4 ms·

Not saying this specifically about Wim Hof, the topic at hand - but: People are lazy. This is quite simply a truth, especially with regards to the USA. If you

by s5300 6y ago

Not saying this specifically about Wim Hof, the topic at hand - but: People are lazy. This is quite simply a truth, especially with regards to the USA. If you're not from the USA, we have this absolutely fucking unfathomable obesity epidemic going on. It doesn't get talked about very much. 95%+ of the time, weight regulation is one of the simplest things we know of. Calories in and calories out. Anyways, nobody really gives a fuck about that and will die on the hill of stating it's incorrect. They will then go on to buy the newest ONE PILL DOCTORS DONT WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT TO LOSE YOUR FAT OVERNIGHT for $19.95(x # payments) year after year, new pill doctors don't want you to know about after new pill doctors don't want you to know about, and still be obese, wondering why they specifically can't lose weight - science must just be against them. Ranting about US citizens obesity aside, the tl:dr - Wim Hof most definitely isn't some ridiculously revolutionary thing, but for many it's damn helpful towards their life, but it also takes time and effort to do, which many people aren't disciplined enough to stick to. Also, you have to read. Believe it or not, large amount of people don't like reading lmao.

Hnrobert42 6y ago
The US obesity epidemic probably has more to do with the sugar content of processed foods than with laziness. As you note, people in general are lazy. Vietnam has the lowest rate of adult obesity yet is the 8th most sedentary population in the world.
- s5300 6y ago
  I find the sugar argument to be a strawman. Maybe ignorance/functional illiteracy of knowing how to read a nutritional label is a slightly more sound argument. Food deserts are a legitimate issue too. However, simply not caring is quite prevalent.
  - 7thaccount 6y ago
    It's also legitimately hard to find foods without mass amounts of sugar. Just look at spaghetti sauce. Sugar is everywhere.
    - s5300 6y ago
      I come from a family that was borderline of the definition of "extreme poverty" within the U.S. This is a really poor argument. Aldi spaghetti sauces have ~10g sugars compared to a bottle of coke having ~65g sugars. Look into how many people are using Aldi's spaghetti sauces vs how many people are guzzling coke. Is over sugarized shit literally everywhere in the U.S.? Yes. Can you genuinely not find anything without? No. It is not hard. It's really, really not. As somebody else mentioned, lobbying in the U.S. e.g. the Food Pyramid was an obvious disaster that did nothing good for the situation. However, that can't be a coverall excuse.
      - mhh__ 6y ago
        I think the problem is the amount of processed carbs rather than sugar on its own. Sugar is addictive but not in the concentration you'd get in a pasta sauce (in a can I assume). IIRC most western countries are vastly over-caloried, and have a roughly inverse relationship between BMI and income too.
        junius2020 6y ago
        Processed carbohydrates are harmful, however sugar is particularly harmful in its effects on the hormonal system, insulin resistance, concentration, dental decay (and tooth growth in children), psychology of child, irratibility etc. Humans are simply not designed to consume such vast amounts of industrial grade sugar in such quantities. You can literally throw sugar canes into a juicing machine and it has less sugar content than a can of coca cola
        hnra 6y ago
        Have any good reads (articles/books) on the harmfulness of sugar? It sounds interesting to read about, but Google gives a billion results.
        junius2020 6y ago
        Here are some more mainstream sources. All "official" output on these subjects are heavily regulated and lobbied by corporate interests however. Further problem is that western culture is far too heavily empirical, whereas axiomatic/rationalist viewpoints on nutrition are often true and logical - it's just that nobody has paid the $$$ to "prove" them in a non-replicable study. However, my axiomatic broscience is frowned upon in the empiricist cult of the silicon valley so I have only linked to fairly establishment sources here. Still good for the basics https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tooth-decay/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tooth-decay/ "Tooth decay is damage to a tooth caused by dental plaque turning sugars into acid." https://www.nhs.uk/change4life/food-facts/sugar https://www.nhs.uk/change4life/food-facts/sugar https://www.health.com/condition/type-2-diabetes/high-blood-sugar-symptoms?slide=b0bda35b-24b2-435c-af73-ccf448cbea31#b0bda35b-24b2-435c-af73-ccf448cbea31 https://www.health.com/condition/type-2-diabetes/high-blood-...
  - junius2020 6y ago
    It is not just Sugar, it's also the fact that most Americans live on a diet full of industrially refined sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, strange chemical preservatives, flavouring agents, artificial sweeteners to avoid the sugar, and "no fat' products that achieve this in strange way. For instance, It's further complicated by the fact that there is no functional epistemology of nutrition in the US; previous attempts to create one such as the "Food Pyramid" were heavily financed by food lobbying groups and are now distrusted. This leads to things like people deciding that carbohydrates are universally bad because removing deep fried potatos from their diet makes them feel better; or people swearing by vegetarianism because for the first time since childhood they stopped eating "Meat.jpg" like you find in hotdogs etc. Or people swearing by low fat diets because they stopped eating icecream deep fried in margarine. There is also no underlying national food tradition; I live in South East Asia and in this country there is a strong tradition of eating steamed rice and steamed chicken as a staple food, as well as steamed eggs and seafood (shellfish, pan fried fish,etc) This means that with no nutritional knowledge the diet here is considerably better than the average person in the US.
  - brian_cunnie 6y ago
    Don't take my word for it (how bad sugar is). Go to an expert: Dr. Robert Lustig, Endocrinologist at UCSF. "Sugar, the Bitter Truth" [0]. He'll describe the metabolic pathways of sugar. Key take-away: fructose is processed by the liver, and much of its calories is turned to fat. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
  - tim333 6y ago
    It can be hard to avoid though especially in the US. I was amazed at the difficulty there of just getting a loaf of bread without sugar mixed in. In Europe they don't usually have sugar.
    - kortex 6y ago
      The sugar in American bread is ostensibly to allow yeast to ferment quicker than they would on flour alone, to impart bread-y flavors, not for sweetness. This shortens processing time.
- fiblye 6y ago
  > Vietnam has the lowest rate of adult obesity yet is the 8th most sedentary population in the world. I'd like to see a citation for this claim and how it was measured. People in Vietnam seemed much more up and active than people in America and they're much slimmer despite drinks there being sweeter than pure syrup in America.
  - tim333 6y ago
    Here's a link to similar https://saigoneer.com/vietnam-news/10653-vietnam-among-the-most-sedentary-countries-on-earth-study https://saigoneer.com/vietnam-news/10653-vietnam-among-the-m... I was a little skeptical myself. "data from the step-counting app Azumio Argus" - they counted steps. I can see how they might walk less as everyone gets around by motor scooter there which often involves less walking that using a car as you can normally park the thing at your destination rather than schlepping around looking for a car park. But I wouldn't really call them sedentary - they are quite a hard working bunch on average.
- brian_cunnie 6y ago
  Agreed. I'm of the belief that Americans aren't obese because they're lazy or because they're gluttons; instead, I believe it's the food that's killing us. Processed food especially. When I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I had to switch to a low-cab diet (which cut out a huge swath of processed foods), and I dropped from 170 lbs. to 150 lbs. in a few weeks. And I wasn't trying to lose weight—it just came off.
- spirobel 6y ago
  thats nonsense. The slimmest and fittest I ever was, was when I ate the most processed food in my life. I was cycling from my hometown in bavaria to nice in france. So I just had to eat all this garbage from the supermarket but it got burned immediatly. Funny that he gets downvoted he expressed his point in a very friendly way. I will just say it plainly: fat people are lazy. thats the reason they are fat. You can eat as much sugar and refined food as you want as long as you move around enough.
  - lazyjones 6y ago
    > fat people are lazy. thats the reason they are fat. Probably, but not vice versa (I'm not). So you need to be lazy and eat a lot of garbage to become obese.
    - spirobel 6y ago
      haha lol you are right. its just one of the reasons.
  - junius2020 6y ago
    try not being lazy when your hormone system has been fried with food that is literally illegal to sell in Europe, from early childhood; https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/american-foods-banned-other-countries https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/american-foods-banned-ot... or being told that common healthy foods we enjoy in Europe, Australia etc are dangerous and to be avoided; https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/oysters-and-vibriosis.html https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/oysters-and-vib...
    - spirobel 6y ago
      so the government is responsible that you are fat? that sounds like an excuse lol
  - ekanes 6y ago
    Age is also a factor -- when I was younger I could eat two large pizzas at one point without a problem. Now a couple slices and I feel like junk. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
watwut 6y ago
Given that Americans are the nation with longest average working hours among developed world and the nation that is literally worshipping hard work, I find it dubious when people just throw lazy Americans around. I know it is usually Americans doing it to other Americans, but still.

by s5300 6y ago

Hnrobert42 6y ago

The US obesity epidemic probably has more to do with the sugar content of processed foods than with laziness. As you note, people in general are lazy. Vietnam has the lowest rate of adult obesity yet is the 8th most sedentary population in the world.

s5300 6y ago
I find the sugar argument to be a strawman. Maybe ignorance/functional illiteracy of knowing how to read a nutritional label is a slightly more sound argument. Food deserts are a legitimate issue too. However, simply not caring is quite prevalent.
- 7thaccount 6y ago
  It's also legitimately hard to find foods without mass amounts of sugar. Just look at spaghetti sauce. Sugar is everywhere.
  - s5300 6y ago
    I come from a family that was borderline of the definition of "extreme poverty" within the U.S. This is a really poor argument. Aldi spaghetti sauces have ~10g sugars compared to a bottle of coke having ~65g sugars. Look into how many people are using Aldi's spaghetti sauces vs how many people are guzzling coke. Is over sugarized shit literally everywhere in the U.S.? Yes. Can you genuinely not find anything without? No. It is not hard. It's really, really not. As somebody else mentioned, lobbying in the U.S. e.g. the Food Pyramid was an obvious disaster that did nothing good for the situation. However, that can't be a coverall excuse.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      I think the problem is the amount of processed carbs rather than sugar on its own. Sugar is addictive but not in the concentration you'd get in a pasta sauce (in a can I assume). IIRC most western countries are vastly over-caloried, and have a roughly inverse relationship between BMI and income too.
      - junius2020 6y ago
        Processed carbohydrates are harmful, however sugar is particularly harmful in its effects on the hormonal system, insulin resistance, concentration, dental decay (and tooth growth in children), psychology of child, irratibility etc. Humans are simply not designed to consume such vast amounts of industrial grade sugar in such quantities. You can literally throw sugar canes into a juicing machine and it has less sugar content than a can of coca cola
        hnra 6y ago
        Have any good reads (articles/books) on the harmfulness of sugar? It sounds interesting to read about, but Google gives a billion results.
        junius2020 6y ago
        Here are some more mainstream sources. All "official" output on these subjects are heavily regulated and lobbied by corporate interests however. Further problem is that western culture is far too heavily empirical, whereas axiomatic/rationalist viewpoints on nutrition are often true and logical - it's just that nobody has paid the $$$ to "prove" them in a non-replicable study. However, my axiomatic broscience is frowned upon in the empiricist cult of the silicon valley so I have only linked to fairly establishment sources here. Still good for the basics https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tooth-decay/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tooth-decay/ "Tooth decay is damage to a tooth caused by dental plaque turning sugars into acid." https://www.nhs.uk/change4life/food-facts/sugar https://www.nhs.uk/change4life/food-facts/sugar https://www.health.com/condition/type-2-diabetes/high-blood-sugar-symptoms?slide=b0bda35b-24b2-435c-af73-ccf448cbea31#b0bda35b-24b2-435c-af73-ccf448cbea31 https://www.health.com/condition/type-2-diabetes/high-blood-...
- junius2020 6y ago
  It is not just Sugar, it's also the fact that most Americans live on a diet full of industrially refined sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, strange chemical preservatives, flavouring agents, artificial sweeteners to avoid the sugar, and "no fat' products that achieve this in strange way. For instance, It's further complicated by the fact that there is no functional epistemology of nutrition in the US; previous attempts to create one such as the "Food Pyramid" were heavily financed by food lobbying groups and are now distrusted. This leads to things like people deciding that carbohydrates are universally bad because removing deep fried potatos from their diet makes them feel better; or people swearing by vegetarianism because for the first time since childhood they stopped eating "Meat.jpg" like you find in hotdogs etc. Or people swearing by low fat diets because they stopped eating icecream deep fried in margarine. There is also no underlying national food tradition; I live in South East Asia and in this country there is a strong tradition of eating steamed rice and steamed chicken as a staple food, as well as steamed eggs and seafood (shellfish, pan fried fish,etc) This means that with no nutritional knowledge the diet here is considerably better than the average person in the US.
- brian_cunnie 6y ago
  Don't take my word for it (how bad sugar is). Go to an expert: Dr. Robert Lustig, Endocrinologist at UCSF. "Sugar, the Bitter Truth" [0]. He'll describe the metabolic pathways of sugar. Key take-away: fructose is processed by the liver, and much of its calories is turned to fat. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
- tim333 6y ago
  It can be hard to avoid though especially in the US. I was amazed at the difficulty there of just getting a loaf of bread without sugar mixed in. In Europe they don't usually have sugar.
  - kortex 6y ago
    The sugar in American bread is ostensibly to allow yeast to ferment quicker than they would on flour alone, to impart bread-y flavors, not for sweetness. This shortens processing time.
fiblye 6y ago
> Vietnam has the lowest rate of adult obesity yet is the 8th most sedentary population in the world. I'd like to see a citation for this claim and how it was measured. People in Vietnam seemed much more up and active than people in America and they're much slimmer despite drinks there being sweeter than pure syrup in America.
- tim333 6y ago
  Here's a link to similar https://saigoneer.com/vietnam-news/10653-vietnam-among-the-most-sedentary-countries-on-earth-study https://saigoneer.com/vietnam-news/10653-vietnam-among-the-m... I was a little skeptical myself. "data from the step-counting app Azumio Argus" - they counted steps. I can see how they might walk less as everyone gets around by motor scooter there which often involves less walking that using a car as you can normally park the thing at your destination rather than schlepping around looking for a car park. But I wouldn't really call them sedentary - they are quite a hard working bunch on average.
brian_cunnie 6y ago
Agreed. I'm of the belief that Americans aren't obese because they're lazy or because they're gluttons; instead, I believe it's the food that's killing us. Processed food especially. When I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I had to switch to a low-cab diet (which cut out a huge swath of processed foods), and I dropped from 170 lbs. to 150 lbs. in a few weeks. And I wasn't trying to lose weight—it just came off.
spirobel 6y ago
thats nonsense. The slimmest and fittest I ever was, was when I ate the most processed food in my life. I was cycling from my hometown in bavaria to nice in france. So I just had to eat all this garbage from the supermarket but it got burned immediatly. Funny that he gets downvoted he expressed his point in a very friendly way. I will just say it plainly: fat people are lazy. thats the reason they are fat. You can eat as much sugar and refined food as you want as long as you move around enough.
- lazyjones 6y ago
  > fat people are lazy. thats the reason they are fat. Probably, but not vice versa (I'm not). So you need to be lazy and eat a lot of garbage to become obese.
  - spirobel 6y ago
    haha lol you are right. its just one of the reasons.
- junius2020 6y ago
  try not being lazy when your hormone system has been fried with food that is literally illegal to sell in Europe, from early childhood; https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/american-foods-banned-other-countries https://www.thedailymeal.com/travel/american-foods-banned-ot... or being told that common healthy foods we enjoy in Europe, Australia etc are dangerous and to be avoided; https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/oysters-and-vibriosis.html https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/oysters-and-vib...
  - spirobel 6y ago
    so the government is responsible that you are fat? that sounds like an excuse lol
- ekanes 6y ago
  Age is also a factor -- when I was younger I could eat two large pizzas at one point without a problem. Now a couple slices and I feel like junk. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

watwut 6y ago

Given that Americans are the nation with longest average working hours among developed world and the nation that is literally worshipping hard work, I find it dubious when people just throw lazy Americans around. I know it is usually Americans doing it to other Americans, but still.