From a strictly economic perspective, the market for the provision of medical care suffers from two almost unavoidable defects. First, effective treatments eliminate demand by curing the customers who purchase them. Second, ineffective treatments also tend to eliminate demand, either because, in the case of fatal diseases, customers who purchase such treatments die off, or because, in the case of nonfatal conditions, customers will normally choose not to treat the condition, once it becomes clear the treatment is ineffective.

From the perspective of a profit-maximizing medical and pharmaceutical industry, then, the ideal disease would be one that never killed those who suffered from it, that could not be treated effectively, and that doctors and their patients would nevertheless insist on treating anyway. Luckily for it, the American health-care industry has discovered (or rather invented) just such a discease. It is called "obesity."

      - The Obesity Myth, Paul Campos