Unpopular opinion because it’s a tired, facile one. Oh, look, someone else watched the opening scene to Idiocracy, too. Let us look down on others together with our common trope! Problem is, it doesn’t really answer any questions or produce any useful new models. It was good for a laugh ten years ago, though.

Here’s something that’ll bake your noodle: what if you’re not as clever as you think you are, and due to the DunkinDonuts-Keurig effect, you don’t know you’re one of the stupid ones?

>Here’s something that’ll bake your noodle: what if you’re not as clever as you think you are, and due to the DunkinDonuts-Keurig effect, you don’t know you’re one of the stupid ones?

This is actually something I'm constantly preoccupied with. I've assumed the "Assume you're one of the stupid ones until proven otherwise" position.

That said, if I had some objective statement that I was somehow below average that would largely suck.

Below average in what? Nick from gradeschool was the fastest runner in my class, I could never catch him. He was also a very good wrestler for his weight class, I heard he won his highschool division in Las Vegas. Nick had dyslexia, I didn't know that at the time, but I was quite smug that I could read better than Nick.

I think it's a safe bet that by some objective measure or other, you're below average. (As am I, and the rest of us.)

Don't worry, I expect there'll be some other equally objective measure by which you're above average.

What an insane oversimplification. Look around, the tech industry is filled with incredibly smart people that don't take care of their bodies.

Overcoming bad lifestyle habits is a challenge for many, especially those who inherited those habits as children. But we can absolutely do better than "fat == stupid".

I'd argue that if you lack the self awareness to see how unhealthy you are, impart your bad habits onto your kids, and raise them till adulthood as if nothing's wrong, you are very stupid. Whether you can implement some function on a computer every couple months for $150k and free food doesn't change that.

A. I struggle to see the necessity or practicality of arguing that fat people are stupid. If you think they are, fine. Now how do you solve that problem? When has calling a large group of people stupid ever solved a major crisis, in public health, or otherwise?

B. It's not necessarily a self-awareness issue. Many people know that they lead unhealthy lifestyles, but are unable to make long-term changes to their health for a variety of reasons. The motivational psychology behind wellness really conflicts with those accustomed to sedentary lifestyles.

A major factor that is well-known in health sciences is that extrinsic motivators (i.e. exercising to improve how you look) for lifestyle and dietary changes rarely work for people. People put a lot of pressure on themselves, work really hard for a few weeks, and for some reason don't drop an absurd amount of weight in that short time, which usually leads to relapse and guilt.

Funny enough, when I was doing research on motivational psychology for my BS in kinesiology, one of the most common complaints among people trying to reverse lifelong habits was that they feared failure and shame from the public. So all of that "if you're fat, you're stupid" logic that's being thrown around here is absolutely contributing to this problem, based on my experience.

Why would you want to raise an unhealthy child? That seems very stupid. It's a huge investment.

Unadaptable != Stupid

Associations of candidate genes with psychological traits and other traits studied in the social sciences should be viewed as tentative until they have been replicated in multiple large samples. Failing to exercise such caution may hamper scientific progress by allowing for the proliferation of potentially false results [… which may lead to] incorrect perceptions about the state of knowledge in the field, especially knowledge concerning genetic variants that have been described as “genes for” traits on the basis of unintentionally inflated estimates of effect size and statistical significance.[0][1]

[0]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761143552...

[1]https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/intelligence-is-inherited-...

Not just unpopular, not supported by science.

your study is from 2012, newest research found strong correlation between certain genes and educational attainment, stronger than environmental factors like parents income[1]

your snopes article is about inheriting from mother alone, not parents

There IS also a significant difference between births based on income

https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

65 births per 1000 women vs 43 births per 1000 women

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/science/genes-education.h...

This is just code for poor people and if it is true it is because they can't afford (and/or don't have access to) fresh fruits, vegetables and quality meats.

I've seen this point before but is there much reason to believe this is the case? Unhealthy food is often priced the same or more expensive than other, healthier food, especially when buying large amounts. Where I live, it is much cheaper to buy fresh produce (fruits and vegetables) and raw meat than it is to buy frozen pizzas, chips, take-out food on a regular basis, chocolate, breaded fish sticks, microwave meals etc.

I think another reason could be that people become conditioned to like things that make them feel good and happy, and something that tastes "nice" (i.e the engineered foods made to tap into our love for salt, fat and sugar) is a good relief from the stresses that come from being poor. But I figure this is an unpopular hypothesis because of the subjectivist-individualist ideology in which only the very last step in making a choice is relevant, rather than the reasons leading up to the choice. So we throw subjective preferences out and attempt to decide if buying such food is "rational" or "irrational" at the point of purchase. This economism unfortunately shuts out important details in preference formation.

What about the role of education, advertising, the pressures faced by poor parents in their actions towards their children etc.?

Agreed.

Fresher foods also often have a shorter shelf life and are harder to store, which is a particular issue if getting to the store often is a struggle (e.g. public buses).

You then combine that with lack of cooking instruction in many low income public schools, and you have a recipe for ready meals and similar convenience foods.

Or the opposite.

You eat bad food, it decreases your intelligence or at least your ability to function effectively (bad digestion, blood sugar spikes, general longer term health issues).

Then you spiral down.

Fresh food isn't expensive. On the contrary; it's extremely cheap compared to the benefits it confers.

It's far better value for money than, say, another 5 sqm on your living quarters.

I'm sure anyone born from anyone is capable of learning about sugar. The sugar industry should at least be partially blamed considering how hard they try to make it look like sugar is not a problem. Also making it more confusing for the consumer by labeling it different things.

If anything, the "unpopular opinion" that nobody likes to acknowledge is that advertising works. Really really well.

People love to complain about a "nanny state", but an alternative is often closer to a syndicate (?) state than anything else. We would like to think people would make choices that are healthy for them. Evidence seems somewhat overwhelming that they do not.