perception that obesity is largely out of the individual’s control. The ECHR’s ruling suggests that obese people are merely passive agents, almost spectators to, rather than actors in, their weight problems.

Instead, we should be promulgating a message that obesity, when caused by an unhealthy lifestyle rather than by an underlying medical condition, falls in the realm of personal responsibility. Why should employers have to accommodate inefficient workers on account of their choice to pursue an unhealthy lifestyle? Why should the taxpayer endlessly fund out-of-work benefits to those who abnegate all sense of personal responsibility, refuse help, and instead maintain a lifestyle which precludes their possible employment?

Unsympathetic, this may indeed appear. Yet, I am not suggesting that labelling obesity as a problem of one’s own making can or should be the end of the matter. As an epidemic which has embraced a quarter of the adult population, there are clearly root causes which attest to a failing on the part of society to grapple with the issue. Governments must implement measures which both help to prevent obesity in the first place and assist those who are already obese in addressing their weight issues.

Notwithstanding this responsibility on the part of government, it is first crucial to set an appropriate ‘discourse’. Without inculcating the notion that obese people are themselves active agents in addressing their own weight problems, it will be impossible to tackle the modern-day scourge of obesity. The rhetoric of David Cameron on obesity, admittedly prompted by concerns to trim the welfare budget, is therefore more responsible than that of the ECHR.