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This doesn't change the fact that the underlying mechanism of weight gain is a net caloric surplus over a given period of time, which is (hypothetically, at lea

This doesn't change the fact that the underlying mechanism of weight gain is a net caloric surplus over a given period of time, which is (hypothetically, at least) addressable without addiction ever coming into the discussion. But if sugar/food addiction is relevant, there should be some data on its effects on non-obese, physically active individuals who maintain a lifestyle that allows them to burn enough calories to offset the caloric effects of sugar consumption. What you linked doesn't mention obesity, yet you're conflating addiction with obesity in your response.

0xcde4c3db 8y ago
> This doesn't change the fact that the underlying mechanism of weight gain is a net caloric surplus over a given period of time That's a necessary condition, but it doesn't really represent a useful model of the system of interest. It's a bit like saying that a car moves forward because the engine is hotter than the surrounding environment.
- paavoova 8y ago
  I don't quite follow your analogy. I think everyone understands that the more you drive a car, the more fuel it consumes, and this being analogous to biological functions. > That's a necessary condition And addiction isn't, it's merely a contributing factor. Like I wrote, how do you factor in non-obese sugar/food addicts, and, vice versa, obese people who don't suffer from food addiction? Obesity doesn't necessitate food addiction, it could be as simple as neglecting to be physically active or other poor lifestyle choices. Placing unsubstantiated importance on the role of addiction is just as baseless as disregarding all obese people as lazy. Any individual can take measures to improve their lifestyle habits and lose weight - how is this not of "interest"? Because a doctor can't prescribe it in a pill?
  - 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
    > I don't quite follow your analogy. I think everyone understands that the more you drive a car, the more fuel it consumes, and this being analogous to biological functions. The point of my analogy isn't that I was crying out for a slightly better car analogy. My point is this: if there's a problem with someone operating a system, it's usually unhelpful to model the system as a black box that happens to follow some universal physical law. It's not necessarily useless to do that, but it's unlikely to capture the aspects of the system that people directly experience and care about. > Obesity doesn't necessitate food addiction, it could be as simple as neglecting to be physically active or other poor lifestyle choices. Nobody in this thread claimed (or even suggested, by my reading) that food addiction was necessary for obesity. The description of "poor lifestyle choices" elides any serious analysis of specifically which behavior patterns are involved and what factors drive them. This is especially true when obesity is increasing across large populations. I don't think it's remotely sufficient to suppose that the behavior of hundreds of millions of people changed in similar ways in the span of ~50 years simply because they all spontaneously made unrelated individual decisions to have different preferences. I doubt that you believe this either, so I don't understand why you've arrived at this description as though it's an alternative to addiction and not just a larger category or higher level of abstraction that includes it. > Any individual can take measures to improve their lifestyle habits and lose weight - how is this not of "interest"? Of course such measures would be of interest; my objection to your previous post is, in some sense, that it failed to describe any.

0xcde4c3db 8y ago

> This doesn't change the fact that the underlying mechanism of weight gain is a net caloric surplus over a given period of time That's a necessary condition, but it doesn't really represent a useful model of the system of interest. It's a bit like saying that a car moves forward because the engine is hotter than the surrounding environment.

paavoova 8y ago
I don't quite follow your analogy. I think everyone understands that the more you drive a car, the more fuel it consumes, and this being analogous to biological functions. > That's a necessary condition And addiction isn't, it's merely a contributing factor. Like I wrote, how do you factor in non-obese sugar/food addicts, and, vice versa, obese people who don't suffer from food addiction? Obesity doesn't necessitate food addiction, it could be as simple as neglecting to be physically active or other poor lifestyle choices. Placing unsubstantiated importance on the role of addiction is just as baseless as disregarding all obese people as lazy. Any individual can take measures to improve their lifestyle habits and lose weight - how is this not of "interest"? Because a doctor can't prescribe it in a pill?
- 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
  > I don't quite follow your analogy. I think everyone understands that the more you drive a car, the more fuel it consumes, and this being analogous to biological functions. The point of my analogy isn't that I was crying out for a slightly better car analogy. My point is this: if there's a problem with someone operating a system, it's usually unhelpful to model the system as a black box that happens to follow some universal physical law. It's not necessarily useless to do that, but it's unlikely to capture the aspects of the system that people directly experience and care about. > Obesity doesn't necessitate food addiction, it could be as simple as neglecting to be physically active or other poor lifestyle choices. Nobody in this thread claimed (or even suggested, by my reading) that food addiction was necessary for obesity. The description of "poor lifestyle choices" elides any serious analysis of specifically which behavior patterns are involved and what factors drive them. This is especially true when obesity is increasing across large populations. I don't think it's remotely sufficient to suppose that the behavior of hundreds of millions of people changed in similar ways in the span of ~50 years simply because they all spontaneously made unrelated individual decisions to have different preferences. I doubt that you believe this either, so I don't understand why you've arrived at this description as though it's an alternative to addiction and not just a larger category or higher level of abstraction that includes it. > Any individual can take measures to improve their lifestyle habits and lose weight - how is this not of "interest"? Of course such measures would be of interest; my objection to your previous post is, in some sense, that it failed to describe any.