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The fact that people who are spending too much money on food would spend even more money to buy a weight-loss drug rather than get their food-intake under contr

The fact that people who are spending too much money on food would spend even more money to buy a weight-loss drug rather than get their food-intake under control, saving money, is an indictment of our species if I've ever seen one. At least it's supposed to decrease food cravings, so you might at least save some... Yet for some reason our species loves to come up with the most convoluted and expensive band-aid solutions rather than fixing a problem at its root. You can see the same with the whole atmospherical carbon-capture nonsense.

cokeandpepsi 2y ago
[dead]
asah 2y ago
Lol, this is being written on a computer and I'm reading this on a computer. Neither existed for 99.9% of human history. Modern problems require modern solutions!
xattt 2y ago
I would argue it’s not a bandaid solution if it gives individuals an opportunity to pull back the curtain and experience themselves in a state of moderated consumption.
SmellTheGlove 2y ago
> The fact that people who are spending too much money on food would spend even more money to buy a weight-loss drug rather than get their food-intake under control, saving money, is an indictment of our species if I've ever seen one. This is needlessly judgmental. This drug reduces the impulse to eat when you're not actually hungry. We need to think about obesity as more than just a lack of self control - normal people don't have the impulse to eat all of the time, and this stuff just brings you to that baseline. The weight loss is literally a side effect of the drug.
- xenospn 2y ago
  If you’re in the US, normal is actually overweight and constantly eating.
- BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
  > We need to think about obesity as more than just a lack of self control Do we? I've seen no stats and received no reasons to believe that the majority of obese people have such a distorted appetite that lack of willpower can't be inferred from their state. Also, exercise exists, even for large eaters. But as always, I don't expect HN (like most places full of Overton prisoners) to react well to the now heretical notion that responsibility is more than a social construct and that the new religion of hedonism is wrong and destructive.
  - astrange 2y ago
    Exercise isn't an effective method of weight loss. Naturally having a labor intensive job can be, but it's basically a waste of time to try and exercise something off when it would've been better to not eat it. Anyway, "lack of willpower" isn't a cause nor does it fit the evidence very well. For instance, obesity in the US is geographical, correlated with lower altitudes[0], and it happens to animals as well as humans[1]. (Hint: it's caused by pollutants.) [0] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0093493 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2010.1890 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2010...
    - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
      Chinese large cities are way more polluted than in the US yet they aren't particularly known for their obesity issues. As usual, correlation isn't causation and my best bet is that there are more cities at lower altitude, which means more sedentary and/or "Western" urban way of life (including eating bad food in too large quantities and office jobs). Anyway, I don't think that anyone rational and arguing in good faith can say that low willpower isn't the predominant ingredient in the 1st world's obesity crisis. Especially anyone coming from said 1st world and having interacted with some of the "victims".
      - astrange 2y ago
        I actually linked a quasi-experimental paper that does show causation. > "Western" urban way of life (including eating bad food in too large quantities and office jobs). The issue is "too large quantities". What's the cause of that? It's been available for much longer than Americans have been obese. Asians work longer hours, probably drink more, and are thin even though their extra walking shouldn't matter that much.
- chmod775 2y ago
  Either the impulse to load up on candy is so strong that one needs a $1,000 / month weight loss drug, or we are just that weak-willed. It doesn't matter: We, as a species, are comically embarrassing sometimes. The point wasn't to be judgemental, it was commentary. I'm not free of vices either.
snarf21 2y ago
Some of this is the byproduct of the world's industrial food complex. Foods are being processed and manipulated for maximum addiction. And most of the most addictive foods are the cheapest. Healthy and fresh unprocessed foods are more expensive than other shelf stable options.
- chmod775 2y ago
  > And most of the most addictive foods are the cheapest. Healthy and fresh unprocessed foods are more expensive than other shelf stable options. I've heard this multiple times, yet I get the opposite picture at any supermarket. Buying about 14k calories of well-balanced food (oats, bread, high-protein cheeses, some meat, some veggies, fruit, nuts, noodles, yoghurt, milk, whatever) costs me around 30 Euro. Suppose I could've bought nothing but 5kg of the cheapest wiener sausages to get that same number of calories, but even they are 6 Euro/kg, so exactly the same price. Getting 14k calories buying BigMacs at McDonald's would've cost me 150 Euro (6 Euro / 500kcal). What the fuck are people buying to live unhealthily for less? Raw sugar? Since you also mentioned "most addictive", I now picture that people have diets consisting mostly of candy. Cheap candy. The fact remains that a healthy diet is perfectly affordable - I can cover the basics for less than 150 Euro / month, and I'm not price conscious, even opting for the expensive options in the fruit/vegetable department. That amount of money is nothing in a country where the minimum wage is 1600 Euro / month (4k/mo average). So yes, I'd tentatively agree on "addictive", but not so much on "expensive". At the end of the day humans are supposed to be 'addicted' to food - it's called hunger. Eating oats will get rid of that craving just like eating gummy bears will, but the gummy bears are just bad decision-making. You had to physically go out of your way to buy those over something else, just so you had them on you the next time you are hungry.
  - snarf21 2y ago
    I see that this is a US versus Europe issue. It is also a problem with "normal". People grow up eating overly sugary foods and that becomes normal to them. A lot of the US "whole grain" breads have more sugar than the white bread versions. Our "no fat" yogurts are filled with sugar. People drink monstrous "coffee" drinks that are 1200 calories. Our food pyramid was developed by the Department of Agriculture, NOT the Department of Health. There is corn syrup in almost everything. "Not just sweetened soda, but many other packaged foods sold in the US contain up to twice as much sugar as their European counterparts." [https://medium.com/wise-well/us-foods-often-pack-more-sugar-than-uk-and-eu-counterparts-9daaa959b33a https://medium.com/wise-well/us-foods-often-pack-more-sugar-...]
laughingcurve 2y ago
HN is rapidly becoming reddit. There is where I expect to find specious and empty reasoning propped up entirely by weird anti-modernist rhetoric. This isn't even on topic for the original post. Who are you, random internet weirdo, to indict seven billion people because of a company making and selling a drug. For a cranky libertarian hermit you sure have a lot to say about how the market is wrong. When they have a similar solution for helping tamp down on severe alcoholism, I look forward to your equally ludicrous opinion about "people spending too much on alcohol" and "getting intake under control". You couldn't even be bothered to cite one article that would prove spending more money is correlated with obesity. Luckily for me I have plenty that prove your claim is ridiculous on its face. Drewnowski, Adam and SE Specter. “Poverty and obesity: the role of energy density and energy costs.” The American journal of clinical nutrition 79 1 (2004): 6-16 . Ogden, Cynthia L, M. Carroll, Tala H. I. Fakhouri, Craig M. Hales, Cheryl D. Fryar, Xianfen Li and David S. Freedman. “Prevalence of Obesity Among Youths by Household Income and Education Level of Head of Household — United States 2011–2014.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 67 (2018): 186 - 189.
- Tarucho 2y ago
  Have you tried the drug?
- chmod775 2y ago
  > Who are you, random internet weirdo, to indict seven billion people I'm one of those people, which makes me as qualified to say "we suck" as it makes you to claim the opposite. > You couldn't even be bothered to cite one article that would prove spending more money is correlated with obesity. Seriously? Way to twist my words. But anyways: calories in - calories out - calories burned = weight gain Calories in costs money proportional to amount. It doesn't matter whether it's healthy calories or not. If you ate nothing but sausage, you would gain less weight the less sausage you ate. Nobody needs a study for that. It's trivially obvious and follows from the very basics of physics, chemistry, and biology. The notion that we need a study to prove that more food costs more money is laughable to the extreme. Also see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41133399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41133399
- 2y ago
petesergeant 2y ago
In non-US countries, where it’s much less expensive, it’s a common experience to spend sufficiently less on food to cover the pen cost
FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
Even if you don't insist that people summon the willpower to JFDI (which I maintain is probably possible for a majority), you still have to ask why everything is such a gauntlet that large numbers of people benefit from these pills. Like, we didn't reduce smoking in the US by popularizing Nicorette. No, we reduced the availability and created more stigma. Have you seen what cigarettes cost after tax? But Twinkies are cheap.
- BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
  Having a visual marker of low willpower is pretty useful, I'd say. Other than that, I guess there may be some consequences to mass usage of chemical shortcuts to psychological and/or moral problems. A bit like the famous "programmers trying to solve societal issues through tech" thing.
hombre_fatal 2y ago
Let's say it does just come down to willpower. Willpower isn't evenly distributed. A drug that does something close to giving someone more willpower seems like a reasonable therapy compared to your unique solution of "just have more willpower like me".

cokeandpepsi 2y ago

[dead]

asah 2y ago

Lol, this is being written on a computer and I'm reading this on a computer. Neither existed for 99.9% of human history. Modern problems require modern solutions!

xattt 2y ago

I would argue it’s not a bandaid solution if it gives individuals an opportunity to pull back the curtain and experience themselves in a state of moderated consumption.

SmellTheGlove 2y ago

> The fact that people who are spending too much money on food would spend even more money to buy a weight-loss drug rather than get their food-intake under control, saving money, is an indictment of our species if I've ever seen one. This is needlessly judgmental. This drug reduces the impulse to eat when you're not actually hungry. We need to think about obesity as more than just a lack of self control - normal people don't have the impulse to eat all of the time, and this stuff just brings you to that baseline. The weight loss is literally a side effect of the drug.

xenospn 2y ago
If you’re in the US, normal is actually overweight and constantly eating.
BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
> We need to think about obesity as more than just a lack of self control Do we? I've seen no stats and received no reasons to believe that the majority of obese people have such a distorted appetite that lack of willpower can't be inferred from their state. Also, exercise exists, even for large eaters. But as always, I don't expect HN (like most places full of Overton prisoners) to react well to the now heretical notion that responsibility is more than a social construct and that the new religion of hedonism is wrong and destructive.
- astrange 2y ago
  Exercise isn't an effective method of weight loss. Naturally having a labor intensive job can be, but it's basically a waste of time to try and exercise something off when it would've been better to not eat it. Anyway, "lack of willpower" isn't a cause nor does it fit the evidence very well. For instance, obesity in the US is geographical, correlated with lower altitudes[0], and it happens to animals as well as humans[1]. (Hint: it's caused by pollutants.) [0] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0093493 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2010.1890 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2010...
  - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
    Chinese large cities are way more polluted than in the US yet they aren't particularly known for their obesity issues. As usual, correlation isn't causation and my best bet is that there are more cities at lower altitude, which means more sedentary and/or "Western" urban way of life (including eating bad food in too large quantities and office jobs). Anyway, I don't think that anyone rational and arguing in good faith can say that low willpower isn't the predominant ingredient in the 1st world's obesity crisis. Especially anyone coming from said 1st world and having interacted with some of the "victims".
    - astrange 2y ago
      I actually linked a quasi-experimental paper that does show causation. > "Western" urban way of life (including eating bad food in too large quantities and office jobs). The issue is "too large quantities". What's the cause of that? It's been available for much longer than Americans have been obese. Asians work longer hours, probably drink more, and are thin even though their extra walking shouldn't matter that much.
chmod775 2y ago
Either the impulse to load up on candy is so strong that one needs a $1,000 / month weight loss drug, or we are just that weak-willed. It doesn't matter: We, as a species, are comically embarrassing sometimes. The point wasn't to be judgemental, it was commentary. I'm not free of vices either.

snarf21 2y ago

Some of this is the byproduct of the world's industrial food complex. Foods are being processed and manipulated for maximum addiction. And most of the most addictive foods are the cheapest. Healthy and fresh unprocessed foods are more expensive than other shelf stable options.

chmod775 2y ago
> And most of the most addictive foods are the cheapest. Healthy and fresh unprocessed foods are more expensive than other shelf stable options. I've heard this multiple times, yet I get the opposite picture at any supermarket. Buying about 14k calories of well-balanced food (oats, bread, high-protein cheeses, some meat, some veggies, fruit, nuts, noodles, yoghurt, milk, whatever) costs me around 30 Euro. Suppose I could've bought nothing but 5kg of the cheapest wiener sausages to get that same number of calories, but even they are 6 Euro/kg, so exactly the same price. Getting 14k calories buying BigMacs at McDonald's would've cost me 150 Euro (6 Euro / 500kcal). What the fuck are people buying to live unhealthily for less? Raw sugar? Since you also mentioned "most addictive", I now picture that people have diets consisting mostly of candy. Cheap candy. The fact remains that a healthy diet is perfectly affordable - I can cover the basics for less than 150 Euro / month, and I'm not price conscious, even opting for the expensive options in the fruit/vegetable department. That amount of money is nothing in a country where the minimum wage is 1600 Euro / month (4k/mo average). So yes, I'd tentatively agree on "addictive", but not so much on "expensive". At the end of the day humans are supposed to be 'addicted' to food - it's called hunger. Eating oats will get rid of that craving just like eating gummy bears will, but the gummy bears are just bad decision-making. You had to physically go out of your way to buy those over something else, just so you had them on you the next time you are hungry.
- snarf21 2y ago
  I see that this is a US versus Europe issue. It is also a problem with "normal". People grow up eating overly sugary foods and that becomes normal to them. A lot of the US "whole grain" breads have more sugar than the white bread versions. Our "no fat" yogurts are filled with sugar. People drink monstrous "coffee" drinks that are 1200 calories. Our food pyramid was developed by the Department of Agriculture, NOT the Department of Health. There is corn syrup in almost everything. "Not just sweetened soda, but many other packaged foods sold in the US contain up to twice as much sugar as their European counterparts." [https://medium.com/wise-well/us-foods-often-pack-more-sugar-than-uk-and-eu-counterparts-9daaa959b33a https://medium.com/wise-well/us-foods-often-pack-more-sugar-...]

laughingcurve 2y ago

HN is rapidly becoming reddit. There is where I expect to find specious and empty reasoning propped up entirely by weird anti-modernist rhetoric. This isn't even on topic for the original post. Who are you, random internet weirdo, to indict seven billion people because of a company making and selling a drug. For a cranky libertarian hermit you sure have a lot to say about how the market is wrong. When they have a similar solution for helping tamp down on severe alcoholism, I look forward to your equally ludicrous opinion about "people spending too much on alcohol" and "getting intake under control". You couldn't even be bothered to cite one article that would prove spending more money is correlated with obesity. Luckily for me I have plenty that prove your claim is ridiculous on its face. Drewnowski, Adam and SE Specter. “Poverty and obesity: the role of energy density and energy costs.” The American journal of clinical nutrition 79 1 (2004): 6-16 . Ogden, Cynthia L, M. Carroll, Tala H. I. Fakhouri, Craig M. Hales, Cheryl D. Fryar, Xianfen Li and David S. Freedman. “Prevalence of Obesity Among Youths by Household Income and Education Level of Head of Household — United States 2011–2014.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 67 (2018): 186 - 189.

Tarucho 2y ago
Have you tried the drug?
chmod775 2y ago
> Who are you, random internet weirdo, to indict seven billion people I'm one of those people, which makes me as qualified to say "we suck" as it makes you to claim the opposite. > You couldn't even be bothered to cite one article that would prove spending more money is correlated with obesity. Seriously? Way to twist my words. But anyways: calories in - calories out - calories burned = weight gain Calories in costs money proportional to amount. It doesn't matter whether it's healthy calories or not. If you ate nothing but sausage, you would gain less weight the less sausage you ate. Nobody needs a study for that. It's trivially obvious and follows from the very basics of physics, chemistry, and biology. The notion that we need a study to prove that more food costs more money is laughable to the extreme. Also see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41133399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41133399
2y ago

petesergeant 2y ago

In non-US countries, where it’s much less expensive, it’s a common experience to spend sufficiently less on food to cover the pen cost

FooBarBizBazz 2y ago

Even if you don't insist that people summon the willpower to JFDI (which I maintain is probably possible for a majority), you still have to ask why everything is such a gauntlet that large numbers of people benefit from these pills. Like, we didn't reduce smoking in the US by popularizing Nicorette. No, we reduced the availability and created more stigma. Have you seen what cigarettes cost after tax? But Twinkies are cheap.

BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
Having a visual marker of low willpower is pretty useful, I'd say. Other than that, I guess there may be some consequences to mass usage of chemical shortcuts to psychological and/or moral problems. A bit like the famous "programmers trying to solve societal issues through tech" thing.

hombre_fatal 2y ago

Let's say it does just come down to willpower. Willpower isn't evenly distributed. A drug that does something close to giving someone more willpower seems like a reasonable therapy compared to your unique solution of "just have more willpower like me".