Most people don't actually say it out loud, but this is all directly implied by the "personal responsibility" retort that is wildly popular among people who don't actually suffer from a given malady, in response to attempts to address it collectively.
However, I dont agree with your supposition following from that.
I think that obesity is a symptom of a cultural problem worth solving, not an individual moral failing, and there are better ways to learn than death.
There are lots of things in our culture that result in physical and mental sickness. It is good to treat the symptoms, but we should also pay attention to the cause.
Culture operates both at the individual and collective level. One can not exist without the other. One can not change without changing the other. Personal beliefs and actions shape collective culture, and culture shapes personal beliefs.
It is the natural consequence of the human body's strategy for finding enough sustenance to drive that big brain over an evolutionary timeline that was mostly dominated by scarcity.
We like to call it a disease because we want to live longer. But all of the consequences happen after most humans have procreated, so there is no evolutionary pressure[0] to change it.
[0] Yes, I understand evolution isn't quite that simple
The agriculture revolution only happened 10,000 years ago. This is all very new to us.
It is a disinvitation to solutions, and the rest follows naturally from that. I think a lot of people are using this as a thought-terminating cliche without actually considering how hostile the stance is.
A widespread lack of individual agency and self-determination is both a cultural problem and should be viewed as a call to action.
The question of why this is the case and what we can do about it is the interesting part.
People do have personal problems. Ignoring that is like blinding one eye before assessing the situation
That was practically the consensus social position forty years ago.
We didn't have an obesity crisis. Now we have an obesity crisis. Did the human race just become less responsible? Or are they enduring a new, situational, societal-level problem that affects many people collectively based on the socioeconomic & cultural conditions they were born into? Conditions that didn't exist 20,000 or 1,000 or even 60 years ago.
This is a longstanding conservative trope that excuses us from dealing with any and all social problems because we don't owe anything to each other. It is a declaration of social atomization.
The implication here is that somewhere along the way in the last 50-ish years people just lost the ability to have discipline. All at once. Across the entire globe.
Does that sound reasonable to you? Keep in mind 50 years ago almost everyone smoked.
Personal responsibility has not changed. I don't understand how people can say this when the problem is to such a widespread degree.
> "when _you_ believe the solution is trivial" (emphasis mine)
> "But you could also consider..."
Why do you suspect it changes energy expenditure?
Travel to Italy or France and the difference is shocking — both in terms of the look of the people and the quality of the food.
The average American is 50% richer than the average French, and have access to everything they need to eat like one if they choose.
In fact, much of the difference is the French choosing not to eat - both in terms of frequency and quantity.
Healthy food attitudes can absolutely be learned and taught. If you see a 200lb 10 year old, the difference between them and their classmates isn't the contents of the supermarket. Its what is going on at home, the actions of their parents, and what they are learning.
I say this not to blame or pass judgement, but to demonstrate that induvial behavior and actions matter.
As programmers, we usually prefer to remove code to fix a bug than adding patches on top of buggy code. Let's not pretend that the same logic does not apply here.
That's clearly double unhealthy behavior and will bring unintended consequences. Which might be better than the current predicament but still let's not pretend this is not a "monkeypatch".
Consider: GPL-1 inhibitors are actually root-cause solutions, and diet/exercise are not root cause solutions.
That's because the cause of obesity is not eating. The cause of obesity is a propensity to overeat. The cause begins in your brain and automatic responses, not on the table or the gym.
That's why you and I can eat, be satisfied, and not be obese.
Diet/exercise doesn't address the root cause. It fixes the symptom - obesity. But those people are still addicts, and if they fall off then they're off and will become obese again, much like an alcoholic. This diet "rubber banding" is extremely common.
Ozempic and others address the root cause, by lowering the desire or propensity to eat, perhaps closer to that of someone with a normal brain and normal regulation.
Who said so?! I have been obese (clinically, BMI) multiple times. And all the time I got back to overweight then normal weight by exercising and eating less (than what I wanted! Because eating until I feel like exploding is so good).
> Consider: GPL-1 inhibitors are actually root-cause solutions, and diet/exercise are not root cause solutions.
False. Overeating is caused by lack of movement and bad diet. There is no point in discuss the rest starting from a completely wrong point.
Is this some kind of joke? A bad diet doesn't cause overeating - overeating IS the bad diet. Also not moving doesn't cause overeating, because how could it? What, I sit down and suddenly a burrito appears in my hands?
The cause of overeating is a propensity to overconsume, i.e. you have an addiction. Diet and exercise address the SYMPTOMS, but not the ROOT CAUSE. You STILL have an addiction. In the exact same way someone who is sober is STILL an alcoholic.
Because drinking alcohol is not actually the root cause of alcoholism. The root cause is an addiction to alcohol. You can't get rid of the addiction, but you can treat the symptoms - by never drinking, by being sober. But you did not address the root cause.
By my logical analysis, I conclude GLP-1 inhibitors better address the root cause than diet and exercise. To further strengthen my point, you've more or less admitted this by pointed out you've been obese "multiple times". If you had addressed the root cause this would be impossible! But you did not address the root cause but merely the symptoms via diet and exercise. You still had the addiction, so when you slipped you became obese again. This cannot happen while taking a GLP-1 inhibitor because you no longer have the extreme desire to eat. Even when you lost weight, you still had the extreme desire to eat.