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There appear to be a lot of people who derive a significant amount of their self-confidence and self-image from not being fat, and looking down on people who ar

There appear to be a lot of people who derive a significant amount of their self-confidence and self-image from not being fat, and looking down on people who are. They seem to get pretty upset when people who they've been able to dismiss as fat become not fat, and hate that these drugs allow the users of them to take away that moral superiority -- various GLP1 subreddits are full of stories about them. I'd never encountered anyone like that in real life, but they show up over and over again on any discussion of these drugs. It's very strange to me.

Apocryphon 2y ago
It exists in the same line of argumentation as being against student loan debt forgiveness because one had to pay off one's own loans, except about something that is even more determined by one's birth.
- borroka 2y ago
  Some alleles give people a tendency to gain weight via a higher appetite, slower metabolism, addiction to substances (in this case food). But no matter your alleles, you still have to pick up your fork and start attacking those triple portions of nachos. Let's not forget that 1-2 generations ago, the percentage of obese people was much lower than today, but the proportions of the above-mentioned alleles are very unlikely to have changed in 30-50 years.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    Perhaps food is more ultra-processed now. Micro-plastics. Gut flora disruption. Seed oils. 5G vaccines. Name a fad and there's a [whatever the antonym for panacea is] for why obesity rates are higher.
    - goostavos 2y ago
      It's feels unfair that a single Halloween Oreo cookie is 70 calories. The caloric density of modern and delicious food is absolutely insane. And so, aside from a rare treat, which mostly leaves me sad (because I only get to eat two), I eat things that aren't ultra-processed 5G seed oil based. And my weight remains controlled despite said 5G vaccines, seed oils, and gut flora disruption. Ozympic seems like a net good if it helps people control their weight. It just always seems preposterous when people blame "ultra-processed food" as the root problem, rather than the over consumption of said food as the problem.
      - borroka 2y ago
        I wrote that someone has to pick up that fork to eat those nachos. However, processed food makes it easier to eat more calories than you need. Ice cream used to be a once-a-week treat. Now, you can buy a pint of a caloric bomb for 2.99 USD. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, but as someone who exercises frequently and eats similar food when traveling, I can say with conviction that something is going on with the food sold in the US. For example, I often get pimples on my face after eating pork or beef in the US. I never get pimples when I eat pork or beef in Europe or South America. I have more problems not getting fat when I'm in the US and I feel more bloated. The usual explanation, which has merit, is that portions are bigger in the US and people move less than in other countries. However, I eat 95% of my meals at home, cooked by me, and I exercise 1 or 2 times daily.
- asdfman123 2y ago
  >It exists in the same line of argumentation as being against student loan debt forgiveness because one had to pay off one's own loans No, it doesn't. There's no fixed national budget for weight loss. There's also not perverse incentives that come with subsidizing supply. It's not an economic question.
  - borski 2y ago
    There are other valid arguments. The one the parent mentioned is not a valid argument, and it was only in that sense that it was mentioned.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    There are valid policy-based arguments to be had against student debt loan forgiveness, but the personal grievance of "why should they get a break when I paid off my debt?" is not one.
    - asdfman123 2y ago
      It's basic fairness. Basic fairness is probably the most important component of all political discussions.
- randomdata 2y ago
  In order to forgive a debt, someone else has to assume the debt. Nobody cares about that in general. If, say, someone's parent assumes the student debt of their child, you are not going to hear a thing. But when it is government forgiveness the constituents of that government often feel they are being left the bag holder, which is where you start to see complaint. If you lose weight on Ozempic, there is no evidence that someone else needs to assume the weight you lost, so it is not clear where you find a parallel.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    The parallel is "I had to work hard to lose weight / maintain my low weight, why should they get a magic pill?" Unfairness can be perceived even when it only exists in a vague cosmic sense and has no bearing in material reality.
    - randomdata 2y ago
      I think you forgot to mention the parallel? I guess, seemingly, that would be "I had to work hard to pay my student debt, why should they get to have their parents pay for it?" but that is not a sentiment that is common enough to speak of. Yeah, sure, I'm sure at least one person in history has had that thought before, but not the point of it being notable to talk about on HN. Most people who see another have their loans paid for think "Good for them". There must be something else? The "I had to work hard to pay my student loan, and now I have to work hard to pay yours too?" sentiment is much more common and I could see that show up here, but it is not a parallel. That's a very different idea that has no parallel. I don't have to work off the weight you lost.
      - Apocryphon 2y ago
        The parallel was always there: "being against student loan debt forgiveness because one had to pay off one's own loans" > but that is not a sentiment that is common enough to speak of It crops up every time the issue is discussed online. On places like Twitter, at least. > I don't have to work off the weight you lost. Again, this blend of envy, spite, and petty injustice crops up quite often. "Why did I have to exercise when they could afford a gastric bypass?" You seem unfamiliar with how petty people can be online. There are plenty of people who get personally aggrieved when they think someone got a free lunch / might get a free lunch even when the lunch isn't paid by them / they were unfortunate enough to miss out on free lunch day. > that is not a sentiment that is common enough to speak of Sure it is.
- ddj231 2y ago
  Isn’t it different with student loan forgiveness, because the money isn’t coming out of thin air but rather taxation?
andrewstuart 2y ago
I know someone who (is trim, and managed to lose 10KG on their own) responded to Ozempic and other such drugs saying "It's not fair". Think about it.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  I wonder how they feel about people whose genetics naturally let them be slim without needing to exercise.
  - tstrimple 2y ago
    I exploded in size as soon as I hit puberty and have never been able to take off the weight. I ate the same foods as my brother and we did roughly the same activities. Puberty was a night and day switch from scrawny kid to fat kid and it’s been a constant challenge since. My son is desperately trying to gain weight for a dirty bulk. He’ll put down a full pizza by himself in a night and has to force himself to keep eating more calories. When we go out to eat he picks meals based on what has the most calories. He’s still a rail and can’t keep on weight. And apart from lifting 2-3 times a week for roughly half an hour he’s completely sedentary so he’s no expending a tremendous amount of calories through other activity. For some people, staying thin is just their normal and not some diligent attention to what they consume.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  I know people who are slim and have roughly similar sentiment about the drug. Then again I also know people who'd happily deny stimulant medication to people with ADHD, because "it's not fair". Crabs in a bucket, I'd say. It doesn't help that in general, our culture still operates on the assumption that being fat is one's own fault and entirely under control of an average person, except for "legitimate medical excuses" like type 1 diabetes, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. We've made progress on getting rid of such notions in case of depression, autism and ADHD, so maybe we'll do that with obesity too, in some distant future. Until then, people on Ozempic will hear plenty of "that's not fair", and "if you were a better person, you wouldn't need this". EDIT: Maybe we'll get obesity to be seen more like smoking: something that's easy to walk into, but beyond average person's ability to walk out of without help.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
r0ckarong 2y ago
> I'd never encountered anyone like that in real life, How many people tell you their deepest asshole feelings right off the bat? They feel you out of you're in the same hate canoe and then they let loose. Doesn't mean they are not there.
- petesergeant 2y ago
  A good point, but many people on these subreddits are apparently surrounded by "friends" and family like this who are happy to tell them how disappointed they are that they're "cheating" at losing weight.
defgeneric 2y ago
Arguably it's more than just moral superiority, with thin being considered beautiful (high status) and fat being considered ugly (low status).
meztez 2y ago
Maybe some, there are also people who cheer for the capacity of humanity to figure out solutions that can benefits humanity. I view the perspective you describe as people externalizing their own insecurity. I do not view it as a critic towards people who have an excess of stored potential energy, but merely a signal that they haven't made peace with their own internal feelings about themselves. They need love, acceptance. They are on their own journey, everyone has the capacity to grow. Let's help everyone.
thefz 2y ago
These drugs are praised because they require zero effort, from people that already want to give none, than classical methods such as caloric restriction. There has always been a way out of obesity, it's just that people does not want to take it.
- borski 2y ago
  They do not require zero effort, and the people taking them to not already want to give no effort. Please reserve your moral judgments. These drugs don't work without 'classical methods' such as caloric restriction. > There has always been a way out of obesity, it's just that people does not want to take it. Common trope, and absolute nonsense. It is the rare person who has been obese for most or all of their lives and prefers it that way or has never thought about or done anything to try and fix it. That is not how people show up at doctor's offices to ask about Ozempic. They show up in tears, at the end of their rope, or having completely given up. Should we not help them just because you think it's "unfair" that you were genetically more gifted than they, perhaps? I doubt you'd agree with that.
  - goostavos 2y ago
    Genetic gifts don't trump thermodynamics (unfortunately). >Please reserve your moral judgments. This thread seems needlessly heated. How is it a moral judgement to say that some folks don't put in the effort to control calorie input? Losing weight sucks. It's worse the bigger you are. But they're not gaining weight by magic. They're consuming more calories than they burn. It is as simple as that (yes, yes, yes -- gut flora, metabolism disruption, vernal equinox, micro-plastics, etc. etc. There are plenty of variables that change the efficiency of the mechanism, but none that override the core mechanism.) fwiw, Ozympic sounds great to me if people want to take it. Also great if they don't.
    - borski 2y ago
      > How is it a moral judgement to say that some folks don't put in the effort to control calorie input? The implication that anyone reading it walks away with is "... and it is because they don't care enough to try and/or are lazy." If that wasn't your intent, cool, but that is most often the implication. My only point is that most folks who "don't put in the effort" have put in the effort, and have failed. Multiple times, over and over again. Sure, some lazy folks exist. It is a tiny minority of those who are obese, though, most of whom have given up because they had tried and failed countless times, or have simply accepted that there is no hope for them (cue tears and depression).

Apocryphon 2y ago

It exists in the same line of argumentation as being against student loan debt forgiveness because one had to pay off one's own loans, except about something that is even more determined by one's birth.

borroka 2y ago
Some alleles give people a tendency to gain weight via a higher appetite, slower metabolism, addiction to substances (in this case food). But no matter your alleles, you still have to pick up your fork and start attacking those triple portions of nachos. Let's not forget that 1-2 generations ago, the percentage of obese people was much lower than today, but the proportions of the above-mentioned alleles are very unlikely to have changed in 30-50 years.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  Perhaps food is more ultra-processed now. Micro-plastics. Gut flora disruption. Seed oils. 5G vaccines. Name a fad and there's a [whatever the antonym for panacea is] for why obesity rates are higher.
  - goostavos 2y ago
    It's feels unfair that a single Halloween Oreo cookie is 70 calories. The caloric density of modern and delicious food is absolutely insane. And so, aside from a rare treat, which mostly leaves me sad (because I only get to eat two), I eat things that aren't ultra-processed 5G seed oil based. And my weight remains controlled despite said 5G vaccines, seed oils, and gut flora disruption. Ozympic seems like a net good if it helps people control their weight. It just always seems preposterous when people blame "ultra-processed food" as the root problem, rather than the over consumption of said food as the problem.
    - borroka 2y ago
      I wrote that someone has to pick up that fork to eat those nachos. However, processed food makes it easier to eat more calories than you need. Ice cream used to be a once-a-week treat. Now, you can buy a pint of a caloric bomb for 2.99 USD. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, but as someone who exercises frequently and eats similar food when traveling, I can say with conviction that something is going on with the food sold in the US. For example, I often get pimples on my face after eating pork or beef in the US. I never get pimples when I eat pork or beef in Europe or South America. I have more problems not getting fat when I'm in the US and I feel more bloated. The usual explanation, which has merit, is that portions are bigger in the US and people move less than in other countries. However, I eat 95% of my meals at home, cooked by me, and I exercise 1 or 2 times daily.
asdfman123 2y ago
>It exists in the same line of argumentation as being against student loan debt forgiveness because one had to pay off one's own loans No, it doesn't. There's no fixed national budget for weight loss. There's also not perverse incentives that come with subsidizing supply. It's not an economic question.
- borski 2y ago
  There are other valid arguments. The one the parent mentioned is not a valid argument, and it was only in that sense that it was mentioned.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  There are valid policy-based arguments to be had against student debt loan forgiveness, but the personal grievance of "why should they get a break when I paid off my debt?" is not one.
  - asdfman123 2y ago
    It's basic fairness. Basic fairness is probably the most important component of all political discussions.
randomdata 2y ago
In order to forgive a debt, someone else has to assume the debt. Nobody cares about that in general. If, say, someone's parent assumes the student debt of their child, you are not going to hear a thing. But when it is government forgiveness the constituents of that government often feel they are being left the bag holder, which is where you start to see complaint. If you lose weight on Ozempic, there is no evidence that someone else needs to assume the weight you lost, so it is not clear where you find a parallel.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  The parallel is "I had to work hard to lose weight / maintain my low weight, why should they get a magic pill?" Unfairness can be perceived even when it only exists in a vague cosmic sense and has no bearing in material reality.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    I think you forgot to mention the parallel? I guess, seemingly, that would be "I had to work hard to pay my student debt, why should they get to have their parents pay for it?" but that is not a sentiment that is common enough to speak of. Yeah, sure, I'm sure at least one person in history has had that thought before, but not the point of it being notable to talk about on HN. Most people who see another have their loans paid for think "Good for them". There must be something else? The "I had to work hard to pay my student loan, and now I have to work hard to pay yours too?" sentiment is much more common and I could see that show up here, but it is not a parallel. That's a very different idea that has no parallel. I don't have to work off the weight you lost.
    - Apocryphon 2y ago
      The parallel was always there: "being against student loan debt forgiveness because one had to pay off one's own loans" > but that is not a sentiment that is common enough to speak of It crops up every time the issue is discussed online. On places like Twitter, at least. > I don't have to work off the weight you lost. Again, this blend of envy, spite, and petty injustice crops up quite often. "Why did I have to exercise when they could afford a gastric bypass?" You seem unfamiliar with how petty people can be online. There are plenty of people who get personally aggrieved when they think someone got a free lunch / might get a free lunch even when the lunch isn't paid by them / they were unfortunate enough to miss out on free lunch day. > that is not a sentiment that is common enough to speak of Sure it is.
ddj231 2y ago
Isn’t it different with student loan forgiveness, because the money isn’t coming out of thin air but rather taxation?

andrewstuart 2y ago

I know someone who (is trim, and managed to lose 10KG on their own) responded to Ozempic and other such drugs saying "It's not fair". Think about it.

pavel_lishin 2y ago
I wonder how they feel about people whose genetics naturally let them be slim without needing to exercise.
- tstrimple 2y ago
  I exploded in size as soon as I hit puberty and have never been able to take off the weight. I ate the same foods as my brother and we did roughly the same activities. Puberty was a night and day switch from scrawny kid to fat kid and it’s been a constant challenge since. My son is desperately trying to gain weight for a dirty bulk. He’ll put down a full pizza by himself in a night and has to force himself to keep eating more calories. When we go out to eat he picks meals based on what has the most calories. He’s still a rail and can’t keep on weight. And apart from lifting 2-3 times a week for roughly half an hour he’s completely sedentary so he’s no expending a tremendous amount of calories through other activity. For some people, staying thin is just their normal and not some diligent attention to what they consume.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
I know people who are slim and have roughly similar sentiment about the drug. Then again I also know people who'd happily deny stimulant medication to people with ADHD, because "it's not fair". Crabs in a bucket, I'd say. It doesn't help that in general, our culture still operates on the assumption that being fat is one's own fault and entirely under control of an average person, except for "legitimate medical excuses" like type 1 diabetes, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. We've made progress on getting rid of such notions in case of depression, autism and ADHD, so maybe we'll do that with obesity too, in some distant future. Until then, people on Ozempic will hear plenty of "that's not fair", and "if you were a better person, you wouldn't need this". EDIT: Maybe we'll get obesity to be seen more like smoking: something that's easy to walk into, but beyond average person's ability to walk out of without help.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

r0ckarong 2y ago

> I'd never encountered anyone like that in real life, How many people tell you their deepest asshole feelings right off the bat? They feel you out of you're in the same hate canoe and then they let loose. Doesn't mean they are not there.

petesergeant 2y ago
A good point, but many people on these subreddits are apparently surrounded by "friends" and family like this who are happy to tell them how disappointed they are that they're "cheating" at losing weight.

defgeneric 2y ago

Arguably it's more than just moral superiority, with thin being considered beautiful (high status) and fat being considered ugly (low status).

meztez 2y ago

Maybe some, there are also people who cheer for the capacity of humanity to figure out solutions that can benefits humanity. I view the perspective you describe as people externalizing their own insecurity. I do not view it as a critic towards people who have an excess of stored potential energy, but merely a signal that they haven't made peace with their own internal feelings about themselves. They need love, acceptance. They are on their own journey, everyone has the capacity to grow. Let's help everyone.

thefz 2y ago

These drugs are praised because they require zero effort, from people that already want to give none, than classical methods such as caloric restriction. There has always been a way out of obesity, it's just that people does not want to take it.

borski 2y ago
They do not require zero effort, and the people taking them to not already want to give no effort. Please reserve your moral judgments. These drugs don't work without 'classical methods' such as caloric restriction. > There has always been a way out of obesity, it's just that people does not want to take it. Common trope, and absolute nonsense. It is the rare person who has been obese for most or all of their lives and prefers it that way or has never thought about or done anything to try and fix it. That is not how people show up at doctor's offices to ask about Ozempic. They show up in tears, at the end of their rope, or having completely given up. Should we not help them just because you think it's "unfair" that you were genetically more gifted than they, perhaps? I doubt you'd agree with that.
- goostavos 2y ago
  Genetic gifts don't trump thermodynamics (unfortunately). >Please reserve your moral judgments. This thread seems needlessly heated. How is it a moral judgement to say that some folks don't put in the effort to control calorie input? Losing weight sucks. It's worse the bigger you are. But they're not gaining weight by magic. They're consuming more calories than they burn. It is as simple as that (yes, yes, yes -- gut flora, metabolism disruption, vernal equinox, micro-plastics, etc. etc. There are plenty of variables that change the efficiency of the mechanism, but none that override the core mechanism.) fwiw, Ozympic sounds great to me if people want to take it. Also great if they don't.
  - borski 2y ago
    > How is it a moral judgement to say that some folks don't put in the effort to control calorie input? The implication that anyone reading it walks away with is "... and it is because they don't care enough to try and/or are lazy." If that wasn't your intent, cool, but that is most often the implication. My only point is that most folks who "don't put in the effort" have put in the effort, and have failed. Multiple times, over and over again. Sure, some lazy folks exist. It is a tiny minority of those who are obese, though, most of whom have given up because they had tried and failed countless times, or have simply accepted that there is no hope for them (cue tears and depression).