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Obesity is foremost an emotional problem, and typically needs to be addressed as such. Despite what news headlines may say, the means of maintaining a healthy
by anon373839 3y ago
Obesity is foremost an emotional problem, and typically needs to be addressed as such.
Despite what news headlines may say, the means of maintaining a healthy weight are no mystery, nor are the general contours of a healthy lifestyle:
- Eat a number of calories at your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) for maintenance, or 500-750 calories below that if you need to lose weight.
- Get regular exercise, both cardiovascular and resistance-bearing.
- Get sufficient sleep.
- Don’t smoke, and don’t drink (or limit alcoholic drinks to special occasions).
- Drink plenty of water for hydration, and avoid sugar water (soda, etc.)
- Eat roughly 1 gram of lean protein for every pound of your ideal body weight.
- Eat a variety of vegetables, every day.
- Limit refined carbohydrates, and prefer fibrous, whole grains. (Eg, steel cut oats >> pancakes).
- Manage and reduce your stress, or recruit the help of a therapist if you don’t know how.
- Make time to do things you find meaningful and joyful.
- lapcat 3y ago> Obesity is foremost an emotional problem, and typically needs to be addressed as such. How exactly does that explain why obesity rates skyrocketed between 1990 and 2022, as mentioned by the article?
- anon373839 3y agoI believe you’ll find that mental health diagnoses have also increased during the same period. But anyway, you’re talking about an epidemiological question and my comment was on the individual level.
- lapcat 3y ago> you’re talking about an epidemiological question As was the submitted article. > my comment was on the individual level Do you think those two are somehow unrelated?
- anon373839 3y agoYes, I do. When an individual has a problem that requires treatment, a physician or other provider doesn’t consult broad theories on general population trends. They instead look to what evidence-based interventions have shown success with individuals who received those interventions.
- lapcat 3y agoI've never had a physician diagnose a physical issue as "emotional". Also, aside from the last two items (the last one being the most questionable inclusion), your healthy lifestyle list, while not technically wrong, has nothing specifically to do with emotions.
- defrost 3y agoYou may not have personally, nonetheless when M.D. physicians refer patients for a pysch eval they're suggesting an issue can't be fixed with a splint or antibiotics. Maybe there's an underlying chemical imbalance, perhaps not; they typically leave that to those that specialized in psychiatry; physicians that completed not just a medical degree but also a degree in clinical psychiatry.
- lapcat 3y agoHow often do physicians refer the obsese to psychiatrists? There aren't enough psychiatrists to handle over a billion evals, if that were even the problem, which is extremely dubious.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- depletedgherkin 3y agoI would say two other big factors are easier access to junk food, as well as more people adopting a sedentary lifestyle. To the second point, a lot of people from my culture still eat the same portions of food that their ancestors did, while living in a very different lifestyle in the present day. Eating a whole plate of rice as part of a meal is necessary if you're a laborer who's farming or fishing all day, but you'll pack on weight if you eat the same diet as an office worker.
- xetplan 3y agoIt is because the world got that much wealthier. When you get wealthy you start eating like a king and not a starving peasant. GDP per capita in China in 1990 was $320 A YEAR. GDP per capita in India in 1990 was $360 A YEAR. Then you get people posting on the internet about how bad things are economically, on a device that costs 5 years of labor of the average Chinese person in 1990. As if the modern world is just a given and has always been this way.
- Havoc 3y ago>Obesity is foremost an emotional problem That would imply that humanities emotions now are substantially different than say 50 years ago. That feels incredibly shaky as a theory...
- joenot443 3y agoI think it’s definitely possible that the basket of emotions we _experience_ in our lifetime is substantially different now than 50 years ago. It’s a difficult thing to ever really quantize, but I’m comfortable with the notion that different experiences lead us to different behaviors. How much that broad phenomenon can explain the rise of obesity worldwide I do not know.
- anon373839 3y agoNo, I don’t think it implies that.
- scotty79 3y agoWell, suicides in people below age 21 doubled in the last two decased, at least in US. So emotions might change. Although nobody says that emotions changed without a reason.
- comte7092 3y ago> Obesity is foremost an emotional problem, and typically needs to be addressed as such. I think your theory here is too stuck on what is termed “morbidly” obese, rather than the wider population being discussed. Being obese is now fairly normal in many countries, particularly the US, to the point that many people don’t even think of themselves/others who are obese that way, until they consult a bmi chart or go to their doctor. Being overweight or obese is the default condition in America, and you have to actively design your lifestyle and habits in order to not fall in that category. It is an uphill battle the whole time, and has little to do with emotional issues, at least not specifically.
- riehwvfbk 3y agoOK, good luck designing your habits in a car-centric high-anxiety status-chasing rat race. Oh, sorry, I brought up emotions. But wait, you are using this to feel superior to all those weak-minded fat people. I hate to break it to you, but that is also an emotion.
- comte7092 3y agoUh what? My comment was saying that it’s a societal problem that individuals have to fight an uphill battle against, not an individual emotional problem or failure. Don’t be an asshole. I’m not “looking down on people” or being “morally superior”. I am personally someone who has trouble with my weight and have personal experience with the fact that the deck is stacked against me. I don’t have an “emotional problem” things literally just creeped up on me from a lack of time to cook and an office job that led me to being sedentary. My point was that unless you are consciously thinking about it you will end up like the default of everyone else, because our environment is always nudging us in one direction. In the past this wasn’t the case, we were more active in our jobs and built environments, and had very different foods, you didnt have to actively fight against your environment.
- riehwvfbk 3y agoSo anyone who has a weight problem hasn't thought about it? What about the people who yo-yo diet, or struggle to lose weight at all? Are they also unconscious?
- barrysteve 3y agoObesity is foremost a governing problem. Why do we allow people to buy and sell addictive fast food? Living life perfectly is not a solution to the obesity epidemic.