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Obesity is a symptom of being constantly exposed to hyper palatable foods that for most people require massive force of will to abstain from them in a way never

Obesity is a symptom of being constantly exposed to hyper palatable foods that for most people require massive force of will to abstain from them in a way never before seen by humans. Eating crap is bad, but eating less crap is actually far better than obesity from “good” foods.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Yeah, this "epidemic" isn't a worldwide phenomenon. There's definitely societal factors of environment and lobbying that helped get it to this point. Telling someone to "eat less" is about as helpful as telling someone depressed to "get better".
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  The question is why aren't people in India, China, Japan, Vietnam, Africa, SE-Asia fat? It's not like hyper palatable foods don't exist in all cultures. Why only some rich western countries with large disposable incomes and cushy lifestyles have a problem with people eating way too much? Why do some people in the west (especially the US) always need to outsource the responsibility of their own bad actions and lifestyle choices to "societal factors and culture"? Am I fat because I'm a lazy pig? No, it's obviously society's and the food's fault lol.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      What a lazy garbage answer. Would you be OK if I also answered you with an AI generated answer and we just keep going back and forth with AI generated trash? That's why I'm flagging your comment. Either provide an original answer based on your own opinion on the topic so we can have a constructive discussion even if we disagree on it, or don't write anything at all instead of outsourcing your critical thinking and personal opinions to ML bots.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        >Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did. Slop begets slop. If you'd like a conversation next time, please approach with curiosity, not with flame bait.
        Rinzler89 2y ago
        Just because you find something flame bait doesn't always mean it is. My point still stands: There's noting stopping Americans and rich westerners (lest of all money and access to healthy food) from exercising and eating right, except their own laziness, and your answer did nothing to answer this when many other countries who are not Japan don't have such massive obesity rates proportional to rich western countries.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Why aren't people in India, China, Japan, Vietnam, Africa, SE-Asia fat? They are. "Obesity in India has reached epidemic proportions in the 21st century, with morbid obesity affecting 5% of the country's population" [1]. (It's about 7% in America [2].) Meanwhile in China, "the incidence of overweight and obesity among school-age children...was 15.5% in 2010, rising to 24.2% in 2019 and soaring to 29.4% in 2022" [2]. Same story in Vietnam: "The prevalence of overweight among children aged under 5 years increased from 5.6% in 2010 to 7.4% in 2019. For overweight and obesity among children aged 5 to 19 years, prevalence rose from 8.5% and 2.5% in 2010 to 19% and 8.1% in 2020, respectively" [3]. The only country you're right about is Japan, though overweightness is growing there, too [4]. Same across Africa [5]. There is absolutely a systemic effect causing obesity to rise worldwide. That doesn't remove individual agency from the equation. But it's sort of like the opiate crisis: you can have both flawed individual decisionmaking and a systemic bias that fixes the dice while offering more rolls. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_India [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10357130/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10357130/ [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947684/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947684/ [4] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/08/28/japan/science-health/obesity-rising-survey/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/08/28/japan/science-h... [5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3721807/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3721807/
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      >They are. "Obesity in India has reached epidemic proportions in the 21st century, with morbid obesity affecting 5% of the country's population" 5% of the population is hardly enough to call them fat but fair enough, seems like the entire world is getting fatter as they become more wealthy and industrialized.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > 5% of the population is hardly enough to call them fat But 7% is? India and America have statistically similar rates of morbid/severe obesity. That said, about 74% of Americans are overweight or obese [1]. The fattest Indian states barely break 40%. But if you only looked at middle class and above, I wouldn't be surprised to see numbers similar to America's. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity-adult-17-18/obesity-adult.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity-adult-17-18/obe...
- Ekaros 2y ago
  I always wondered how well would it go down if we used same arguments for being poor. Just earn more, spend less. Get rid of anything that costs too much money.
a-french-anon 2y ago
> for most people require massive force of will to abstain from them in a way never before seen by humans. Is the bar this low nowadays? It doesn't even require that much willpower - we're not talking firewalking here - it's only that the fight is constant. https://0x0.st/XYet.webp https://0x0.st/XYet.webp
- klausa 2y ago
  If it didn't require that much willpower; then the obesity rates wouldn't be what they are, right? It might be easy for you, but it clearly is very, very hard for a lot of people.
  - a-french-anon 2y ago
    > If it didn't require that much willpower; then the obesity rates wouldn't be what they are, right? You're missing one variable in your equation, mate.
    - klausa 2y ago
      I'm not sure I get the point you're trying to make.
- maxglute 2y ago
  But who wants to fight constantly? Frankly that seems more unhealthy than a chill pill for appetite.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

Yeah, this "epidemic" isn't a worldwide phenomenon. There's definitely societal factors of environment and lobbying that helped get it to this point. Telling someone to "eat less" is about as helpful as telling someone depressed to "get better".

Rinzler89 2y ago
The question is why aren't people in India, China, Japan, Vietnam, Africa, SE-Asia fat? It's not like hyper palatable foods don't exist in all cultures. Why only some rich western countries with large disposable incomes and cushy lifestyles have a problem with people eating way too much? Why do some people in the west (especially the US) always need to outsource the responsibility of their own bad actions and lifestyle choices to "societal factors and culture"? Am I fat because I'm a lazy pig? No, it's obviously society's and the food's fault lol.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    What a lazy garbage answer. Would you be OK if I also answered you with an AI generated answer and we just keep going back and forth with AI generated trash? That's why I'm flagging your comment. Either provide an original answer based on your own opinion on the topic so we can have a constructive discussion even if we disagree on it, or don't write anything at all instead of outsourcing your critical thinking and personal opinions to ML bots.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did. Slop begets slop. If you'd like a conversation next time, please approach with curiosity, not with flame bait.
      - Rinzler89 2y ago
        Just because you find something flame bait doesn't always mean it is. My point still stands: There's noting stopping Americans and rich westerners (lest of all money and access to healthy food) from exercising and eating right, except their own laziness, and your answer did nothing to answer this when many other countries who are not Japan don't have such massive obesity rates proportional to rich western countries.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Why aren't people in India, China, Japan, Vietnam, Africa, SE-Asia fat? They are. "Obesity in India has reached epidemic proportions in the 21st century, with morbid obesity affecting 5% of the country's population" [1]. (It's about 7% in America [2].) Meanwhile in China, "the incidence of overweight and obesity among school-age children...was 15.5% in 2010, rising to 24.2% in 2019 and soaring to 29.4% in 2022" [2]. Same story in Vietnam: "The prevalence of overweight among children aged under 5 years increased from 5.6% in 2010 to 7.4% in 2019. For overweight and obesity among children aged 5 to 19 years, prevalence rose from 8.5% and 2.5% in 2010 to 19% and 8.1% in 2020, respectively" [3]. The only country you're right about is Japan, though overweightness is growing there, too [4]. Same across Africa [5]. There is absolutely a systemic effect causing obesity to rise worldwide. That doesn't remove individual agency from the equation. But it's sort of like the opiate crisis: you can have both flawed individual decisionmaking and a systemic bias that fixes the dice while offering more rolls. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_India [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10357130/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10357130/ [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947684/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947684/ [4] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/08/28/japan/science-health/obesity-rising-survey/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/08/28/japan/science-h... [5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3721807/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3721807/
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    >They are. "Obesity in India has reached epidemic proportions in the 21st century, with morbid obesity affecting 5% of the country's population" 5% of the population is hardly enough to call them fat but fair enough, seems like the entire world is getting fatter as they become more wealthy and industrialized.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > 5% of the population is hardly enough to call them fat But 7% is? India and America have statistically similar rates of morbid/severe obesity. That said, about 74% of Americans are overweight or obese [1]. The fattest Indian states barely break 40%. But if you only looked at middle class and above, I wouldn't be surprised to see numbers similar to America's. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity-adult-17-18/obesity-adult.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity-adult-17-18/obe...
Ekaros 2y ago
I always wondered how well would it go down if we used same arguments for being poor. Just earn more, spend less. Get rid of anything that costs too much money.

a-french-anon 2y ago

> for most people require massive force of will to abstain from them in a way never before seen by humans. Is the bar this low nowadays? It doesn't even require that much willpower - we're not talking firewalking here - it's only that the fight is constant. https://0x0.st/XYet.webp https://0x0.st/XYet.webp

klausa 2y ago
If it didn't require that much willpower; then the obesity rates wouldn't be what they are, right? It might be easy for you, but it clearly is very, very hard for a lot of people.
- a-french-anon 2y ago
  > If it didn't require that much willpower; then the obesity rates wouldn't be what they are, right? You're missing one variable in your equation, mate.
  - klausa 2y ago
    I'm not sure I get the point you're trying to make.
maxglute 2y ago
But who wants to fight constantly? Frankly that seems more unhealthy than a chill pill for appetite.