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I'm not in total disagreement with your idea of the solution, and it's how I approach it myself. Since my mid-20s, I've struggled with my weight. Until 23, I wa

by mod 12y ago

I'm not in total disagreement with your idea of the solution, and it's how I approach it myself. Since my mid-20s, I've struggled with my weight. Until 23, I was 6'0" and 180lbs. Since then I've been as heavy as 225, which isn't enough to make people think I'm fat, but is more than I want to be. When I want to lose weight, I just eat much less--typically ~800 calories per day. But that's a struggle to beat hunger. And yes, I'm hungry--I have no idea why you would think people aren't hungry just because they're overweight. I like to feel satiated, and maybe that means something different to me than it does to you. But when I need to lose weight, I just ignore hunger. Not everyone is blessed with that kind of willpower. When people ask me "how can I do what you did and lose 40lbs in 2 months?", my answer is just like yours--quit eating so much. However if they had the choice to feel as satiated for half the calories, I expect they'd lose weight. I don't know why you imagine they'd eat twice as much--they have no idea how many calories are in the food, typically. They eat and drink as much as they want to each day without respect to any calories. Changing diet to an already-existing high-volume, low-calorie food is not nearly as good of a solution as modifying people's existing diet. It's also not making it "less nutritious,"--in fact, for these people, it's more nutritious in a sense--at least better for their health. Your whole stance is basically a "fuck those people, I don't have that problem" stance. If you're a programmer, it'd be similar to "Vim is the best text editor, so I have no sympathy for anyone who can't use it properly. We shouldn't develop other editors, deliberately making people less productive is grotesque..." etc. Obesity is an epidemic and any progress to thwart it is good, necessary work. It improves people in so many ways--physical health, self-esteem, career, relationships, etc.

EliRivers 12y ago
Your whole stance is basically a "fuck those people, I don't have that problem" stance In this part of the thread it has gone that way, although I wouldn't word it as "fuck those people", but that they're people capable of making choices, and they're choosing to eat too much. "Fuck those people" is more emotive than I feel about it. It's their choice. What problem? There's no problem. If they want to eat less, they can. Barring brain damage or serious psychological disturbance, they're human and humans are more than capable of deciding what to eat. It's not "fuck those people", it's "they're making a choice and it's none of my business". I do genuinely believe that. I wouldn't even call it willpower. I'm not convinced any such thing really exists; people make choices. That's all there is. I feel hungry, but I know I don't actually need to eat this. Make a choice and in doing so pick how I'm going to feel; I can keep feeling hungry, or I can not keep feeling hungry, weighed up with factors and knowledge I possess. My stance in the bigger thread is that the idea of deliberately removing nutritional content from food is grotesque. Sure, we in the rich world have never known hunger (not the kind you feel when you haven't had anything with sugar in it for a few hours, but the kind that grinds people into dust over years and ends up with people selecting which of their family should die first), but it's still a real thing and yes, sure, it's just about free market economics and if the rich world can afford to deliberately destroy nutritional value to make life a little bit more convenient for themselves that's just how international trade goes, but nonetheless it makes me sick. That's what I feel is fucking grotesque; so much of humanity's history has been a struggle to get enough food and famine was a perpetual real issue, and sure, this is modern times in the first world and now we can just destroy the calorie content of food for our own convenience, but still, what the fuck. Addendum: I have no idea why you would think people aren't hungry just because they're overweight. Is that from what I said about some people not able to tell when they're not hungry? I understand that's a real medical issue some people have. Their body/brain doesn't work right in that sense and when they've eaten enough, the hunger doesn't fade as it should.

by mod 12y ago

EliRivers 12y ago

Your whole stance is basically a "fuck those people, I don't have that problem" stance In this part of the thread it has gone that way, although I wouldn't word it as "fuck those people", but that they're people capable of making choices, and they're choosing to eat too much. "Fuck those people" is more emotive than I feel about it. It's their choice. What problem? There's no problem. If they want to eat less, they can. Barring brain damage or serious psychological disturbance, they're human and humans are more than capable of deciding what to eat. It's not "fuck those people", it's "they're making a choice and it's none of my business". I do genuinely believe that. I wouldn't even call it willpower. I'm not convinced any such thing really exists; people make choices. That's all there is. I feel hungry, but I know I don't actually need to eat this. Make a choice and in doing so pick how I'm going to feel; I can keep feeling hungry, or I can not keep feeling hungry, weighed up with factors and knowledge I possess. My stance in the bigger thread is that the idea of deliberately removing nutritional content from food is grotesque. Sure, we in the rich world have never known hunger (not the kind you feel when you haven't had anything with sugar in it for a few hours, but the kind that grinds people into dust over years and ends up with people selecting which of their family should die first), but it's still a real thing and yes, sure, it's just about free market economics and if the rich world can afford to deliberately destroy nutritional value to make life a little bit more convenient for themselves that's just how international trade goes, but nonetheless it makes me sick. That's what I feel is fucking grotesque; so much of humanity's history has been a struggle to get enough food and famine was a perpetual real issue, and sure, this is modern times in the first world and now we can just destroy the calorie content of food for our own convenience, but still, what the fuck. Addendum: I have no idea why you would think people aren't hungry just because they're overweight. Is that from what I said about some people not able to tell when they're not hungry? I understand that's a real medical issue some people have. Their body/brain doesn't work right in that sense and when they've eaten enough, the hunger doesn't fade as it should.