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There are a lot of important ongoing developments in obesity research. At the core, diet (mostly) and exercise (somewhat) are voluntary steps that you can take

There are a lot of important ongoing developments in obesity research. At the core, diet (mostly) and exercise (somewhat) are voluntary steps that you can take that will mechanically, thermodynamically, guarantee that you lose weight. But being overweight by itself is bad, and there's more and more research ongoing on how to fix that specific problem, without fixing the underlying causes that stop people from making the kind of lifestyle changes that will result in a healthy weight. Matthew Yglesias has a writeup of his own experiences [1] and his research into the state of the art of obesity research. If you have been trying and failing to lose weight, you don't have to beat yourself up about your failed attempts. Well, you can beat yourself up, it's a free country, but also consider looking into solutions that take your willpower out of the equation. [1] https://www.grid.news/story/science/2022/09/14/why-arent-medical-breakthroughs-in-obesity-a-bigger-deal/ https://www.grid.news/story/science/2022/09/14/why-arent-med...

noja 4y ago
> and more research ongoing on how to fix that specific problem Research for what? If the normal food that people can buy is stuffed full of subsidised HFCS, it becomes the default to gain weight. > that stop people from making the kind of lifestyle changes This is not about individual choice: you can't design a system so that the default is way too many calories, then blame an individual for getting fat. Make the default healthy.
- andrewla 4y ago
  First off, even assuming that your thesis is correct, are overweight people expected to just wait until we can fix our entire food system? Secondly, while I think it is unquestionably true that the composition of our diet has a significant effect on the propensity for obesity, it does remain a propensity. There are innumerable people that maintain a healthy weight, some with dedication and willpower, others with an almost effortless ease, and everything in between. And, we know from very basic science that reducing the inputs and increasing the burn will absolutely cause weight loss. Homeostasis is not necessarily easy to achieve, but it is certainly possible. But practically there's some combination of diet, genetics, psychology, metabolism, gut biome, viral agents, endocrine system and a million other unknown and unmeasured phenomena that feed into it. At least in the USA, there is an overwhelming feeling that if you have the capability to fix things yourself (change your diet, change your lifestyle), then pursuing an alternative that takes it out of your hands (bariatric surgery or non-surgical interventions or weight-loss drugs like semaglutide or liraglutide) is admitting failure. I propose that it is less productive to dwell on failure than it is to actually lose the weight. We should remain skeptical of a "free lunch" -- extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof -- but it does appear that we are getting closer to having workable solutions to curing obesity.
  - noja 4y ago
    > are overweight people expected to just wait until we can fix our entire food system? If HFCS in everything is the problem, they will have to. But there is no fixing going on (not in the sense of mending anything).

noja 4y ago

> and more research ongoing on how to fix that specific problem Research for what? If the normal food that people can buy is stuffed full of subsidised HFCS, it becomes the default to gain weight. > that stop people from making the kind of lifestyle changes This is not about individual choice: you can't design a system so that the default is way too many calories, then blame an individual for getting fat. Make the default healthy.

andrewla 4y ago
First off, even assuming that your thesis is correct, are overweight people expected to just wait until we can fix our entire food system? Secondly, while I think it is unquestionably true that the composition of our diet has a significant effect on the propensity for obesity, it does remain a propensity. There are innumerable people that maintain a healthy weight, some with dedication and willpower, others with an almost effortless ease, and everything in between. And, we know from very basic science that reducing the inputs and increasing the burn will absolutely cause weight loss. Homeostasis is not necessarily easy to achieve, but it is certainly possible. But practically there's some combination of diet, genetics, psychology, metabolism, gut biome, viral agents, endocrine system and a million other unknown and unmeasured phenomena that feed into it. At least in the USA, there is an overwhelming feeling that if you have the capability to fix things yourself (change your diet, change your lifestyle), then pursuing an alternative that takes it out of your hands (bariatric surgery or non-surgical interventions or weight-loss drugs like semaglutide or liraglutide) is admitting failure. I propose that it is less productive to dwell on failure than it is to actually lose the weight. We should remain skeptical of a "free lunch" -- extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof -- but it does appear that we are getting closer to having workable solutions to curing obesity.
- noja 4y ago
  > are overweight people expected to just wait until we can fix our entire food system? If HFCS in everything is the problem, they will have to. But there is no fixing going on (not in the sense of mending anything).