Preposition?

Neither works. This might work:

... but it also means fighting a serious illness: obesity.

Then this one is a poor question with a poor distractor.

Thank you GPY.

AnonymousWhich option should I choose for the blank below?

You wouldn't fight against someone with a serious illness, would you? That alone should give you your answer.

The idea is 'what it means for someone', specifically, 'what it means for the obese' (i.e., obese people).

CJ

Sorry, "for" can be correct, but it is easy to misread "for the obese" as meaning "on behalf of the obese", as I initially did. For that reason I recommend this reordering.

Losing weight is not only about anticipating swimsuit season or squeezing into skinny jeans, but, for the obese, it also means fighting a serious illness.

Thanks CJ

Then "for" is the correct choice here. But, from a native point of view, is this question is good or poor? What do you think?

AnonymousThen "for" is the correct choice here.

Yes. If I had to pick one, I'd choose "for".

Anonymousfrom a native point of view, is this question is good or poor?

It's not great. Personally, I don't care for it. For one thing, as I remember it, most research says that in multiple choice questions there should be at leas

Thank you. Here is the original question:

Losing weight is not only ---- anticipating swimsuit season or squeezing into skinny jeans, but it also means fighting a serious illness ---- the obese.

A) by / against
B) in / within
C) about / for
D) beyond / upon
E) at / towards

Test makers quoted a sentence from scientific american and distorted it much. Here

Anonymousoriginal sentence

That, of course, is fine. But do you see how the word order in the original makes more sense, just as GPY has already suggested?

Anonymousdistorted it

Yes. I see that.

CJ

You're right, I see the word order is much more sence in original sentence. Thank you CalifJim and GPY again