[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Marshall didn't assert that obesity was a disease.

Yes, he did. and yet the epidemics of chronic disease, such as heart disease and obesity, are just getting worse.

His own words.

You may worship at his altar. I prefer to engage in critical thought.

[ThePythonicCow]

You dismissed Marshall when you saw him refer to obesity as a "chronic disease."

I objected, stating he didn't do that.

You quoted him, "chronic disease, such as heart disease and obesity"

You're right and I was wrong - he did assert that obesity was a chronic disease.

You labeled my comments "worship." That's bull.

You said you prefer to engage in "critical thought," as if I wasn't. That's a plain old insult without basis.

Furthermore, dismissing my comments as "worship", and Marshall's entire work, out of hand, because he said obesity was a chronic disease, don't sound like critical though to me.

I won't waste other readers time with the list, but do a Google search for:

obesity "chronic disease"

and you will immediately see a long list of articles directly stating that obesity is a chronic disease, from a variety of serious organizations. You might disagree, and perhaps for good reason. But blowing them all off, out of hand, for such an assertion, is bull, not critical thinking.

[ThePythonicCow]

Amy Proal has a clear presentation of the evidence that obesity can be caused by certain kinds of gut bacteria at Bacteria implicated in obesity.

If a critical causative agent in the mechanisms of a rather negative medical situation is the presence of unusually high amounts of a particular kind of bacteria, then I'd consider it fair to call that a "disease."