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I think there's a lot of just-world fallacy going around re: how I keep running across the following pattern online now that GLP-1RA drugs exist. Commenter A (
by kixiQu 2mo ago
I think there's a lot of just-world fallacy going around re: how I keep running across the following pattern online now that GLP-1RA drugs exist.
Commenter A (esp. often a woman, though of any age): I lost a lot of weight and people treat me radically better. I did not change my behavior in a way that explains this; it seems like stigma / prejudice.
Commenter B: I have never met you but it is probably the case that stigma is not relevant and in fact you did somehow become more confident or otherwise start behaving differently in ways that mean your prior and current experiences of the world were somehow deserved.
Which is kind of wild!
- nemomarx 2mo agoI'm sure being treated nicer by everyone might also increase my confidence tbh. I think the opposite order is more interesting for that though - people who become overweight and notice their coworkers and friends changing how they look at them and so on.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- nukethebay 2mo ago[dead]
- twic 2mo agoMild counterpoint: a friend of mine, a professional woman, started on GLP-1 drugs some time ago. She has lost weight, but she also says she's had significant cognitive improvements, more focus, better sleep, etc. It would be great to have research which explicitly teases out these various effects.
- throw-the-towel 2mo agoOTOH, these other effects could have been directly caused by weight loss. Being overweight isn't exactly healthy!
- Balooga 2mo agoThis research already exists though. Obesity and being overweight increases the risk of sleep apnea, strokes, heart disease, diabetes, mental health problems, etc. etc
- cjbgkagh 2mo agoCausality is an issue there, I would suggest that genetic auto immune issues that are rather wide spread can cause all of the above. I think people are finding that GLP-1s help with auto immune issues.
- logicchains 2mo agoThe incidence rate of genetic issues generally doesn't change much over time due to how slow genes changes, so an increase in obesity rates from 5% to over 40% in just a few generations suggest the cause is very unlikely to be due to genetics.
- cjbgkagh 2mo agoNot exclusively genetic but inclusively genetic. There are of course other factors involved and I think genes are a big one.
- joquarky 2mo agoIn the US, I'm convinced that it was the food pyramid. As a kid in the 80s, I wondered how it made sense that my diabetic father was told to follow the same model as non-diabetics, which emphasized carbohydrates.
- Balooga 2mo ago"Revealed: group shaping US nutrition receives millions from big food industry" -- The Guardian[1] [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/09/academy-nutrition-financial-ties-processed-food-companies-contributions https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/09/academy-nutr...
- 2mo ago
- dd8601fn 2mo agoI really wish these weren’t forever drugs. I would be next in line.
- estearum 2mo agoDo you have the same concerns about water or food? Why does it matter that it stops benefitting you if you stop taking it?
- dd8601fn 2mo agoOh god… if only I could quit food, too.
- estearum 2mo agoNo but like... why is it a concern? Money? The health problems that GLPs produce help people avoid are way more costly than the drugs will ever be. Especially now that the market is so competitive and will only get moreso.
- treis 2mo agoFor me, historically drugs like this for ADHD or depression or gastric bypass or whatever tend to lose effectiveness over time as the body adjusts. Not for everyone but for enough where you've got a short term gain that ultimately compounds the original problem. Medication can be a slippery slope into side effects and rotating dosages/medicines. Especially for behavioral medicines.
- astrange 2mo agoADHD medications do not lose effectiveness over time. That's magnesium deficiency.
- disgruntledphd2 2mo ago> ADHD medications do not lose effectiveness over time. I mean, they're mostly stimulants, which definitely lose effectiveness over time. It would be really weird if they didn't as that's basically how our bodies work in general. Note: I have been prescribed said medication, but have not started taking them yet so I might be entirely wrong in the practicalities (and how would one disentangle the psychological impact of medication from the physiological impact?).
- dnautics 2mo agowhy not both?
- CJefferson 2mo agoI find it amazing people don’t believe this. I lost about 50kg and people treated me better. They didn’t randomly shout ‘fat fuck’ in the street for a start.
- maerF0x0 2mo agoSkinny fuck! (This is me say good job, and congrats on your new found health :) )
- mullen 2mo agoI can't believe there is even a discussion. The better you look, the better people treat you and being better looking also means being of a normal weight. I literally have a weight number where if I am north of the number, I can tell people treat me differently and not as nice and if I am south of that number, people treat me a lot nicer (gasp, Women even hit on me). People are fooling themselves if they think their weight does not matter to the world around them.
- maerF0x0 2mo agoThere's 2 sides to this: 1. Halo effect - people treat you better cause you're hot. 2. Confidence effect - you do things you wouldnt have because you now have energy, confidence, and freed up mental capacity from lower food noise.
- derefr 2mo agoI would point out that there's a middle way between those stances: GLP-1 receptor agonism has anti-auto-immune effects. (I don't know yet if anyone has determined whether this is a direct effect of GLP-1R agonism; or whether e.g. metabolic disorder has auto-immune aspects, and GLP-1R agonism effectively treats metabolic disorder; or whether it's just that e.g. sugar and other simple carbs are directly pro-auto-immune, and GLP-1R agonism breaks the addictive salience of sugars/simple carbs in such a way that even if you're eating the same amount, you're putting less of those in your body. Regardless of the mechanism, there does seem to be a consensus on the overall anti-auto-immune effect itself.) The anti-auto-immune effects of GLP-1RAs show up visibly, e.g. on the face, entirely separately from the effects of weight loss (because this effect still occurs even when the dose of GLP-1RAs is too low to provoke weight loss), in the form of decreased puffiness, oiliness, acne, chapped lips, etc. It causes a bunch of small changes that make someone look like they're "taking better care of themselves" (even though they may have been taking assiduous care of themselves before, but didn't look it, for autoimmune reasons.) People definitely judge others on how "healthy" they look, so this could definitely help someone to get a job. But the anti-auto-immune effects of GLP-1RAs also show up in entirely unconscious behavioral changes — not in anything cognitive, like "confidence", but rather due to GLP-1RAs being at least partly effective in treating chronic, sometimes-subclinical, usually-not-well-managed autoimmune pain disorders (think fibromyalgia) and autoimmune energy disorders (think ME-CFS.) Being less achey and having more energy makes people behave differently — whether that be on the macro level in subconscious decision-making (think of how people make different choices when overtired without being aware of it — people with chronic energy disorders are "overtired" 100% of the time!), or on the micro level, in terms of how e.g. speech is performed (people have reported becoming less "croaky", and their usable vocal range expanding), how nonverbal communication is performed (it's easier and "cheaper" to move your face and head and body, so you do), etc. And note how, for these behavioral changes, some of these might be obvious to the person going through the changes (like your voice changing); but others are things you may not be aware has changed. For facial expressions in particular, people learn to use their face in certain expressive ways when they're young, and then often don't notice when their face stops "responding" fully/correctly/in the way they'd anticipate to their brain's commands to execute these expressions. As far as you're concerned, you're doing what you always did; it's just that, at some point, you developed an autoimmune condition that attacked (or plugged up with waste) some nerves or muscles or tissues or whatever, that made those higher-level signals from your motor cortex stop translating perfectly to actually initiating the actions you expected. Most people don't periodically test their facial expressions in a mirror, so you only get info about the breakdown of these capabilities reflected in other people's reactions toward you changing. And, likewise, if these capabilities were to be suddenly restored, you'd only find out through others' reactions to you as well!
- drysine 2mo agoAttractive people regardless of sex are universally treated better, unattractive - worse. You could call it a stigma or prejudice, but until calliagnosia[0] becomes a reality, it is what it is. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liking_What_You_See:_A_Documentary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liking_What_You_See:_A_Documen...
- kruipen 2mo agoWhy is lookism supposed to be bad/stigma, but favoring intelligent people is good/meritocracy? Both are "unjust" in the sense that they are a result of genetic lottery. If anything, it's the intelligence you are born with that you can't do anything about. Society is better off with more intelligence, but also with more beauty! As we automate intelligence, the selection pressure on good looks will only increase.
- juiceland 2mo ago> Why is lookism supposed to be bad/stigma, but favoring intelligent people is good/meritocracy? Your question elides what “favoring” is in this context. Outside of a few particular jobs, intelligence better predicts work performance, especially for knowledge work. The point of calling out the stigma of obesity is that it unfairly maligns people who are otherwise capable of contributing to a company.
- simmerup 2mo agoNah I see this as a bald dude. When I wear a cap people smile at me, make conversation, etc Not when I’m clearly bald though People treat you better when you look better it’s sad but true
- hn_throwaway_99 2mo agoOne of my favorite examples of this is a transgender woman who worked at Subway (sandwich shop) and wrote about her experience on reddit. Someone posed a question on reddit that was something like "people who have transitioned, how did others treat you differently after the fact." I interpreted the question as how did friends and family react after knowing you previously as one gender and then another, but this trans woman's response on how the general public treated her was much more interesting IMO. Before she transitioned, as a man she said she'd get lots of compliments and kudos from customers for basically just doing her job at Subway. As a woman, though, people were much more likely to complain and she was rarely complimented, and only if she went "above and beyond" her normal work duties. The thing I loved about this is that, like the women who lose a lot of weight, she basically "acted as her own control". When it's different men and women you can argue over whether or not people behaved differently, but it's harder to do that (or at least it should be) if it's the same person.
- RajT88 2mo agoIndeed. It is not quite the same situation, but I experienced differences when I transitioned from slovenly geek to well dressed consultant. Cut my long hair, lost some weight and started dressing much nicer. People treated me with more respect, taking me more seriously. More random people wanted to talk to me, and not just flirty people. People were more curious about me as a person. Biases exist. You see it when your personality stays the same but visible aspects of you change.
- TMWNN 2mo ago>Before she transitioned, as a man she said she'd get lots of compliments and kudos from customers for basically just doing her job at Subway. As a woman, though, people were much more likely to complain and she was rarely complimented, and only if she went "above and beyond" her normal work duties. Highly relevant: Norah Vincent's <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Made_Man_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Made_Man_(book)> Vincent later committed suicide. She found from writing the above book that being a man was so difficult that it caused a breakdown. <https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/obituaries/norah-vincent-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/obituaries/norah-vincent-...>
- atleastoptimal 2mo agoThere is a persistent bias, in general and online, against any claim that one's job prospects, social status, overall life satisfaction is dependent on the way people treat you specifically due to your physical appearance. I think this bias has worsened in the recent decade due to how emphatically the affirmative claim is espoused by the incel/looksmaxxer movement, so conceding any ground means "proving them right". There are certain realities people feel more comfortable denying/de-emphasizing. Another such bias is the impact of innate talent and its connection to success in any field tied to cognitive ability. People don't seem to want to accept that there are differences in ability/faculties that are: 1. Extremely impactful on one's life outcome 2. Extremely hard or impossible to change, especially past adolescence 3. Largely predetermined by genetic differences, many of which are random
- normalaccess 2mo agoI'm close to B. In the 80's they tested how appearance affects people. Some women were given a facial scar and went to interviews while others were left as is. The scar group reported higher levels of discrimination than those without the scar. Tricky thing was none of them had scars in the interviews. The women that thought they had the fake scars had a "touch up" and the testers removed it. Link: https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/what-a-1980s-facial-scar-experiment-shows-about-how-we-see-discrimination/ https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/what-a-1980s-facial-scar...
- talon8635 2mo ago“Deserved” might not be the right word, or is carrying serious weight. All I can say from my personal experience is that I’ve noticed major widespread improvements when I A) got in visibly good shape and B) became confident in my professional career and abilities. I behaved differently as a result of my confidence, and it is clear as day to me, including the more positive results it delivers. My angsty nervous young adult self, completely unconfident, was working against me. I don’t think I “deserved” that in any retributive sense, but yeah, I can see how people respond differently to confident people vs perpetually negative doubters. It’s no one’s fault, it’s not cruelty, it’s just how social humans work in large part (not all cases, of course, but most)
- phil21 2mo agoSo weird to me anyone actually refutes this effect. I lost weight for two reasons. First was for health, second was for career/being taking seriously in certain social circles (aka networking). I also went through one of the least confident periods of my life for unrelated reasons right about the time I hit my target goal weight. Debilitating so. I still got treated better, even when I was barely able to engage in a social interaction. From subtle things I noticed, up towards things that were quite literally spoken out loud and explicit. Just small interactions were less full of friction and low-stakes requests such as solving a problem with a pharmacist tech just seemingly got easier somehow. And I'm a dude. The impact for women has to be multiples larger.