DSM-5 To Dub Obesity A Mental Illness?
In a fascinating piece in the Boston Globe, which echoes one of my regular themes about weight gain problems with psych meds, Harvard psychologist Paula Caplan delivers some shocking news about the forthcoming DSM-5:
“Another disturbing link could be on the way. The fifth edition of the major psychiatric diagnostic manual, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), is expected to be released in 2013. One proposal under consideration: listing obesity as a mental illness. That would be a mistake, since obesity can be caused by metabolic and other physical problems that are often undiagnosed. And because obesity can also result from psychiatric drugs, calling it a mental illness would create a vicious cycle: Someone is troubled, put them on drugs, they become obese, therefore diagnose them as mentally ill, give them more drugs.”
Every so often I just have to say it: psychiatry has absolutely lost its mind.
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