7 ms·

I mean, duh? Eating makes you feel good. It releases all kinds of feel-good chemicals in your body, and it just feels good to be, if not full, satiated. It's a

I mean, duh? Eating makes you feel good. It releases all kinds of feel-good chemicals in your body, and it just feels good to be, if not full, satiated. It's an activity chock-full of positive reinforcements. Exercise, in contrast, is filled with various forms of pain (short and long term) and lots of tedium. If you're lucky, you get an endorphin rush to help offset these, but not everybody (and not every exercise regimen) provides these. It's an activity with lots of built-in negative reinforcements. And dieting? Dieting is constantly saying "No" to the positive feelings associated with eating. A piece of Christmas fudge? No. A side of fries with your hamburger? No. A full rack of sauced BBQ ribs? No. Creamy dressing for your salad? No. Seconds? A whole lot of No. It takes a lot of willpower and a long term goal to maintain a certain body shape to consistently - over the course of your entire lifetime - exercise more and eat less. And any mistake, any injury or illness which pushes you into obesity, and you're having to go even further into the "this doesn't make me feel good" category. Throw in a continuing shift towards jobs which don’t burn thousands of calories every day (e.g. forced exercise, overhead for increased caloric intake), and the availability of cheap meals with lots of calories, and boom. Obesity.

grecy 6y ago
Everything you said it true, but why isn't it such a big percentage in other developed countries?
- falcolas 6y ago
  As pointed out by others, this is happening in other developed countries as well, it’s just lagging behind the US. Personally, I largely blame our learned culture of referencing “children in Africa”. Want to fuck up a child’s eating patterns for life? Force them to clean their plate.
  - sheepdestroyer 6y ago
    Hu? I grew up in France and I have always cleaned my plate as my mother told me. In my familly, it's the polite and sensitive way to eat. Same expectation when visiting friends. Really few are overweight. Since I moved to Japan, I learned that here too food is treated with the same deference : "you shall not let a grain of rice left in your bowl" is basic table decency. Few overweigh people here either. Both France and Japan have their food recognized as UNESCO cultural world heritages. In both countries people LOVE to eat and hate to waste. Maybe people should treat their food and themselves with respect and only put on the plate what they should and can eat?
    - Arnt 6y ago
      Cleaning your plate when you decide how much to put on it is one thing, cleaning it when your parents decide is quite another and IMO harmful. I've told my children that they should usually clean their plate. Not always, because noone's perfect, but if they make a mistake often it's time to think about what they put on that plate.
  - c0nducktr 6y ago
    My grandfather would say "take all you'd like, but eat all you take" which had a similar "plate clearing" idea, but was also more responsible (likely due to growing up during the great depression). The issue with the "children in africa" thing is that someone else is setting the portions for you, I think. Everywhere I go, meals are just too big! I feel silly only eating half of a meal, especially if I don't have the ability to save the rest for later. Portion sizes, like everything else in America, are just bigger.
    - RickJWagner 6y ago
      In this respect, Covid has been good for my family. We wanted to try to help local restaurants, so we get take-out food 2 or 3 times a week. Since we're not eating in the restaurant, all the food stays at the house-- we get lots of leftovers! I frequently tell the kids to order what they want, but eat all of it. (If not today, finish it tomorrow.)
loftyal 6y ago
The ironic thing is, the genetics that are making us unhealthy, are the exacts ones that made us healthy and able to survive when calories were scarce and intermittent.
carlhjerpe 6y ago
Not everyone has that same feeling about food. And It's not something everyone's addicted to. I've mostly stopped consuming "regular food" in favor of Huel. Funnily enough it has made me appreciate the few meals i eat way more, since the rest of the meals are literally the same Huel Vanilla flavor. Exercise makes you feel better long-term, even light exercise such as walking helps, where I would argue the negative reinforcement is low. People are just too busy "being controlled" by corporations feeding them the next dopamine kick. NFLX and FB mostly is my understanding. I understand that It's easy to become obese in 2020 where you barely have to get out of the couch to get food, but i find it arcane how people can let it get so out of hand. It's happening slowly but steadily in Sweden too, my understanding is that bad food is cheaper in the US than here though, which makes us cook more overall. Dieting doesn't necessarily have to mean saying no to tasty food, just eat a bit less of the bad stuff. When i was a little kid my mother would give me 100$ a year if I didn't eat candy (what a deal!?). So i withheld completely (except on my Birthday and xmas) for ~5 years. Since then I don't have the craving for any candy or sweets. Takeaway being it is probably important how you're brought up. I find it exhausting to get my 2.2kcal that I'm supposed to consume daily.
thefz 6y ago
> Exercise, in contrast, is filled with various forms of pain (short and long term) and lots of tedium. No, I wholeheartedly disagree. I strive for some exercise, daily. I really really long for those hours of solitude into the mountain, the physical exertion too. The sweaty and cold days. What you are referring to is mechanical repetition inside a gym or something, because one can feel forced to "work out". Exercise can have any form and location. You can run, walk, swim, paddle a kayak or bike your way into nature and reap every benefit exercise has to give without feeling pain or tedium. Sorry but you speak like someone who does not exercise a lot and thus perceives movement as a chore.
- Arnt 6y ago
  This. I'm about to go out bicycling for about four hours. Have been looking forward to it all week. It's a bit of a chore until I get into the flow, or perhaps until the traffic light density recedes as I leave the city, then it's so good.
  - twelve40 6y ago
    Yeah, he literally mentioned what you said in the comment: > If you're lucky, you get an endorphin rush to help offset these And if you're not, you don't get it no matter how hard you try. Did hardcore biking for the last two years (2+ hours every single day, 9-hour bike rides on some weekends), took a break, probably will continue in 2021, but not even once got any good feelings from it, just an endless chore.
    - Arnt 6y ago
      A friend doesn't, from biking. He swims instead. Another friend plays a team sport, one which is utterly incomprehensible to me. That was my point, sort of. One size does not fit all, but different forms of bodily exercise exist. I believe GP did not try to say so.
- bradlys 6y ago
  This varies by individual. For me, almost the only form of exercise that doesn’t induce lots of suffering is lindy hop. And that’s only when there’s an extremely cute gal on the other end. Otherwise, I’m like, “yeah, I’m good. Next song please be slower. I don’t need to sweat through my third shirt tonight.” I’ve done the multi-hour bike rides. (Road and mountain) The ten hour long hikes in beautiful scenery. Kayaking from one beautiful island to another in Thailand. Didn’t like it. Never have. Likely never will. Unless there’s a hot girl I’m focused on, I will be focused on the pain. If you’re arguing you need to be an iron man athlete to get to some magical point where you start enjoying exercise, maybe consider that that pool of people is self-selected. Those who enjoy exercise probably do it a lot and those who don’t enjoy it... might not.
agumonkey 6y ago
It's short term culture at play. Good diet and sport have non linear curves. It's bad the first 3 weeks, then suddenly it's "so" great. I'm in a special situation but I couldn't eat fat/sugar/salt for a while. Forced me to eat veggies.. if you don't eat burgers or pringles and soda your tastes becomes finer. Diets are full of pleasure but they're subtle. And the food industry got away by saturating all the key sensors to make sure whatever you ingest will feel amazingly better. These days I can eat more stuff but I almost don't feel the need, I know it's mostly artificial and very detrimental to my health long term (if you believe nutrition and medicine, they seem to hint at less is more)
mam2 6y ago
The point that it's far worse in north America went literally over your head. It's not out of reach to stay in shape and even have en entire population be mostly in shape. You don't even need discipline, what you need is an overall culture that it's "good" to be in shape, "bad" to eat crappy food (basically the opposite of the US), and people will naturally and almost unconsciously pay attention to the food they it all their life, starting by taking good habits when they are young. Of course if your first thoughts are to look for "explanations" and "excuses" (which btw are the most bullshit I have ever seen on that subject, you could have at least talked at least about stress as an actual obesity factor in people's life) you will never get there..

grecy 6y ago

Everything you said it true, but why isn't it such a big percentage in other developed countries?

falcolas 6y ago
As pointed out by others, this is happening in other developed countries as well, it’s just lagging behind the US. Personally, I largely blame our learned culture of referencing “children in Africa”. Want to fuck up a child’s eating patterns for life? Force them to clean their plate.
- sheepdestroyer 6y ago
  Hu? I grew up in France and I have always cleaned my plate as my mother told me. In my familly, it's the polite and sensitive way to eat. Same expectation when visiting friends. Really few are overweight. Since I moved to Japan, I learned that here too food is treated with the same deference : "you shall not let a grain of rice left in your bowl" is basic table decency. Few overweigh people here either. Both France and Japan have their food recognized as UNESCO cultural world heritages. In both countries people LOVE to eat and hate to waste. Maybe people should treat their food and themselves with respect and only put on the plate what they should and can eat?
  - Arnt 6y ago
    Cleaning your plate when you decide how much to put on it is one thing, cleaning it when your parents decide is quite another and IMO harmful. I've told my children that they should usually clean their plate. Not always, because noone's perfect, but if they make a mistake often it's time to think about what they put on that plate.
- c0nducktr 6y ago
  My grandfather would say "take all you'd like, but eat all you take" which had a similar "plate clearing" idea, but was also more responsible (likely due to growing up during the great depression). The issue with the "children in africa" thing is that someone else is setting the portions for you, I think. Everywhere I go, meals are just too big! I feel silly only eating half of a meal, especially if I don't have the ability to save the rest for later. Portion sizes, like everything else in America, are just bigger.
  - RickJWagner 6y ago
    In this respect, Covid has been good for my family. We wanted to try to help local restaurants, so we get take-out food 2 or 3 times a week. Since we're not eating in the restaurant, all the food stays at the house-- we get lots of leftovers! I frequently tell the kids to order what they want, but eat all of it. (If not today, finish it tomorrow.)

loftyal 6y ago

The ironic thing is, the genetics that are making us unhealthy, are the exacts ones that made us healthy and able to survive when calories were scarce and intermittent.

carlhjerpe 6y ago

Not everyone has that same feeling about food. And It's not something everyone's addicted to. I've mostly stopped consuming "regular food" in favor of Huel. Funnily enough it has made me appreciate the few meals i eat way more, since the rest of the meals are literally the same Huel Vanilla flavor. Exercise makes you feel better long-term, even light exercise such as walking helps, where I would argue the negative reinforcement is low. People are just too busy "being controlled" by corporations feeding them the next dopamine kick. NFLX and FB mostly is my understanding. I understand that It's easy to become obese in 2020 where you barely have to get out of the couch to get food, but i find it arcane how people can let it get so out of hand. It's happening slowly but steadily in Sweden too, my understanding is that bad food is cheaper in the US than here though, which makes us cook more overall. Dieting doesn't necessarily have to mean saying no to tasty food, just eat a bit less of the bad stuff. When i was a little kid my mother would give me 100$ a year if I didn't eat candy (what a deal!?). So i withheld completely (except on my Birthday and xmas) for ~5 years. Since then I don't have the craving for any candy or sweets. Takeaway being it is probably important how you're brought up. I find it exhausting to get my 2.2kcal that I'm supposed to consume daily.

thefz 6y ago

> Exercise, in contrast, is filled with various forms of pain (short and long term) and lots of tedium. No, I wholeheartedly disagree. I strive for some exercise, daily. I really really long for those hours of solitude into the mountain, the physical exertion too. The sweaty and cold days. What you are referring to is mechanical repetition inside a gym or something, because one can feel forced to "work out". Exercise can have any form and location. You can run, walk, swim, paddle a kayak or bike your way into nature and reap every benefit exercise has to give without feeling pain or tedium. Sorry but you speak like someone who does not exercise a lot and thus perceives movement as a chore.

Arnt 6y ago
This. I'm about to go out bicycling for about four hours. Have been looking forward to it all week. It's a bit of a chore until I get into the flow, or perhaps until the traffic light density recedes as I leave the city, then it's so good.
- twelve40 6y ago
  Yeah, he literally mentioned what you said in the comment: > If you're lucky, you get an endorphin rush to help offset these And if you're not, you don't get it no matter how hard you try. Did hardcore biking for the last two years (2+ hours every single day, 9-hour bike rides on some weekends), took a break, probably will continue in 2021, but not even once got any good feelings from it, just an endless chore.
  - Arnt 6y ago
    A friend doesn't, from biking. He swims instead. Another friend plays a team sport, one which is utterly incomprehensible to me. That was my point, sort of. One size does not fit all, but different forms of bodily exercise exist. I believe GP did not try to say so.
bradlys 6y ago
This varies by individual. For me, almost the only form of exercise that doesn’t induce lots of suffering is lindy hop. And that’s only when there’s an extremely cute gal on the other end. Otherwise, I’m like, “yeah, I’m good. Next song please be slower. I don’t need to sweat through my third shirt tonight.” I’ve done the multi-hour bike rides. (Road and mountain) The ten hour long hikes in beautiful scenery. Kayaking from one beautiful island to another in Thailand. Didn’t like it. Never have. Likely never will. Unless there’s a hot girl I’m focused on, I will be focused on the pain. If you’re arguing you need to be an iron man athlete to get to some magical point where you start enjoying exercise, maybe consider that that pool of people is self-selected. Those who enjoy exercise probably do it a lot and those who don’t enjoy it... might not.

agumonkey 6y ago

It's short term culture at play. Good diet and sport have non linear curves. It's bad the first 3 weeks, then suddenly it's "so" great. I'm in a special situation but I couldn't eat fat/sugar/salt for a while. Forced me to eat veggies.. if you don't eat burgers or pringles and soda your tastes becomes finer. Diets are full of pleasure but they're subtle. And the food industry got away by saturating all the key sensors to make sure whatever you ingest will feel amazingly better. These days I can eat more stuff but I almost don't feel the need, I know it's mostly artificial and very detrimental to my health long term (if you believe nutrition and medicine, they seem to hint at less is more)

mam2 6y ago

The point that it's far worse in north America went literally over your head. It's not out of reach to stay in shape and even have en entire population be mostly in shape. You don't even need discipline, what you need is an overall culture that it's "good" to be in shape, "bad" to eat crappy food (basically the opposite of the US), and people will naturally and almost unconsciously pay attention to the food they it all their life, starting by taking good habits when they are young. Of course if your first thoughts are to look for "explanations" and "excuses" (which btw are the most bullshit I have ever seen on that subject, you could have at least talked at least about stress as an actual obesity factor in people's life) you will never get there..