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> It would be lovely to live in a world in which telling obese people they should "just eat less" Why would it matter? Telling cigarette smokers to just smoke

by jack9 9y ago

> It would be lovely to live in a world in which telling obese people they should "just eat less" Why would it matter? Telling cigarette smokers to just smoke less didn't work either, but it's just as prescriptive. People rather fail than change, so there's really no reason to lump the funding (type I vs type II) together. I welcome the discerning scrutiny in research, described which should properly aim the funding.

glenra 9y ago
> Telling cigarette smokers to just smoke less didn't work either, but it's just as prescriptive. Hang on - by what measurement are you claiming telling people to smoke less didn't work? People are smoking less, both as individuals and collectively. People who want to smoke less or to stop smoking entirely do manage to successfully do that with a decent success rate. Suggesting a smoker become a nonsmoker by smoking less isn't anywhere near so useless as telling an obese person to stop being obese by eating less. (This even shows up in population level stats: the percentage of Americans who smoke has dropped in half since the 1970s whereas the percentage of Americans who are obese has more than doubled since the 1970s. Stopping smoking actually works - there is advice that works and there are treatments that work and people can just do it on their own. Whereas regarding obesity we just don't know what the hell is going on; most of the advice given is useless at best and counterproductive at worst.)
- jack9 9y ago
  > It would be lovely to live in a world in which telling obese people they should "just eat less" vs > Telling cigarette smokers to just smoke less didn't work either, but it's just as prescriptive. "Work" is a weasel word being used here to describe the initial axiomatic assumption about "fat people". The assumption is there is a measure of conversion not being met by medical advice. The warning about the dangers of cigarettes are the template for such advice, so it's reasonable to equate the two. If you don't think telling people to eat less "works", then telling people to smoke less didn't "work" either. No other lever was applied and people continued to suffer the consequences. I thought it was obvious, how I was making a correlation to highlight the absurdity of the initial axiomatic statement. I was not trying to revise history.
  - glenra 9y ago
    > If you don't think telling people to eat less "works", then telling people to smoke less didn't "work" either. I think my metric for whether advice "works" is whether people attempting to seriously follow the advice have at least, say, a 1-in-20 chance of success. By that metric "smoke less" does work and "eat less" does not. When people follow the advice "eat less" it seems to have about a 1% chance of success 5 years later, whereas "smoke less" has at least a 10% chance of success. If only one of those numbers is meaningfully positive, only one of those sets of advice "works".

by jack9 9y ago

glenra 9y ago

> Telling cigarette smokers to just smoke less didn't work either, but it's just as prescriptive. Hang on - by what measurement are you claiming telling people to smoke less didn't work? People are smoking less, both as individuals and collectively. People who want to smoke less or to stop smoking entirely do manage to successfully do that with a decent success rate. Suggesting a smoker become a nonsmoker by smoking less isn't anywhere near so useless as telling an obese person to stop being obese by eating less. (This even shows up in population level stats: the percentage of Americans who smoke has dropped in half since the 1970s whereas the percentage of Americans who are obese has more than doubled since the 1970s. Stopping smoking actually works - there is advice that works and there are treatments that work and people can just do it on their own. Whereas regarding obesity we just don't know what the hell is going on; most of the advice given is useless at best and counterproductive at worst.)

jack9 9y ago
> It would be lovely to live in a world in which telling obese people they should "just eat less" vs > Telling cigarette smokers to just smoke less didn't work either, but it's just as prescriptive. "Work" is a weasel word being used here to describe the initial axiomatic assumption about "fat people". The assumption is there is a measure of conversion not being met by medical advice. The warning about the dangers of cigarettes are the template for such advice, so it's reasonable to equate the two. If you don't think telling people to eat less "works", then telling people to smoke less didn't "work" either. No other lever was applied and people continued to suffer the consequences. I thought it was obvious, how I was making a correlation to highlight the absurdity of the initial axiomatic statement. I was not trying to revise history.
- glenra 9y ago
  > If you don't think telling people to eat less "works", then telling people to smoke less didn't "work" either. I think my metric for whether advice "works" is whether people attempting to seriously follow the advice have at least, say, a 1-in-20 chance of success. By that metric "smoke less" does work and "eat less" does not. When people follow the advice "eat less" it seems to have about a 1% chance of success 5 years later, whereas "smoke less" has at least a 10% chance of success. If only one of those numbers is meaningfully positive, only one of those sets of advice "works".