5 ms·

If your population is drinking Cyanide, then the issue is obviously systemic and studying their bodies may uncover a more exact cause.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
But we know the exact cause... calories (food full of calories, ie. sugar and fat) tastes good, because historically when we found a calorie-rich source of nutrients, it was good for our survival to eat as much as we could (because who knows when will we get the next portion of food). We've had enough (and too much) food for maybe a 100 years, even less in some places, and evolution cannot adapt so fast, especially since most fat people die old enough to create new babies before that.
- zerohp 4y ago
  We don't know why everyone suddenly decided to eat a lot more calories starting around 1980. It's not even clear that people are eating more calories than in 1880. Food was abundant in the US for most people long before that.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    We also don’t do cost/benefit analysis of life expectancy and productivity. It’s a horrible thought, but there could be positive financial effects in so-called obesity.
    - roywiggins 4y ago
      An effect like that has been found with smoking: "due to a shorter lifespan of 8.6 years, smokers’ mean total healthcare costs during the entire study period were actually €4700 lower than for non-smokers. For the same reason, each smoker missed 7.3 years (€126 850) of pension. Overall, smokers’ average net contribution to the public finance balance was €133 800 greater per individual compared with non-smokers." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3533014/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3533014/
      - numpad0 4y ago
        Smoking at least had only downsides, we don’t know if obesity and sources of obesity has positive performance impacts, like X kg of weight correlating to Y dollars more per hour, of course after normalized by roles.
  - Wyoming23 4y ago
    It seems like we do know all the reasons though? It's multiple factors, but they're all mostly easy to observe, measure and identify. High-sugar, high-fat, packaged foods with preservatives, emulsifiers and artificial colors became cheap, abundant and normalized. These are essentially the perfect cocktail for obesity (by perfectly mixing calories, insulin response, gut microbiome changes, satiety, dopaminergic effects, etc). Simultaneously fewer Americans are working physical jobs, the jobs that are physical have reduced physicality and society in general has shifted to more car-centric and sedentary leisure (watching TV instead of going fishing on Saturday). Finally social changes. Women's liberation movement means more dual income households (and single adult households) which means less cooking from scratch and more fast food, packages food, etc. Also strong anti-bullying, body-positivity and self-esteem cultural norms prevent people from getting any peer feedback about their health/weight until it's a doctor telling them that they have diabetes and high blood pressure.
- jacobolus 4y ago
  There are very significant regional differences in obesity, for which “access to cheap, good tasting food” is not in itself a sufficient causal explanation.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

But we know the exact cause... calories (food full of calories, ie. sugar and fat) tastes good, because historically when we found a calorie-rich source of nutrients, it was good for our survival to eat as much as we could (because who knows when will we get the next portion of food). We've had enough (and too much) food for maybe a 100 years, even less in some places, and evolution cannot adapt so fast, especially since most fat people die old enough to create new babies before that.

zerohp 4y ago
We don't know why everyone suddenly decided to eat a lot more calories starting around 1980. It's not even clear that people are eating more calories than in 1880. Food was abundant in the US for most people long before that.
- numpad0 4y ago
  We also don’t do cost/benefit analysis of life expectancy and productivity. It’s a horrible thought, but there could be positive financial effects in so-called obesity.
  - roywiggins 4y ago
    An effect like that has been found with smoking: "due to a shorter lifespan of 8.6 years, smokers’ mean total healthcare costs during the entire study period were actually €4700 lower than for non-smokers. For the same reason, each smoker missed 7.3 years (€126 850) of pension. Overall, smokers’ average net contribution to the public finance balance was €133 800 greater per individual compared with non-smokers." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3533014/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3533014/
    - numpad0 4y ago
      Smoking at least had only downsides, we don’t know if obesity and sources of obesity has positive performance impacts, like X kg of weight correlating to Y dollars more per hour, of course after normalized by roles.
- Wyoming23 4y ago
  It seems like we do know all the reasons though? It's multiple factors, but they're all mostly easy to observe, measure and identify. High-sugar, high-fat, packaged foods with preservatives, emulsifiers and artificial colors became cheap, abundant and normalized. These are essentially the perfect cocktail for obesity (by perfectly mixing calories, insulin response, gut microbiome changes, satiety, dopaminergic effects, etc). Simultaneously fewer Americans are working physical jobs, the jobs that are physical have reduced physicality and society in general has shifted to more car-centric and sedentary leisure (watching TV instead of going fishing on Saturday). Finally social changes. Women's liberation movement means more dual income households (and single adult households) which means less cooking from scratch and more fast food, packages food, etc. Also strong anti-bullying, body-positivity and self-esteem cultural norms prevent people from getting any peer feedback about their health/weight until it's a doctor telling them that they have diabetes and high blood pressure.
jacobolus 4y ago
There are very significant regional differences in obesity, for which “access to cheap, good tasting food” is not in itself a sufficient causal explanation.