What would a body scan say about you?

While perusing Facebook the other day, the following post came up in my feed from I Fucking Love Science:

"These two pictures show body scans of two women approximately the same age and height. The one on the left weighs 113 kg (250 lbs), while the one on the right weighs 54 kg (120 lbs). Accumulated adipose tissue is not the only difference bet...ween the two; the obese woman has an enlarged heart and her lungs are somewhat restricted.

Obesity has recently been declared a disease by the American Medical Association. While this does not have any legal ramifications, it may encourage doctors and insurance companies to take more steps in treating and preventing obesity. However, many disagree with the AMA's definition, citing that obesity is a complex issue with multiple causes and treatment options.

Obesity is defined as having a body mass index over 30 kg/m^2. It greatly increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and osteoarthritis.

More info: http://bbc.in/14whyV6"

What scares me the most about this is not that obesity has been declared a disease, but more that the first picture is of a similar weight to me... what does my body look like?! I don't know how tall these examples are (probably shorter than me seeing as the second example is 54kg), but it's quite scary seeing the difference between the two.

 

For me it really highlights the fact that I have done damage to my body by putting weight on again, but you can really see the stress that the body would be under with all of that adipose tissue. On a side note, now that I have studied anatomy, there are so many more things that I notice about these two women; the heart, the liver, the difference in muscle/fat around the stomach as well as the bones.

 

As for the disease classification... well, I am not a health professional (yet!), but personally I don't believe that you can classify obesity as a disease.  To me a disease is something like cancer which is generally unavoidable. Whereas in most (and I stress the word most!) cases, obesity is something that is due to lifestyle, socioeconomic status, poor knowledge or poor choices.  For me, at one stage or another with my weight I have fit into all of these categories. Sometimes I do believe there can be cases where a person can be obese from something going wrong in their body, or a genetic mutation or something like that, but overall I think that most cases of obesity can be remedied through knowledge, good nutrition and exercise.