4 ms·

Sucks for gluttons like me, but I only have myself to blame.

rootusrootus 6y ago
> I only have myself to blame. I disagree. I think it's safe to say that food producers who make the highly processed addictive crap that passes for food today bear some responsibility. And the people who willingly peddled bad science or 'facts' to try and make things such as sugar look healthy and fat look bad. Personal responsibility only gets you so far when you have limited choices and bad information.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  I think I'd know better than you. Huge bowls of pasta I made myself, for myself, are undoubtedly the problem, as is my delusion that a large pizza is a personal sized pizza. Would you have me blame Barilla for making perfectly ordinary pasta, which I choose to over-consume? If barilla didn't make it, I'd make it for myself. An egg and 100 grams of flour, or in my case, more like 4 eggs and 400 grams of flour. You might think you're doing me a favor by trying to offer me scape goats, but you're not. If there is any chance of me ever losing the weight, it will be through my acknowledgement of my behavior, not blaming others for my personal problems.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    You do you. But if you think your own willpower is the sole problem, you're just going to stay fat the rest of your life. Knowing the game being played with food is really important to winning the war. Just like I replied to the other guy, I didn't say your own choices weren't partly responsible, but I heartily disagree that it's solely your own fault. The corporations designing food these days are using science to ensure you stay fat. We should push back against that.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      Well I've lost 30lbs in the past two years, but I don't think blaming others will help with the remaining 35 it would take to get me under 25 BMI (I'm presently a hair over 30.) Cajoling myself to reign in on my portion size seems more likely to continue working than adopting a victim mentality, but you do you I guess.
      - npsimons 6y ago
        > Cajoling myself to reign in on my portion size seems more likely to continue working than adopting a victim mentality, but you do you I guess. This is the first step, and I commend you! Yes, there are some things outside one's control - genetics guarantees we'll never be as tall as a giraffe, and fast/processed food (plus the advertising for such) is suffused throughout our society. You can still get to a healthy weight. I know, because I used to be fat, but I lost the weight and I feel better than ever.
      - rootusrootus 6y ago
        I think it's great to lose weight. I'm down 43 since the start of lockdown, and I'd like to lose a few more. So I know what a pain in the ass it is. I'm also not under any illusion that my own choices aren't huge factors in the weight gain to begin with. But man, the way food is constructed today is practically criminal. You can get fat off apples now. The amount of sugar in everything is absurd. Yes, people still put that in their mouth and therefore bear some responsibility, but I think it's fair to say that the industry tries to obfuscate it so people can't really understand what they're eating. How many different ingredient names are there for sugar? A dozen? I do firmly believe relying on willpower is a unlikely strategy to win. Something like 95% of all people who try it that way gain it all back in less than 5 years. Habit is my best weapon. But finding foods that aren't constructed from terrible ingredients is super important, because I don't make all my meals from scratch. Good luck, in any case.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  I disagree with this and tend to agree with OP. Yes, food companies make crap food, but you don’t have to eat it. You don’t need to eat the volume of it most people do. We’ve known it’s crap food for years now. However, you can have 1 cupcake or 1 pizza every now and then and be a healthy weight. You can’t have 10 cupcakes a day and be a healthy weight. Let’s not discount exercise as well - a bad diet can partly be overcome with an active lifestyle.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    I didn't say personal responsibility didn't play any part, just that it's not the only part. Obesity is not a simple moral failing, we could hold our own society to better standards and everybody would be healthier. Half the population didn't get fat just because they're all lazy.
    - PaulKeeble 6y ago
      It might surprise people that in the last 150 years people are actually doing more exercise than they ever have before with a lot more science behind what they do for better results. Even with that as the backdrop obesity has shot up. It is not just lazy people, it is bad food and the science that says its great that underpins it all.
  - tayo42 6y ago
    > You don’t need to eat the volume of it most people do The push for food companies to remove fat and replace with sugar would contribute. Fat will make you feel full. Everything is low fat and uses high fructose corn syrup to make it taste good.
    - bluedevil2k 6y ago
      > Everything is low fat and uses high fructose corn syrup to make it taste good. No, all the crap food fits that description. A chicken breast and some broccoli does not. Again, it’s a decision that must be made - eat crap food and struggle with a healthy weight, eat healthy real food and proper portions and (usually) be a healthy weight.
hh3k0 6y ago
It is not entirely the fault of each overweight individual, as genetics and gut microbiome play a role too. Anecdote: My eating habits are significantly worse than those of an overweight friend of mine and I'm of slim/average built.
starpilot 6y ago
Yeah as much as an alcoholic or other addict. There are definitely genetic predispositions to overeating as well.
- issa 6y ago
  Definitely. And it's not just overeating. There are a range of processes that vary between people. Like ability to store fat, ability to burn that fat, feeling hungry or full, etc.
text70 6y ago
If you are trying to lose it, getting past the leptin response is the hardest part, but it can also be a turning point.
medium_burrito 6y ago
My hypothesis is that it's people not cooking their own meals. I call it the Two-income Diet (or Elizabeth Warren Diet, if I want to impress people). Fallacy #1: America has shitty food. America had god-tier shitty food in the 70s and 80s, to the points where immigrants here with means baked their own bread and everything because it was so bad. Fast forward to the 80s and 90s and you had the beginnings of the farmers markets across the west coast, and now you can buy high quality food for not that much money. Sure, people eat badly, but people don't realize how shitty food used to be. If American food was so much worse then, one would expect people to have been fatter. Fallacy #2: It's all about portion size. Portion sizes are large, yes, but they were already big. I remember going to Red Robin in the 90s in high school and having eating competitions, and even then our champions could only do 20 or so coke refills and 5 burgers. Fallacy #3: Americans don't know how to cook now. This assumes Americans knew how to cook at some point in the past. Not true. Besides horrific ingredients, people were literally just tossing together cans of shit when my mother moved to the US, much to her horror. My hypothesis: People don't prepare their own food. I don't have any data for this, but I think that people are basically not preparing their own food. No matter how bad the shit in can is, it's better than the same shit plus 20mg sodium plus 4 tsp butter in a restaurant. And takeout food looks even worse, literally swimming in oil. Or at a fast food place. Furthermore, I bet that one could directly tie this into the 1) entry of women in the workforce and 2) more people living alone, where there is less time to prepare a meal that even in the worst case is twice as healthy as prepared food from an external source.
- bluGill 6y ago
  The can matters to. A can of Tomatoes is different from a can of Spaghetti-Os. A can of beans is different from a can of bean soup.
bdcravens 6y ago
I absolutely don't mean this in a snide way, but given your username, it seems like you've totally internalized that as your identity. Do you feel there's opportunities to change that first? (Perhaps I'm being overly presumptuous, and if so, my apologies)
- bigbubba 6y ago
  I anticipated somebody would mention this, it's a fair point and I don't mind you asking. Mild self-deprecation is a tool I use to combat self-delusion. I've lost some weight but still have more to lose. The name also somewhat reflects the way I perceive myself as an outsider in this industry; 'big bubba' sounds like a nickname for a long-haul trucker, not a west coast programmer (which I am, but have never really felt comfortable as.)

> I only have myself to blame. I disagree. I think it's safe to say that food producers who make the highly processed addictive crap that passes for food today bear some responsibility. And the people who willingly peddled bad science or 'facts' to try and make things such as sugar look healthy and fat look bad. Personal responsibility only gets you so far when you have limited choices and bad information.

bigbubba 6y ago
I think I'd know better than you. Huge bowls of pasta I made myself, for myself, are undoubtedly the problem, as is my delusion that a large pizza is a personal sized pizza. Would you have me blame Barilla for making perfectly ordinary pasta, which I choose to over-consume? If barilla didn't make it, I'd make it for myself. An egg and 100 grams of flour, or in my case, more like 4 eggs and 400 grams of flour. You might think you're doing me a favor by trying to offer me scape goats, but you're not. If there is any chance of me ever losing the weight, it will be through my acknowledgement of my behavior, not blaming others for my personal problems.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  You do you. But if you think your own willpower is the sole problem, you're just going to stay fat the rest of your life. Knowing the game being played with food is really important to winning the war. Just like I replied to the other guy, I didn't say your own choices weren't partly responsible, but I heartily disagree that it's solely your own fault. The corporations designing food these days are using science to ensure you stay fat. We should push back against that.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    Well I've lost 30lbs in the past two years, but I don't think blaming others will help with the remaining 35 it would take to get me under 25 BMI (I'm presently a hair over 30.) Cajoling myself to reign in on my portion size seems more likely to continue working than adopting a victim mentality, but you do you I guess.
    - npsimons 6y ago
      > Cajoling myself to reign in on my portion size seems more likely to continue working than adopting a victim mentality, but you do you I guess. This is the first step, and I commend you! Yes, there are some things outside one's control - genetics guarantees we'll never be as tall as a giraffe, and fast/processed food (plus the advertising for such) is suffused throughout our society. You can still get to a healthy weight. I know, because I used to be fat, but I lost the weight and I feel better than ever.
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      I think it's great to lose weight. I'm down 43 since the start of lockdown, and I'd like to lose a few more. So I know what a pain in the ass it is. I'm also not under any illusion that my own choices aren't huge factors in the weight gain to begin with. But man, the way food is constructed today is practically criminal. You can get fat off apples now. The amount of sugar in everything is absurd. Yes, people still put that in their mouth and therefore bear some responsibility, but I think it's fair to say that the industry tries to obfuscate it so people can't really understand what they're eating. How many different ingredient names are there for sugar? A dozen? I do firmly believe relying on willpower is a unlikely strategy to win. Something like 95% of all people who try it that way gain it all back in less than 5 years. Habit is my best weapon. But finding foods that aren't constructed from terrible ingredients is super important, because I don't make all my meals from scratch. Good luck, in any case.
bluedevil2k 6y ago
I disagree with this and tend to agree with OP. Yes, food companies make crap food, but you don’t have to eat it. You don’t need to eat the volume of it most people do. We’ve known it’s crap food for years now. However, you can have 1 cupcake or 1 pizza every now and then and be a healthy weight. You can’t have 10 cupcakes a day and be a healthy weight. Let’s not discount exercise as well - a bad diet can partly be overcome with an active lifestyle.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  I didn't say personal responsibility didn't play any part, just that it's not the only part. Obesity is not a simple moral failing, we could hold our own society to better standards and everybody would be healthier. Half the population didn't get fat just because they're all lazy.
  - PaulKeeble 6y ago
    It might surprise people that in the last 150 years people are actually doing more exercise than they ever have before with a lot more science behind what they do for better results. Even with that as the backdrop obesity has shot up. It is not just lazy people, it is bad food and the science that says its great that underpins it all.
- tayo42 6y ago
  > You don’t need to eat the volume of it most people do The push for food companies to remove fat and replace with sugar would contribute. Fat will make you feel full. Everything is low fat and uses high fructose corn syrup to make it taste good.
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    > Everything is low fat and uses high fructose corn syrup to make it taste good. No, all the crap food fits that description. A chicken breast and some broccoli does not. Again, it’s a decision that must be made - eat crap food and struggle with a healthy weight, eat healthy real food and proper portions and (usually) be a healthy weight.

hh3k0 6y ago

It is not entirely the fault of each overweight individual, as genetics and gut microbiome play a role too. Anecdote: My eating habits are significantly worse than those of an overweight friend of mine and I'm of slim/average built.

starpilot 6y ago

Yeah as much as an alcoholic or other addict. There are definitely genetic predispositions to overeating as well.

issa 6y ago
Definitely. And it's not just overeating. There are a range of processes that vary between people. Like ability to store fat, ability to burn that fat, feeling hungry or full, etc.

text70 6y ago

If you are trying to lose it, getting past the leptin response is the hardest part, but it can also be a turning point.

medium_burrito 6y ago

My hypothesis is that it's people not cooking their own meals. I call it the Two-income Diet (or Elizabeth Warren Diet, if I want to impress people). Fallacy #1: America has shitty food. America had god-tier shitty food in the 70s and 80s, to the points where immigrants here with means baked their own bread and everything because it was so bad. Fast forward to the 80s and 90s and you had the beginnings of the farmers markets across the west coast, and now you can buy high quality food for not that much money. Sure, people eat badly, but people don't realize how shitty food used to be. If American food was so much worse then, one would expect people to have been fatter. Fallacy #2: It's all about portion size. Portion sizes are large, yes, but they were already big. I remember going to Red Robin in the 90s in high school and having eating competitions, and even then our champions could only do 20 or so coke refills and 5 burgers. Fallacy #3: Americans don't know how to cook now. This assumes Americans knew how to cook at some point in the past. Not true. Besides horrific ingredients, people were literally just tossing together cans of shit when my mother moved to the US, much to her horror. My hypothesis: People don't prepare their own food. I don't have any data for this, but I think that people are basically not preparing their own food. No matter how bad the shit in can is, it's better than the same shit plus 20mg sodium plus 4 tsp butter in a restaurant. And takeout food looks even worse, literally swimming in oil. Or at a fast food place. Furthermore, I bet that one could directly tie this into the 1) entry of women in the workforce and 2) more people living alone, where there is less time to prepare a meal that even in the worst case is twice as healthy as prepared food from an external source.

bluGill 6y ago
The can matters to. A can of Tomatoes is different from a can of Spaghetti-Os. A can of beans is different from a can of bean soup.

bdcravens 6y ago

I absolutely don't mean this in a snide way, but given your username, it seems like you've totally internalized that as your identity. Do you feel there's opportunities to change that first? (Perhaps I'm being overly presumptuous, and if so, my apologies)

bigbubba 6y ago
I anticipated somebody would mention this, it's a fair point and I don't mind you asking. Mild self-deprecation is a tool I use to combat self-delusion. I've lost some weight but still have more to lose. The name also somewhat reflects the way I perceive myself as an outsider in this industry; 'big bubba' sounds like a nickname for a long-haul trucker, not a west coast programmer (which I am, but have never really felt comfortable as.)