DOCTOR’S NOTE

■ OBESITY should be classed as a disease to encourage people to seek treatment, medics have said.

The role played by genetics together with the illnesses created by obesity such as Type 2 diabetes, and some cancers, means it should be defined as a disease, they said.

John Wilding, professor of medicine at the institute of ageing and chronic disease at the University of Liverpool, and Vicki Mooney, executive director of the European Coalition for People living with Obesity, said the “prevalent view is that obesity is self-inflicted and that it is entirely the individual’s responsibility to do something about it.”