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The fix to obesity is caloric restriction. As an extreme example, look at pictures of people in concentration camps: no obese people there. The reason why it’s

The fix to obesity is caloric restriction. As an extreme example, look at pictures of people in concentration camps: no obese people there. The reason why it’s a good example is because it’s “forced” caloric restriction, and it shows that it works. Obese people make the choice to consume more calories than requires, hence being obese.

viraptor 6y ago
Sure, but that doesn't make it a trivial fix. Unless you figured out how to influence ingrained behaviours / addictions better than any existing methods? This comment is like "the fix to smoking is to not smoke" - yes everybody knows that. Actually applying that across population is the hard part.
- laichzeit0 6y ago
  The point still needs to be made, since there are _still_ people who honestly believe that weight loss is achieved by some mechanism other than consuming less calories than is expended. They still think there is some other form of "magic" involved. So to digress the discussion onto behaviours, etc. is a distraction from the fundamental fact that needs to be hammered home until it becomes ingrained. At that point we can work on the behaviours required to achieve that end. Otherwise you have what you have now, people changing behaviours and trying to eat healthy, or exercise more, thinking that those behaviours are the magic secret to weight loss. It is not, and you can lose weight eating McDonalds and sitting at your desk all day if the amount of calories in the McDonalds you're eating is low enough. It's not healthy, but healthy/not healthy has nothing to do with calorie restriction and consequently weight loss.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    There's still a massive difference between eating food that's digested over a long time and eating candy with the same calories. It impacts the whole process and how much people will realistically restrict themselves. There's issues with body image where people don't realise they're actually obese. There's comfort food related to life stress. And so many other issues. Sure, calorie restriction is an important piece of the puzzle, but saying the rest is a distraction is a really shallow understanding of the problem. It's like that "how to draw an owl" meme - true, but the instruction are so simple they're useless.
  - TheCoelacanth 6y ago
    The type of food you eat impacts how many calories you will actually end up eating.

viraptor 6y ago

Sure, but that doesn't make it a trivial fix. Unless you figured out how to influence ingrained behaviours / addictions better than any existing methods? This comment is like "the fix to smoking is to not smoke" - yes everybody knows that. Actually applying that across population is the hard part.

laichzeit0 6y ago
The point still needs to be made, since there are _still_ people who honestly believe that weight loss is achieved by some mechanism other than consuming less calories than is expended. They still think there is some other form of "magic" involved. So to digress the discussion onto behaviours, etc. is a distraction from the fundamental fact that needs to be hammered home until it becomes ingrained. At that point we can work on the behaviours required to achieve that end. Otherwise you have what you have now, people changing behaviours and trying to eat healthy, or exercise more, thinking that those behaviours are the magic secret to weight loss. It is not, and you can lose weight eating McDonalds and sitting at your desk all day if the amount of calories in the McDonalds you're eating is low enough. It's not healthy, but healthy/not healthy has nothing to do with calorie restriction and consequently weight loss.
- viraptor 6y ago
  There's still a massive difference between eating food that's digested over a long time and eating candy with the same calories. It impacts the whole process and how much people will realistically restrict themselves. There's issues with body image where people don't realise they're actually obese. There's comfort food related to life stress. And so many other issues. Sure, calorie restriction is an important piece of the puzzle, but saying the rest is a distraction is a really shallow understanding of the problem. It's like that "how to draw an owl" meme - true, but the instruction are so simple they're useless.
- TheCoelacanth 6y ago
  The type of food you eat impacts how many calories you will actually end up eating.