CHICAGO, June 20: In order to fight what it described as an “obesity epidemic,” the American Medical Association voted on Tuesday to recognize obesity as a disease and recommended a number of measures to fight it. The association voted on the measure at its annual meeting in Chicago. The AMA noted that obesity rates in the United States have “doubled among adults in the last twenty years and tripled among children in a single generation” and that the World Health Organization, the US Food and Drug Administration and Internal Revenue Service already recognize the condition as a disease. (agencies)