And as for "moderately obese"... I wouldn't have previously described myself that way, but I fit it. My doctor tells me I'm medically obese. Nobody looking at me would describe me that way, but they would admit that I'm over-weight. They all say I look fine and don't need to lose more weight, though. If that's not "moderately obese", I don't know what would be.
What the world needs are terms to describe compulsive behavior, succinctly, other than "moderate OCD". I definitely have things that bother me immensely if I don't fix them, but it isn't to the point that I need help with it. I clearly don't have "OCD", but what do I have? There's no word for it.
I've stopped using the term OCD for anything about me, because I know it bothers other people. But I don't get mad at those who continue to use it because there's no proper term, and thus no way to actually correct their behavior. Only to stifle them. And I don't do that to other people.
Obesity is divided into 3 classes: class 1 (low-risk, BMI 30.0 to 34.9), class 2 (moderate-risk, 35.0 to 39.9), class 3 (high risk, 40.0 or higher). Using the term "moderate obesity" for class 2 obesity may not be exactly standard, but it has some logic to it.
> I clearly don't have "OCD", but what do I have? There's no word for it.
Is it possible you have subclinical OCD?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18849913/
(Or maybe subclinical OCPD?)
As for the OCD... Even that description sounds worse than what I have. But the existence of "subclinical OCD" makes me even less worried about people claiming to have "moderate OCD" or something. Not only is it a spectrum, but the experts seem to be fine with using the word to describe people that are almost it, with some qualifying words.
The thing about a spectrum is it makes room for people who, by necessity or will, share the symptomatic experience but lack some of the disabling impact. The benefit of that inclusion is that those people are able to benefit from a diagnosis and relevant treatment even if they’re not in the direst straits.
In my own experience, this meant that I was able to begin treatment for ADHD even though I’d had over a decade as a successful adult. And that treatment saved my life. Sure, I made it that far with what I could scrap together in myself and my luck in life. But when that wasn’t enough, my “moderate” case revealed its severity. If I’d had access to that diagnosis and care earlier it probably wouldn’t have ever been so severe.
> Keys explicitly judged BMI as appropriate for population studies and inappropriate for individual evaluation. Nevertheless, due to its simplicity, it has come to be widely used for preliminary diagnoses. [1]
Some people are actually diagnosed with "moderate OCD" though. Some psychiatrists like to use descriptors like "mild" or "moderate" or "severe" when they make a diagnosis. The DSM-5 doesn't include those terms as specifiers, but that doesn't stop some clinicians from using them anyway. (Clinicians vary widely in how strictly they adhere to the DSM-5.)
Also, while the DSM-5 doesn't include the concept of "mild"/"moderate"/"severe" OCD, some rating scales used clinically in diagnosing OCD do include such a distinction. Y-BOCS (Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale) scores are divided into four ranges – subclinical, mild, moderate, severe, extreme. A person with an OCD diagnosis who scores in the moderate range of the Y-BOCS will quite possibly be told they have "moderate OCD".
The DSM-5 does include three specifiers of level of insight for OCD: "good or fair insight" ("The individual recognizes that obsessive-compulsive disorder beliefs are definitely or probably not true or that they may or may not be true"), "poor insight" ("The individual thinks obsessive-compulsive disorder beliefs are probably true"), "absent insight/delusional beliefs" ("The individual is completely convinced that obsessive-compulsive disorder beliefs are true"). It is an oversimplification to equate that to "mild"/"moderate"/"severe", but some people will do it anyway.
Clinicians need to convey to patients (and their family members and others) the severity of the individual's condition in terms which lay people will readily understand. Terms such as "mild","moderate","severe", despite their limitations, meet that need.
> People really need to stop saying they have OCD unless they've been diagnosed by a professional.
Self-diagnosis is always a dangerous thing, but I think it includes a big spectrum of behaviours, from "I saw a TV show once about X and now I think I've got it" through to "I've read the DSM-5 and dozens of books and papers on X and I think I've got it". In both cases, the person could well be wrong, but arguably they have a significantly greater chance of being right in the second case than in the first. (And a lot of the time when people who engage in self-diagnosis get it wrong, they actually do end up diagnosed with something, just not the thing they expected.)
Speaking somewhat personally – I've listened to school teachers and psychologists tell me all these things our son does which are "symptoms of autism" and I'm sitting there the whole time thinking to myself "what's 'autistic' about that, I did that too as a child, I even still do that as an adult?" That's not saying that I do or don't have ASD – I've never sought a formal assessment of it for myself, maybe one day I shall, maybe I never will – but my suspicions that I might have ASD probably have somewhat more weight to them than "oh I saw a TV show about it once and now I think I have it".
People who claim to have "moderate OCD" are just people who like things being tidy, and describe it as OCD because they have no understanding of the real, debilitating condition. Describing yourself as "moderately obsessive" makes no sense, and being able to live with the untidiness means you are not compulsively tidying.
A huge part of the problem with mental health problems is people using the terminology as some sort of 'badge of honor', as if it's something cool and trendy to have rather than an illness that can ruin your life. People really need to stop saying they have OCD unless they've been diagnosed by a professional.