12 ms·

You say sin, I say disease

57 points by sorbus 16y ago

epochwolf 16y ago
Interesting obesity epidemic might be related to disease, specifically: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Adenovirus_serotype_36 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Adenovirus_se...
lionhearted 16y ago
More and more, I'm starting to come to the awful conclusion that most people have very little control over how their lives go. They maybe have a few key decision points in their life - but maybe not all that many. And the rest is autopilot. They watch some subset of the new movies, new TV programs, websites they stumble across. They eat whatever's more or less served near them and eaten by people they associate with. They pick the political party that matches their friends and relatives, or no party, or maybe they pick up a book that has an emotional impact on them and swear loyalty to that. Maybe. I hate this idea, because it seems to subtly advocate for totalitarianism, which I've been against my whole life. But then there's nagging voice that says, "well, just ban all the food that's unhealthy, and people will eat better..." - but we know where that road leads. sigh It's strange being someone who strives to be self reliant, studies and analyzes to make ethics from scratch, constantly examines and re-examines everything... I think there exists less people like this than I originally thought. No, less than that. Okay, divide that number by 10 again. Less than that, even? Maybe. Scary thoughts. I'm going to go eat some oatmeal now.
- ryandvm 16y ago
  You cannot propel yourself forward by patting your own back.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- chc 16y ago
  The big problem with totalitarianism, in practice, is that there is no perfect leader (and even if there were, his or her successors would not be). Any defense of totalitarianism is totally dependent on believing the Platonic noble lie that your leaders are simply better than you, which violates what we know of human nature. If you decide to do everything Bob tells you, sure, he might force you to eat right — but he'll also force you to wash his car and leave your wife with him for the weekend.
- ihodes 16y ago
  Actually, scarier yet is whatever conclusions you seem to arrive at (or, more likely, those which you seem to asymptotically approach) will be baseless and unimportant on an absolute scale: you have to measure the worth of what you create against a scale you do not control. When you can point to an ought that logically follows from an is, that'll be the most important day in anyone's lives. In the meantime, I'm philosophically opposed to stamping any sort of judgement on the way people lead their lives. There's no reason to condemn anyone for not desiring to learn or to think critically; whatever axiomatic value you try to use as a measuring stick will twist and turn and fail on close inspection: it'll be a subjective measure. Humans are animals, and going about our business in a frictionless manner is a natural thing to do. Some people detect friction where others see no problem, and from them we see improvement in the sciences and in thought—improvement in the sense that we seem to know more—and those are the people we on HN generally praise. Lest I come off as a total weirdo, I am for "progress" and "knowledge" and "health" and all that jazz, but I try to keep my pragmatic life as separate from my philosophical life as possible. It's safer that way.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - Natsu 16y ago
    > When you can point to an ought that logically follows from an is, that'll be the most important day in anyone's lives. There is a train heading for you, therefore you ought to get off the tracks. (EDIT: And yes, I do recognize Hume's fork when I see it. I'm just glad I'm not sitting at a circular table with him, fighting over who gets to use it.)
    - ihodes 16y ago
      Again, it's safer to separate my actual life from my philosophy: why get off the track? Death is inevitable, and not inherently worse than life. Hume's a tricky bastard, and with enough Nietzsche to back him up, depressingly formidable. So I arbitrarily give value to certain things in pursuit of a pleasant system of beliefs and a nice-feeling way of going about life.
- klbarry 16y ago
  "It's strange being someone who strives to be self reliant, studies and analyzes to make ethics from scratch, constantly examines and re-examines everything... I think there exists less people like this than I originally thought. No, less than that. Okay, divide that number by 10 again." Most people may not read Emerson, Fromm, Aquinas, Stace, Russel etc but they sure do learn from life experiences on ethics, think about the implications of things and act on those things. Many, many people strive to be self reliant, as well. Once a group like HN starts saying, "God, if only other people were as smart as us", we're reaching a danger zone where we should always take a very close look before self adulating.
- archgoon 16y ago
  >"well, just ban all the food that's unhealthy, and people will eat better..." - but we know where that road leads. Modern Europe?
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    Where in "Modern Europe" have they banned all the unhealthy foods?
    - archgoon 16y ago
      Denmark and Switzerland have both banned Transfats. Also, various bans exist for genetically modified foods in Europe. Sweeteners such as stevia, meats with bovine growth hormone, etc. I'm surprised people are unaware of this. My apologies for not citing it in my comment, I thought everyone was aware of this, and so I found the original implication that banning foods leads to totalitarianism absurd.
      - jonhendry 16y ago
        "Denmark and Switzerland have both banned Transfats" Presumably you can still gorge yourself on bacon and whole milk and sugary cakes, pies, and cookies; then drink alcohol until you die.
        archgoon 16y ago
        Really not particularly relevant. Funny, but misses the point that regulating food does not make you into a totalitarian state.
        Semiapies 16y ago
        Misses the point that "regulating food" and "banning all the unhealthy foods" are not at all the same thing. As a libertarian, I'm amused since more statist folks usually accuse us of confusing regulation with totalitarian control.
      - 16y ago
- eitally 16y ago
  This is why charity (actually helping others, not just blindly writing checks) is so much more rewarding than [egotistical] introspection. You can always help someone else, even if it isn't clear how you can help yourself.
- yters 16y ago
  Monarchy has historically been the preferred form of government among the elite.
wnoise 16y ago
Also linked in the comments at Stross's site: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_questions_about/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que...
- kevinpet 16y ago
  That's very good, it provides a framework whereby support or condemnation is indicated based on empirical grounds.
devindotcom 16y ago
I'm not buying it. There are too many outside variables. And as one commenter points out, this disease seems unusually concentrated in the USA. Also, any animal in constant proximity to humans is likely less lean than its wild counterparts.
- SpikeGronim 16y ago
  Agreed, the article makes too many conclusions from too few studies without sufficiently many independently reproduced results. Yet again I am happy that I've read http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html .
- jonhendry 16y ago
  " And as one commenter points out, this disease seems unusually concentrated in the USA" And HIV is unusually concentrated in Africa. And cholera is endemic in south Asia (thus leading to suspicions that UN troops from Nepal are the source of the cholera outbreak in Haiti). It's not unheard of for infectious agents to be geographically localized.
samd 16y ago
It's a problem in general when we pin the fault of something on a moral failing. It's a cop-out that does nothing to solve the problem. If we want to discourage some behavior in our society we have to look at the causes and try to mitigate them. Unfortunately many people refuse to even consider the reasons for people's behavior.
- hugh3 16y ago
  But what about when it is just a moral failing? What if it is just a matter of developing the modest amount of willpower required to say "Actually on second thoughts I won't have that cheesecake for dessert, an apple will be just fine". In that case the worst thing you can possibly do is to blame it on anything other than personal failings.
  - samd 16y ago
    I don't think a lack of willpower is a moral failing, but let's suppose it is. How does that help somebody eat healthy? Wouldn't it be more effective to just tell people to avoid cheesecake if they can't help but eat it when it's around? If you could find a way to give people the willpower to do the things they know they ought to do that'd be great, but nobody's managed to figure that one out yet.
    - Natsu 16y ago
      > I don't think a lack of willpower is a moral failing, but let's suppose it is. How does that help somebody eat healthy? They can train themselves to have more. There was a fine article on that very subject on HN some months ago. I believe it said that one key to self-control was not to attempt to fight the urge, but rather to avoid it. The kid who tried to stare down the cookie broke down and ate it. The kid who hid under the table resisted (and got something better, later). The nice thing about that is that learning to develop more willpower helps you everywhere.
Evgeny 16y ago
I don't find it surprising at all that the rats that feed on the scraps of human food are getting obese - they get the same trans fats, refined carbs and sugars and other stuff that people get. Laboratory animals, again, are fed by humans. Are they fed strictly following the natural diet of fresh food they would eat in the wild? I doubt that - most likely at least some of it is substituted with cheaper option. From my point of view, searching for a malicious virus that somehow makes us obese or some other obscure reason is just overcomplicating the issue. When eating at our canteen at work I can peek into people's plates and the reflection of their choice of food on their size is fairly obvious in most cases. Edit: just heard the sound of munching, which reminded me of an anectode: a colleague of mine quit smoking a couple of months ago. Now it looks like every time he feels like smoking a cig, he's eating a cookie instead. He also recently complained that after having a stable weight for years, he suddenly gained 5 kilos. Hmm, either he got stung by that virus, or too many cookies - pick your choice ...
- ericb 16y ago
  I think you may be ignoring the drive to eat. Your reductionist view does little to account for how hard it is for people who want to lose weight to do it long-term. The reductionist view certainly can provide a comfortable feeling of superiority, though. If you think the drive is inconsequential and easy to ignore then try and hold your breath until you pass out. Just breath less, right? These drives have ways of talking us into doing what they want--they are very persuasive.
  - dejb 16y ago
    I just had the thought. Occam's Razor must surely be reductionist right? Anyway I wonder if it will ever be possible to separate 'drive to eat' from 'willpower over that drive'. Other possible human drives and addictions must also be similar - drug addiction, avoiding pain, masturbation and breathing. I think it's fair to say the the whole notion 'free' willpower is certainly philosophically suspect. Perhaps the only sensible meaning of the word is "degree of control over one's drives", where the strength of 'drives' are accepted to vary considerably from person to person. Regardless of whether it is fair that people drives may vary considerably, often that only way to combat them is through equal and opposite levels of willpower.
justsee 16y ago
I'm sticking with Occam's razor on this one - "the simplest explanation is more likely the correct one". A world awash with kilojoules means any life forms around human civilization will be a little more plump. Charlie Stross does give a hat tip to the overwhelming desire by some sectors to see obesity categorised as a disease / epidemic: "many large corporations would love to see the obesity epidemic pinned on something other than their own sub-standard food products". However he pulls a quote from Nikhil Dhurandhar at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre to talk about AD-36 as a potential significant factor in obesity. I just wonder as the largest nutrition research centre in the world, with 600 researchers, whether there is ever any institutionalised bias towards concluding / promoting the idea that obesity is a disease / epidemic? Obviously baseless speculation on my part, but a quick Google finds such Pennington-run conferences as 'Childhood Obesity and Public Health', which is sponsored by...Coca Cola? http://www.pbrc.edu/childhood_obesity_conference/default.htm http://www.pbrc.edu/childhood_obesity_conference/default.htm I fail to see how accepting this kind of sponsorship money is healthy for independent research in this area.
pmr_ 16y ago
What is surprising me most is the black-and-white approach: It's either a disease or modern lifestyle and diet. Organisms tend to be highly complex and there is a myriad of variables that come into play. I feel it is very unlikely that you can identify one sole cause for something as general as obesity.
Semiapies 16y ago
Sin, disease... What's wrong with a plain old fact? Are you overweight? Then you're overweight. Are you downright fat? Then you're fat. Religious dogma aside (as I don't care about it), I'm going to say you're not committing a sin or evil act by being heavy. Barring the adenovirus hypothesis panning out or your having a known glandular issue, I'm going to guess that you don't have a disease. You just have a fact. Are you overweight enough to affect your health? Are you unappealing to the men or women you want to date? Do you just dislike having the weight? Then you have complaints. Do whatever complaints you have bother you more than you enjoy the aspects of your lifestyle and diet that lead you to being overweight? Then you have a problem. Problems can addressed, researched, and analyzed. Problems can even be solved, or at least ameliorated. Mind, it's hard to guilt, intimidate, or infantilize people by noting that they might have a problem - assuming you literally mean "problem" and not as a euphemism for disease or sin...
- lotharbot 16y ago
  There are different types of problems; classifying them can help us address, research, analyze, and solve them. I have known people who've struggled with mood and focus. Knowing if it's caused by a disease (depression), circumstance (losing a loved one), or intentional behavior (playing video games when they should've been sleeping), helps determine what sort of treatment is likely to be effective. Medicating a person for a character flaw is just as dangerous as castigating them for a disease.
cabalamat 16y ago
Imagine you're a food industry executive. You want people to buy your product, and you want to make a profit. Therefore you are optimising for tastiness and chewapness. While you're not specifically optimising against nutritional quality, or ability to deliver calories without sating appetite, you're not optimising against them either. Becauee technology is good, and getting better fast, the things optimised for -- taste and cheapness will improve, even if it detracts from other qualities that're perhaps desirable but not optimised for. Therefore over time, food is likely to have a higher tendency to get people overweight. PG has written an essay on this: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
j_baker 16y ago
"And before you write it off as fat folks feeding Fido far too much" As it turns out, there isn't necessarily a correlation between pets' bodyweights and owners' bodyweigts. At least, cats' bodyweight isn't (although I seem to remember reading about another study that even showed a negative correlation): http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=6864556&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S136898000999022X http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...
jpr 16y ago
It's likely much simpler than that. Stop eating and subsidizing cheap carbohydrates - acquire health.
pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>However, it would be unpleasantly ironic if it turns out that our culture's moralizing fixation on the association between obesity and sinfullness — painting it as the just the reward of sloth and gluttony, and only legitimately to be avoided by drudgery and self-denial — has allowed a dangerous viral pandemic to rage undetected for decades. If those without the virus can't become obese through sloth and gluttony he has a point, otherwise he seems hell-bent on tying those with "traditionalist religious views" [I think he means Christian but doesn't want to appear to be just be reacting against his local culture] to the problem of obesity for no reason other than that they consider sloth and gluttony wrong. Do atheists, humanists, neo-wiccans, animists, etc., consider sloth and gluttony to be virtuous? I know corpulence has often been considered positive but that is not the same as sloth or gluttony.

57 points by sorbus 16y ago

Interesting obesity epidemic might be related to disease, specifically: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Adenovirus_serotype_36 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Adenovirus_se...

lionhearted 16y ago

More and more, I'm starting to come to the awful conclusion that most people have very little control over how their lives go. They maybe have a few key decision points in their life - but maybe not all that many. And the rest is autopilot. They watch some subset of the new movies, new TV programs, websites they stumble across. They eat whatever's more or less served near them and eaten by people they associate with. They pick the political party that matches their friends and relatives, or no party, or maybe they pick up a book that has an emotional impact on them and swear loyalty to that. Maybe. I hate this idea, because it seems to subtly advocate for totalitarianism, which I've been against my whole life. But then there's nagging voice that says, "well, just ban all the food that's unhealthy, and people will eat better..." - but we know where that road leads. sigh It's strange being someone who strives to be self reliant, studies and analyzes to make ethics from scratch, constantly examines and re-examines everything... I think there exists less people like this than I originally thought. No, less than that. Okay, divide that number by 10 again. Less than that, even? Maybe. Scary thoughts. I'm going to go eat some oatmeal now.

ryandvm 16y ago
You cannot propel yourself forward by patting your own back.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
chc 16y ago
The big problem with totalitarianism, in practice, is that there is no perfect leader (and even if there were, his or her successors would not be). Any defense of totalitarianism is totally dependent on believing the Platonic noble lie that your leaders are simply better than you, which violates what we know of human nature. If you decide to do everything Bob tells you, sure, he might force you to eat right — but he'll also force you to wash his car and leave your wife with him for the weekend.
ihodes 16y ago
Actually, scarier yet is whatever conclusions you seem to arrive at (or, more likely, those which you seem to asymptotically approach) will be baseless and unimportant on an absolute scale: you have to measure the worth of what you create against a scale you do not control. When you can point to an ought that logically follows from an is, that'll be the most important day in anyone's lives. In the meantime, I'm philosophically opposed to stamping any sort of judgement on the way people lead their lives. There's no reason to condemn anyone for not desiring to learn or to think critically; whatever axiomatic value you try to use as a measuring stick will twist and turn and fail on close inspection: it'll be a subjective measure. Humans are animals, and going about our business in a frictionless manner is a natural thing to do. Some people detect friction where others see no problem, and from them we see improvement in the sciences and in thought—improvement in the sense that we seem to know more—and those are the people we on HN generally praise. Lest I come off as a total weirdo, I am for "progress" and "knowledge" and "health" and all that jazz, but I try to keep my pragmatic life as separate from my philosophical life as possible. It's safer that way.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- Natsu 16y ago
  > When you can point to an ought that logically follows from an is, that'll be the most important day in anyone's lives. There is a train heading for you, therefore you ought to get off the tracks. (EDIT: And yes, I do recognize Hume's fork when I see it. I'm just glad I'm not sitting at a circular table with him, fighting over who gets to use it.)
  - ihodes 16y ago
    Again, it's safer to separate my actual life from my philosophy: why get off the track? Death is inevitable, and not inherently worse than life. Hume's a tricky bastard, and with enough Nietzsche to back him up, depressingly formidable. So I arbitrarily give value to certain things in pursuit of a pleasant system of beliefs and a nice-feeling way of going about life.
klbarry 16y ago
"It's strange being someone who strives to be self reliant, studies and analyzes to make ethics from scratch, constantly examines and re-examines everything... I think there exists less people like this than I originally thought. No, less than that. Okay, divide that number by 10 again." Most people may not read Emerson, Fromm, Aquinas, Stace, Russel etc but they sure do learn from life experiences on ethics, think about the implications of things and act on those things. Many, many people strive to be self reliant, as well. Once a group like HN starts saying, "God, if only other people were as smart as us", we're reaching a danger zone where we should always take a very close look before self adulating.
archgoon 16y ago
>"well, just ban all the food that's unhealthy, and people will eat better..." - but we know where that road leads. Modern Europe?
- Semiapies 16y ago
  Where in "Modern Europe" have they banned all the unhealthy foods?
  - archgoon 16y ago
    Denmark and Switzerland have both banned Transfats. Also, various bans exist for genetically modified foods in Europe. Sweeteners such as stevia, meats with bovine growth hormone, etc. I'm surprised people are unaware of this. My apologies for not citing it in my comment, I thought everyone was aware of this, and so I found the original implication that banning foods leads to totalitarianism absurd.
    - jonhendry 16y ago
      "Denmark and Switzerland have both banned Transfats" Presumably you can still gorge yourself on bacon and whole milk and sugary cakes, pies, and cookies; then drink alcohol until you die.
      - archgoon 16y ago
        Really not particularly relevant. Funny, but misses the point that regulating food does not make you into a totalitarian state.
        Semiapies 16y ago
        Misses the point that "regulating food" and "banning all the unhealthy foods" are not at all the same thing. As a libertarian, I'm amused since more statist folks usually accuse us of confusing regulation with totalitarian control.
    - 16y ago
eitally 16y ago
This is why charity (actually helping others, not just blindly writing checks) is so much more rewarding than [egotistical] introspection. You can always help someone else, even if it isn't clear how you can help yourself.
yters 16y ago
Monarchy has historically been the preferred form of government among the elite.

wnoise 16y ago

Also linked in the comments at Stross's site: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_questions_about/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que...

kevinpet 16y ago
That's very good, it provides a framework whereby support or condemnation is indicated based on empirical grounds.

devindotcom 16y ago

I'm not buying it. There are too many outside variables. And as one commenter points out, this disease seems unusually concentrated in the USA. Also, any animal in constant proximity to humans is likely less lean than its wild counterparts.

SpikeGronim 16y ago
Agreed, the article makes too many conclusions from too few studies without sufficiently many independently reproduced results. Yet again I am happy that I've read http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html .
jonhendry 16y ago
" And as one commenter points out, this disease seems unusually concentrated in the USA" And HIV is unusually concentrated in Africa. And cholera is endemic in south Asia (thus leading to suspicions that UN troops from Nepal are the source of the cholera outbreak in Haiti). It's not unheard of for infectious agents to be geographically localized.

samd 16y ago

It's a problem in general when we pin the fault of something on a moral failing. It's a cop-out that does nothing to solve the problem. If we want to discourage some behavior in our society we have to look at the causes and try to mitigate them. Unfortunately many people refuse to even consider the reasons for people's behavior.

hugh3 16y ago
But what about when it is just a moral failing? What if it is just a matter of developing the modest amount of willpower required to say "Actually on second thoughts I won't have that cheesecake for dessert, an apple will be just fine". In that case the worst thing you can possibly do is to blame it on anything other than personal failings.
- samd 16y ago
  I don't think a lack of willpower is a moral failing, but let's suppose it is. How does that help somebody eat healthy? Wouldn't it be more effective to just tell people to avoid cheesecake if they can't help but eat it when it's around? If you could find a way to give people the willpower to do the things they know they ought to do that'd be great, but nobody's managed to figure that one out yet.
  - Natsu 16y ago
    > I don't think a lack of willpower is a moral failing, but let's suppose it is. How does that help somebody eat healthy? They can train themselves to have more. There was a fine article on that very subject on HN some months ago. I believe it said that one key to self-control was not to attempt to fight the urge, but rather to avoid it. The kid who tried to stare down the cookie broke down and ate it. The kid who hid under the table resisted (and got something better, later). The nice thing about that is that learning to develop more willpower helps you everywhere.

Evgeny 16y ago

I don't find it surprising at all that the rats that feed on the scraps of human food are getting obese - they get the same trans fats, refined carbs and sugars and other stuff that people get. Laboratory animals, again, are fed by humans. Are they fed strictly following the natural diet of fresh food they would eat in the wild? I doubt that - most likely at least some of it is substituted with cheaper option. From my point of view, searching for a malicious virus that somehow makes us obese or some other obscure reason is just overcomplicating the issue. When eating at our canteen at work I can peek into people's plates and the reflection of their choice of food on their size is fairly obvious in most cases. Edit: just heard the sound of munching, which reminded me of an anectode: a colleague of mine quit smoking a couple of months ago. Now it looks like every time he feels like smoking a cig, he's eating a cookie instead. He also recently complained that after having a stable weight for years, he suddenly gained 5 kilos. Hmm, either he got stung by that virus, or too many cookies - pick your choice ...

ericb 16y ago
I think you may be ignoring the drive to eat. Your reductionist view does little to account for how hard it is for people who want to lose weight to do it long-term. The reductionist view certainly can provide a comfortable feeling of superiority, though. If you think the drive is inconsequential and easy to ignore then try and hold your breath until you pass out. Just breath less, right? These drives have ways of talking us into doing what they want--they are very persuasive.
- dejb 16y ago
  I just had the thought. Occam's Razor must surely be reductionist right? Anyway I wonder if it will ever be possible to separate 'drive to eat' from 'willpower over that drive'. Other possible human drives and addictions must also be similar - drug addiction, avoiding pain, masturbation and breathing. I think it's fair to say the the whole notion 'free' willpower is certainly philosophically suspect. Perhaps the only sensible meaning of the word is "degree of control over one's drives", where the strength of 'drives' are accepted to vary considerably from person to person. Regardless of whether it is fair that people drives may vary considerably, often that only way to combat them is through equal and opposite levels of willpower.

justsee 16y ago

I'm sticking with Occam's razor on this one - "the simplest explanation is more likely the correct one". A world awash with kilojoules means any life forms around human civilization will be a little more plump. Charlie Stross does give a hat tip to the overwhelming desire by some sectors to see obesity categorised as a disease / epidemic: "many large corporations would love to see the obesity epidemic pinned on something other than their own sub-standard food products". However he pulls a quote from Nikhil Dhurandhar at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre to talk about AD-36 as a potential significant factor in obesity. I just wonder as the largest nutrition research centre in the world, with 600 researchers, whether there is ever any institutionalised bias towards concluding / promoting the idea that obesity is a disease / epidemic? Obviously baseless speculation on my part, but a quick Google finds such Pennington-run conferences as 'Childhood Obesity and Public Health', which is sponsored by...Coca Cola? http://www.pbrc.edu/childhood_obesity_conference/default.htm http://www.pbrc.edu/childhood_obesity_conference/default.htm I fail to see how accepting this kind of sponsorship money is healthy for independent research in this area.

pmr_ 16y ago

What is surprising me most is the black-and-white approach: It's either a disease or modern lifestyle and diet. Organisms tend to be highly complex and there is a myriad of variables that come into play. I feel it is very unlikely that you can identify one sole cause for something as general as obesity.

Semiapies 16y ago

Sin, disease... What's wrong with a plain old fact? Are you overweight? Then you're overweight. Are you downright fat? Then you're fat. Religious dogma aside (as I don't care about it), I'm going to say you're not committing a sin or evil act by being heavy. Barring the adenovirus hypothesis panning out or your having a known glandular issue, I'm going to guess that you don't have a disease. You just have a fact. Are you overweight enough to affect your health? Are you unappealing to the men or women you want to date? Do you just dislike having the weight? Then you have complaints. Do whatever complaints you have bother you more than you enjoy the aspects of your lifestyle and diet that lead you to being overweight? Then you have a problem. Problems can addressed, researched, and analyzed. Problems can even be solved, or at least ameliorated. Mind, it's hard to guilt, intimidate, or infantilize people by noting that they might have a problem - assuming you literally mean "problem" and not as a euphemism for disease or sin...

lotharbot 16y ago
There are different types of problems; classifying them can help us address, research, analyze, and solve them. I have known people who've struggled with mood and focus. Knowing if it's caused by a disease (depression), circumstance (losing a loved one), or intentional behavior (playing video games when they should've been sleeping), helps determine what sort of treatment is likely to be effective. Medicating a person for a character flaw is just as dangerous as castigating them for a disease.

cabalamat 16y ago

Imagine you're a food industry executive. You want people to buy your product, and you want to make a profit. Therefore you are optimising for tastiness and chewapness. While you're not specifically optimising against nutritional quality, or ability to deliver calories without sating appetite, you're not optimising against them either. Becauee technology is good, and getting better fast, the things optimised for -- taste and cheapness will improve, even if it detracts from other qualities that're perhaps desirable but not optimised for. Therefore over time, food is likely to have a higher tendency to get people overweight. PG has written an essay on this: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

j_baker 16y ago

"And before you write it off as fat folks feeding Fido far too much" As it turns out, there isn't necessarily a correlation between pets' bodyweights and owners' bodyweigts. At least, cats' bodyweight isn't (although I seem to remember reading about another study that even showed a negative correlation): http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=6864556&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S136898000999022X http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...

jpr 16y ago

It's likely much simpler than that. Stop eating and subsidizing cheap carbohydrates - acquire health.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago

>However, it would be unpleasantly ironic if it turns out that our culture's moralizing fixation on the association between obesity and sinfullness — painting it as the just the reward of sloth and gluttony, and only legitimately to be avoided by drudgery and self-denial — has allowed a dangerous viral pandemic to rage undetected for decades. If those without the virus can't become obese through sloth and gluttony he has a point, otherwise he seems hell-bent on tying those with "traditionalist religious views" [I think he means Christian but doesn't want to appear to be just be reacting against his local culture] to the problem of obesity for no reason other than that they consider sloth and gluttony wrong. Do atheists, humanists, neo-wiccans, animists, etc., consider sloth and gluttony to be virtuous? I know corpulence has often been considered positive but that is not the same as sloth or gluttony.