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Blaming it on the person if you're in America is mostly wrong. HFCS and sugar is in literally everything. It's super expensive to buy healthy food. You have to

Blaming it on the person if you're in America is mostly wrong. HFCS and sugar is in literally everything. It's super expensive to buy healthy food. You have to drive everywhere so you don't get the exercise. Can weight loss be done with food only? Sure. Is it affordable or attainable for the average american? Not really.

xbar 4y ago
It's ok to be accountable for what you eat when you do have choices. America has a food regulation problems that drive a variety of obesity-related problems. America also has a laziness problem that is almost mandated by suburban sprawl and automobile-oriented urban centers. Most Americans have severely limited food choices. But even those who don't are subject to marketing and sugar-addiction that leads to bad food choices even when better choices are at hand. Still, it's ok to hold accountable a person for buying and drinking two 20-ounce sugar-coffees for breakfast and then heading to the local strip mall to eat dinner at the restaurant that only serves 2000mg sodium meals--the affordability of vegetables was not the problem.
skorpeon87 4y ago
> It's super expensive to buy healthy food. Fresh veggies are the cheapest thing in a grocery store. And you don't need to buy the organic/exotic ones to "eat healthy" from the perspective of losing weight. You know what's expensive? Junk food. For the price of a single bag of chips I can buy several pounds of carrots.
Renaud 4y ago
It's not just an issue of healthy food being expensive. If you're obese, cutting your food intake in half will save you 50% of your food expense. That's a lot. Keeping the same budget, you could most probably eat healthier in smaller quantities. Although cost might be still be an issue for some, the main problem is education and culture, and these are harder to change: even if you can afford healthy food, you're unlikely to seek it if you have no appreciation for it.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  Education and culture only goes so far. The school system has been trying to teach children healthy diet and exercise habits for several decades, but it just doesn't seem to stick. Not that we should stop, but it seems like obesity has more to with a lack of willpower to resist overeating rather than ignorance of how to eat healthily and that exercise should be regular.

xbar 4y ago

It's ok to be accountable for what you eat when you do have choices. America has a food regulation problems that drive a variety of obesity-related problems. America also has a laziness problem that is almost mandated by suburban sprawl and automobile-oriented urban centers. Most Americans have severely limited food choices. But even those who don't are subject to marketing and sugar-addiction that leads to bad food choices even when better choices are at hand. Still, it's ok to hold accountable a person for buying and drinking two 20-ounce sugar-coffees for breakfast and then heading to the local strip mall to eat dinner at the restaurant that only serves 2000mg sodium meals--the affordability of vegetables was not the problem.

skorpeon87 4y ago

> It's super expensive to buy healthy food. Fresh veggies are the cheapest thing in a grocery store. And you don't need to buy the organic/exotic ones to "eat healthy" from the perspective of losing weight. You know what's expensive? Junk food. For the price of a single bag of chips I can buy several pounds of carrots.

Renaud 4y ago

It's not just an issue of healthy food being expensive. If you're obese, cutting your food intake in half will save you 50% of your food expense. That's a lot. Keeping the same budget, you could most probably eat healthier in smaller quantities. Although cost might be still be an issue for some, the main problem is education and culture, and these are harder to change: even if you can afford healthy food, you're unlikely to seek it if you have no appreciation for it.

BitwiseFool 4y ago
Education and culture only goes so far. The school system has been trying to teach children healthy diet and exercise habits for several decades, but it just doesn't seem to stick. Not that we should stop, but it seems like obesity has more to with a lack of willpower to resist overeating rather than ignorance of how to eat healthily and that exercise should be regular.