5 ms·

Obesity is so astonishingly bad that it's insane everyone just glosses over it. All homicides, suicides, and drug overdoses in the US combined have nothing on o

Obesity is so astonishingly bad that it's insane everyone just glosses over it. All homicides, suicides, and drug overdoses in the US combined have nothing on obesity.[1][2] Somehow, there's no getting people to understand the scope of it. They'd rather attack the healthcare system and its costs, which are easily explained by use[3], than do some serious national soul searching on obesity. [1] https://imgur.com/a/YV2wBe8 https://imgur.com/a/YV2wBe8 - data from an article I was writing. [2] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1003-vs-cancer-obesity.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1003-vs-cancer-obes... > Cancers Associated with Overweight and Obesity Make up 40 percent of Cancers Diagnosed in the United States etc. [3] https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/09/25/high-us-health-care-spending-is-quite-well-explained-by-its-high-material-standard-of-living/ https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/09/25/high...

emodendroket 8y ago
It might be because most interventions have dismal success rates.
- TACIXAT 8y ago
  I would be thrilled for some regulatory interventions. We can start with getting added sugar out of just about every product. Changing the rhetoric about caffeine would be nice too. Everyone talks about it as if it is a given that we use it, when in reality they are reliant on it. We really let the big companies run over us in terms of what we eat.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Changing the food on supermarket shelves could help but I meant "intervention" in the sense of things you can do with someone who is already obese -- few seem to be very successful in keeping weight off.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    You could get surprisingly far on obesity simply by removing agricultural subsidies. If corn & soybeans cost their actual market price, we wouldn't be putting high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil into every single processed food made. No additional regulations needed, no additional taxes, and most of the impact comes out of Monsanto's bottom line rather than individual farmers - just let the damn free market do its job and stop with a massive corporate welfare program. Then again, good luck. The farm lobby is strong, the ag-tech lobby is even stronger, and removing handouts to America's heartland has proven politically unpopular in the past.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      I'm not sure a policy leading to higher food prices or offshoring of food production capacity would be that popular.
      - nostrademons 8y ago
        Lower taxes is always a good sell, though, as is reducing handouts and eliminating corporate give-aways.

emodendroket 8y ago

It might be because most interventions have dismal success rates.

TACIXAT 8y ago
I would be thrilled for some regulatory interventions. We can start with getting added sugar out of just about every product. Changing the rhetoric about caffeine would be nice too. Everyone talks about it as if it is a given that we use it, when in reality they are reliant on it. We really let the big companies run over us in terms of what we eat.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  Changing the food on supermarket shelves could help but I meant "intervention" in the sense of things you can do with someone who is already obese -- few seem to be very successful in keeping weight off.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  You could get surprisingly far on obesity simply by removing agricultural subsidies. If corn & soybeans cost their actual market price, we wouldn't be putting high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil into every single processed food made. No additional regulations needed, no additional taxes, and most of the impact comes out of Monsanto's bottom line rather than individual farmers - just let the damn free market do its job and stop with a massive corporate welfare program. Then again, good luck. The farm lobby is strong, the ag-tech lobby is even stronger, and removing handouts to America's heartland has proven politically unpopular in the past.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    I'm not sure a policy leading to higher food prices or offshoring of food production capacity would be that popular.
    - nostrademons 8y ago
      Lower taxes is always a good sell, though, as is reducing handouts and eliminating corporate give-aways.