3 ms·

The equation seems pretty simple to me. 75+ years of highly designed, increasingly addictive foods + significant work on cost reduction + lack of peer pressure

The equation seems pretty simple to me. 75+ years of highly designed, increasingly addictive foods + significant work on cost reduction + lack of peer pressure = more obesity It would be interesting to see the inflation-corrected per-ounce price of Coca Cola over the last 120 years. Usage appears to be dropping so perhaps there's some hope.

metalliqaz 5y ago
the lack of peer pressure came after >50% of the population was fat back in the 90's there was no mainstream HAES movement, or concern about "fat shaming" or any of the other Twitter nonsense
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  I think that's a fair observation although peer pressure certainly could act as a form of closed loop control. The near-linear increase in modern obesity seems to kick off in the mid-1970s. I'd also want to add the lack of physical activity as people move to doing God's Work by sitting still and tapping on a keyboard with occasional visits to the gym, but I haven't found a decent study showing that over time.
- shalmanese 5y ago
  Doesn't obesity preceding the HAES movement prove that HAES couldn't have caused the obesity epidemic? If you found a 50% increase in lung cancer next to major highways, would your solution be to use peer pressure to encourage everyone to take shallower breaths and then berate people for not succumbing to peer pressure? Of course not because it's obvious to us that the cause is environmental and the correct approach is regulation to reduce the cause of the disease. Treating obesity as a public health problem rather than a willpower problem is a) obviously a more sane approach and b) contrary to business interests.
  - metalliqaz 5y ago
    I don't know anyone who says HAES caused the obesity epidemic. It's just people who are addicted to food rationalizing their addiction, enabled by the simple fact that most people are overweight in the places they live.
- alphameese 5y ago
  Fat shaming has been proven fairly consistently to not help, and in fact can itself lead to further binge eating. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6565398/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6565398/

metalliqaz 5y ago

the lack of peer pressure came after >50% of the population was fat back in the 90's there was no mainstream HAES movement, or concern about "fat shaming" or any of the other Twitter nonsense

kingsuper20 5y ago
I think that's a fair observation although peer pressure certainly could act as a form of closed loop control. The near-linear increase in modern obesity seems to kick off in the mid-1970s. I'd also want to add the lack of physical activity as people move to doing God's Work by sitting still and tapping on a keyboard with occasional visits to the gym, but I haven't found a decent study showing that over time.
shalmanese 5y ago
Doesn't obesity preceding the HAES movement prove that HAES couldn't have caused the obesity epidemic? If you found a 50% increase in lung cancer next to major highways, would your solution be to use peer pressure to encourage everyone to take shallower breaths and then berate people for not succumbing to peer pressure? Of course not because it's obvious to us that the cause is environmental and the correct approach is regulation to reduce the cause of the disease. Treating obesity as a public health problem rather than a willpower problem is a) obviously a more sane approach and b) contrary to business interests.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  I don't know anyone who says HAES caused the obesity epidemic. It's just people who are addicted to food rationalizing their addiction, enabled by the simple fact that most people are overweight in the places they live.
alphameese 5y ago
Fat shaming has been proven fairly consistently to not help, and in fact can itself lead to further binge eating. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6565398/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6565398/