The implications are interesting. Arguably it could be a mental illness, but giving it such legitimacy opens the door to legal protections, disability benefits, and more valid sympathy. I prefer to see it as simple laziness that can be endlessly ridiculed as a lifestyle choice. If it was officially a mental illness, it would be much easier to push the angle that you wouldn't ridicule someone schizophrenic in the same way. On the other hand, it's hard to argue HEAS when your existence is literally a mental disorder, but then again, obesity is literally a physical disorder and they argue that anyway.  I find it interesting the obesity dodges pathologising, but we have diagnoses for gaming disorder and toxic masculinity, for example. Not that I have much respect for the field, but where they draw the lines for these things is senseless.