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> If they don't [feel bad about being obese], they shouldn't. Well let's agree to disagree on this. When these obese people age a further 20 years and get hea

> If they don't [feel bad about being obese], they shouldn't. Well let's agree to disagree on this. When these obese people age a further 20 years and get health complications caused by metabolic syndrome, they will wish they could go back in time and change things or they would wish that the people around them didn't placate their desire to destroy their own bodies. Someone's current feeling, which might just be because they're misinformed or addicted or on autopilot and not thinking about it, doesn't count for everything. It's also not just a private decision when my insurance health premiums and taxation pay for the consequences of their self-destruction.

Apocryphon 4y ago
1. Most people, when regretting about decisions they could have made, are unlikely to even make those decisions at the time of that realization, if those decisions involve lifestyle changes, because change is hard and modern life is full of addictive superstimuli. 2. Trying to hard-sell people into making changes, whether by scare tactics, shaming, and so on, might cause them to actively avoid making those changes. Simply telling people what they're doing is unhealthy and they should stop it is often not enough. Public health education is an incredibly difficult and lacking area. 3. There's only so much that could be done to encourage or deter people. At some point these half-measures of nudge economics are useless, and if you really want to improve public health, you might as well start banning harmful products and practices, and mandating healthy ones. That would be more helpful than being a nag.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  > 3. if you really want to improve public health, you might as well start banning harmful products and practices, and mandating healthy ones. I would like to see that. More regulations or taxes or even bans and mandates (within reason -- we don't want a prohibition like situation that does more bad than good) applied to supermarkets and food chains (not individuals) are needed, for two reasons. The first being that they're taking my money for their healthcare, which gives me moral buy in into questions surrounding any self destructive habits that will take more money from me than necessary. The second being that the concept of free individual choice doesn't cleanly apply to any product that hacks our dopamine system, as with unhealthy food being sold to people who are addicted to unhealthy food, i.e. the morbidly obese.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    I agree. There is probably a case to be made that industrialized, mass-produced, hyper-processed food has led to terrible nutritional consequences in the U.S. that regulators should reevaluate heavily.
yunohn 4y ago
> It's also not just a private decision when my insurance health premiums and taxation pay for the consequences of their self-destruction. This is unsolvable and consequence of existing in a society. Unless you’ve disavowed all the “unhealthy sins” and actively avoid all risk factors, maybe then you can hold such a view. Doesn’t mean others should listen you though…
- hackerlight 4y ago
  It is improveable. Metabolic syndrome is a late-20th and early-21st century phenomenon caused by the processed and junk foods industry. The worst of the effects can be improved with policy, whether that's public health messaging, taxes, bans or regulations. We saw this happen with smoking. Members of a society have a responsibility to not impose unnecessarily burdensome costs on other members of society. If someone wants to develop metabolic syndrome on their own dime, that's none of my business. As it stands, it is my business, because the costs they're imposing on me are unacceptably high.

Apocryphon 4y ago

1. Most people, when regretting about decisions they could have made, are unlikely to even make those decisions at the time of that realization, if those decisions involve lifestyle changes, because change is hard and modern life is full of addictive superstimuli. 2. Trying to hard-sell people into making changes, whether by scare tactics, shaming, and so on, might cause them to actively avoid making those changes. Simply telling people what they're doing is unhealthy and they should stop it is often not enough. Public health education is an incredibly difficult and lacking area. 3. There's only so much that could be done to encourage or deter people. At some point these half-measures of nudge economics are useless, and if you really want to improve public health, you might as well start banning harmful products and practices, and mandating healthy ones. That would be more helpful than being a nag.

hackerlight 4y ago
> 3. if you really want to improve public health, you might as well start banning harmful products and practices, and mandating healthy ones. I would like to see that. More regulations or taxes or even bans and mandates (within reason -- we don't want a prohibition like situation that does more bad than good) applied to supermarkets and food chains (not individuals) are needed, for two reasons. The first being that they're taking my money for their healthcare, which gives me moral buy in into questions surrounding any self destructive habits that will take more money from me than necessary. The second being that the concept of free individual choice doesn't cleanly apply to any product that hacks our dopamine system, as with unhealthy food being sold to people who are addicted to unhealthy food, i.e. the morbidly obese.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  I agree. There is probably a case to be made that industrialized, mass-produced, hyper-processed food has led to terrible nutritional consequences in the U.S. that regulators should reevaluate heavily.

yunohn 4y ago

> It's also not just a private decision when my insurance health premiums and taxation pay for the consequences of their self-destruction. This is unsolvable and consequence of existing in a society. Unless you’ve disavowed all the “unhealthy sins” and actively avoid all risk factors, maybe then you can hold such a view. Doesn’t mean others should listen you though…

hackerlight 4y ago
It is improveable. Metabolic syndrome is a late-20th and early-21st century phenomenon caused by the processed and junk foods industry. The worst of the effects can be improved with policy, whether that's public health messaging, taxes, bans or regulations. We saw this happen with smoking. Members of a society have a responsibility to not impose unnecessarily burdensome costs on other members of society. If someone wants to develop metabolic syndrome on their own dime, that's none of my business. As it stands, it is my business, because the costs they're imposing on me are unacceptably high.