2 ms·
Perhaps anecdotal but generally society doesn't seem to be setup to reward people making good choices. Before the GLP-1 drugs became mainstream for weight loss
by no_wizard 1y ago
Perhaps anecdotal but generally society doesn't seem to be setup to reward people making good choices.
Before the GLP-1 drugs became mainstream for weight loss, I know friends who were overweight who had enough money[0] to go on programs where your entire meal days are planned for you[1]. They'd ship you enough food for 2 weeks at a time, but you never had to think about what you were going to eat, it was all pre portioned and decided by your meal plan as part of the program.
They saw really meaningful results, lost weight, and as long as they were on the programs, they kept it off. As far as I could tell, the food wasn't anything special beyond being properly proportioned and nutrient dense - certainly achievable on ones own - but it seems the rigidity of it - that is, the fact they didn't have to make food choices every day - made it easy to stick to. The food prep itself was easy too - mostly throw it in a single skillet, microwaving it or putting it in the oven on a tray or in a baking dish was all it took.
I watched as they got healthier they were more active, felt better, seemed generally overall much happier.
Once the program was over or they for whatever reason had to stop, it didn't take long for the weight to come back, and they had discovered a big part of their problem was food anxiety - not knowing what they wanted to eat, having trouble with food cravings etc.
This has lead to me to suspect there are some seriously chronic issues with food culture in the US - namely, we haven't made doing the objectively best thing the easiest thing. Its too often out of reach due to cost, availability or time - which also speaks to other interconnected issues in the US that are going unaddressed.
For example, I know these programs worked exceedingly well for those I saw on them, why aren't they cheaper? Why don't we subsidize such things to nudge society in a better direction with food choices? We already subsidize the bad stuff - we should move those subsidies to better options.
[0]: I'm talking breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a small allotment of daily mini meals - really snacks.
[1]: This is the problem. To do this, you have to be of upper class means just to afford the food, and thats not even including the cost of the program associated with it, and in some cases its simply a meal delivery program and there's no additional anything, and its still expensive
- trollied 1y agoUSA food is absolutely crazy. Lots of stuff that’s banned in the EU. Lots of high fructose corn syrup. If you eat out, portion sizes are off the scale. I ordered a starter salad at a restaurant once when I was over on business, and it would have fed me for the entire day! (Won’t even start on the sauces!) Everything involving food is screwed.
- itsoktocry 1y ago>If you eat out, portion sizes are off the scale And yet in a sister thread about Deliveroo we have people talking about what a "game changer" the delivery services are, eating 2 takeout meals a day without really understanding what's in the food. People eat too much.
- alabastervlog 1y agoSoda in the US is batshit crazy, and has gotten way worse over recent decades. People will have the equivalent of a couple of candy bars worth of sugar with a lunch (and then do it again for dinner... plus have the equivalent of one or two more candy bars between meals) when they'd probably be grossed out by the idea of having a pile of skittles or something with their burger. But liquify it, and it's fine I guess? We have free refills (was rare until some time around the late '90s—see the '80s film Gleaming the Cube where there's a sign on a Pizza Hut in a scene near the end of the movie advertising a special on pitchers of soda, which probably seems weird to anyone used to just having their soda constantly topped off, or walking to the fountain and doing it themselves) so it's easy to thoughtlessly sip down three or four glasses of soda with a long meal, and to-go sizes at fast food joints have ballooned in size in the last 20 years or so, like, the medium sizes are often larger than what I'd have classified as a large before.