A lot of people mentioning willpower but not as much attention is given to the fact that everything in our millions of years evolutionary design is biased toward heavy reward for caloric foods, and within the past 100 years we are suddenly in an environment where those cravings can be fulfilled in abundance.

A modern diet is a restrictive diet. We live in a time when half of our produced food is thrown away. That's why veganism makes so much sense nowadays. Nothing about the modern diet is "natural" for most people.

Meat was awesome when calories were sparse/intermittent. Now it's just excess for the sake of a status symbol. Same can be said about a lot of our foods.

>We live in a time when half of our produced food is thrown away.

I don't see how this is a relevant fact. If we threw away 10x the food does that make our diet even more unhealthy? Moreover if technological innovations like refrigeration decreases food waste, does that magically make our diet healthy again?

>That's why veganism makes so much sense nowadays. Nothing about the modern diet is "natural" for most people.

>Meat was awesome when calories were sparse/intermittent. Now it's just excess for the sake of a status symbol. Same can be said about a lot of our foods.

If you turn back the clock even more (ie. pre-agriculture), you'd probably see the reverse (ie. more meat consumption).

> If you turn back the clock even more (ie. pre-agriculture), you'd probably see the reverse (ie. more meat consumption).

I believe you're agreeing with the comment you're commenting on. Before calories were easily available, meat was the most reliable form of protein and fat in most environments.

>If you turn back the clock even more (ie. pre-agriculture), you'd probably see the reverse (ie. more meat consumption).

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Or really your entire reply doesn't make much sense.

Pre-agriculture people starved on a regular basis. Calories were scarce in general which is why meat was important. It was a calorie and nutrient bomb when those were irregular/hard to come by.

And even then their diets were primarily plant based, think about 80%. Analysis of human scat remains has repeatedly confirmed that ancient diets were primarily plant based. Most of this research comes from academia in countries not obsessed with beef(not the US).

Modern misinformation directly contradicts fact in this area and much of it is driven by cattle/dairy industries and bro-science marketing that the carnivore diet makes ya stronk/patriotic/manly. In reality, the meat heavy western diet is associated with a long list of preventable diseases and ailments. Gotta love heart attacks at 40 yrs old cuz of these beef heavy diets.

Which is easier(and burns less calories) to harvest: an animal you have to spend hours tracking/killing/processing or stationary plants you can forage throughout the day? Remember, they didn't have guns, vehicles, etc. This was spears and running in the elements.

>I don't see how this is a relevant fact.

Meat was great when calories and nutrients were scarce. Nobody is denying that. However, we live in 2025, not 10000BC, which means calories and nutrients are so abundant to the point we throw away half of what we produce. This means the benefit of meat is no longer a benefit.

Meat is awesome when you need an optimal mix of nutrients — not just empty calories. Of course it's certainly possible to get the right proportions of macronutrients and sufficient micronutrients on a vegan diet but it takes a lot more planning and attention to detail.

> an optimal mix of nutrients

not much: meats lacks A. fibers and B. carbohydrate. Some can argue removing B isn't a bad idea, it certainly is quire restrictive. Removing A. have many short and long terms effects that are not very desirable.

Therefore most meat eaters also eat thinks like vegetables, beans, grains etc... which "unbalance" the "right proportions" (if that exist) of meat. It's very hard to achieve near perfect macro and micro nutriments if not with an artificial and perfectly calculated meals taking into account daily physical activity, psychological state, temperature, infections exposure etc... I'm not even sure ISS guys get such a calculation.

> sufficient micronutrients

This is easily done by eating plenty of plants -which is exactly what non meat eaters do- and a pill of B12. One can count but it's not more necessary than if they want a perfectly balanced meat diet, which also have its "problems" when not perfectly balanced.

How does veganism help in this case? The problem is not meat, the problem is junk food, high sugar and carbs.

If by "veganism", you simply mean healthy diet, then I agree.

Think of it this way: Meat is a junk food. It's a calorie bomb that lacks essential macronutrients, fiber being a key one. Without managing your intake it leads to health problems. It can be addictive("But meat is soooo delicious I could never give it up"). It's not necessary for your survival; it is optional in 2025.

Sure sounds like a junk food.

Then there is the long list of benefits of giving up meat. Not just for you but the environment, which means it benefits every living creature on the planet.

> ... "within the past 100 years we are suddenly in an environment where those cravings can be fulfilled in abundance."

And an environment where a massive completely out of control advertising industry that's injected into pretty much everything these days abuses every psychological trick in the book to capitalize on those evolutionary cravings.

This. If the ad industry put half as much effort into promoting healthy eating, we wouldn't train everyone to eat poorly and/or excessively at a young age.

FFS, look at how long it took to get calorie counts on menu signage! And that's the lowest hanging fruit.

1. Fix fast food + the ad industry by financially penalizing pushing unhealthy food.

2. Rework the food supply chain to support healthier eating. (Less ultra-processed, shelf-stable items, more easy-to-cook healthy options + increase availability in food deserts)

Between lost productivity and end of life health expenses, I can't believe there isn't an economic argument for this.

It's difficult to drive systematic changes in the food supply chain because there are so many different entities involved, each trying to maximize profit. But we are finally seeing limited positive steps with some states banning junk food purchases with food stamps (SNAP) and the FDA banning some synthetic food dyes.

https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-ten-states-changing-rules...

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/hhs-fda-...

> the FDA banning some synthetic food dyes.

This feels like a really weird first thing to spend effort on. I don't think it would make a list of the top 100 things to fix in the US food system.

For the most part, supply follows from demand than the other way around. If people cared more about healthy food more than convenient and tasty food, then companies will sell and advertise healthier food. Chinatowns were historically poor, but they never turned into food deserts because vegetables are a quintessential part of Chinese cuisine.

Taxing unhealthy food may work, but that would also piss a lot of people off who have their palates destroyed from eating too junk food, especially since you'd need taxes to be high enough to basically force people to change their habits. Subsidies for healthy food tend to benefit the the upper-middle class the most. Subsidizing school lunches that are both healthy and not disgusting is the only option I see as both feasible and effective.

> Chinatowns were historically poor, but they never turned into food deserts because vegetables are a quintessential part of Chinese cuisine.

The key component you're talking about here is culture, which is absolutely malleable to advertising over intermediate timespans.

Look at the Chinese shift towards greater amounts of meat consumption, driven by its promotion as a symbol of wealth.

And many of these beliefs are set in childhood. Imho, the rest of the world would do well to follow the Japanese/French tradition, where introducing children to healthy food options is taken seriously.

Something being evolutionary is not an argument for anything. Just like something being natural isn't necessarily good for you.

Sometimes I really really want to punch a certain coworker in the face, but I still don't, and that's despite the temptation by "evolutionary design".

I agree. I really like wearing shoes for example.

It's still worth noting everything in our programming wants us to consume sweet foods, but this is maladaptive in the modern world.

> [...] I still don't, and that's despite the temptation by "evolutionary design".

This too, is downstream of evolutionary design. What drove us into becoming that which cares about discovering and conforming to complex social structures / rules?

I love Dr Jason Fung. His position is that our current system focuses on calories and not eating all the time, not avoiding processed foods, being insulin insensitive, and eating real food. Here's a good video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgmFEb0b0TI His hypothesis is that having high levels of insulin is the issue.

People need to remember that being insulin resistant and being overweight are chronic conditions. You won't be able to fix them overnight. Don't focus on decreasing calories, focus on eating real food. The article mentions this too.

One thing that was counterintuitive to me is that most people's bodies produce insulin in response to artificial sugar so there's no real difference between diet coke and coke on your body.

In India, most people don't take huge junk food. They still get diabetes because of calorie heavy food and eating all time without letting the stomach get empty even for a minute.

It's the food addiction. People can't stop eating just like alcohol, cigarette or drugs.

I agree we shouldn't eat all the time. That's what was in my comment.

Quick question, in addition to eating all of the time do they eat processed foods like I mentioned in my comment? Examples include soda, white rice, flour (Naan), etc. https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/curbing-indias-ult...

>Certainly so many people can't be too weak to regulate one of the most basic facets of existence? How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation?

There have been fundamental shifts in CI and CO. Food went from fundamentally scarce and requiring effort to fairly abundant, and the effort to acquire keeps going down. Over the course of US history we have gone from farmers to factory workers to desk workers. Each of those transitions has lowered "natural" daily CO, as such each one has brought about weight increases.

>"trying harder" is just akin to insanity?

Yes, try smarter. CI/CO is true but I find it to be bad advice because a) it is damn near impossible to measure, and b) straight forward CI/CO changes can lead to opposite results.

What I find works for me:

Cut CI a little bit, large calorie cuts can slow metabolism. Up CO a little bit, exercise boosts metabolism even when not working out. Anerobic is better at boosting metabolism than aerobic.

Food wise, sugar and salt drive the human appetite. Reducing them will help you not feel as hungry while reducing CI. The other is just get used to eating less. Low food days help reorient to smaller meals feeing right. By "low food day" I mean find something small, low sugar, and salt (personally I use unsalted peanuts) when you feel hungry stop and focus on the feeling and try to determine if it is actual hunger or just habit hunger, if it is "real" hunger then eat a handful of peanuts and wait 15min before you reevaluate. The day after eating less will feel normal.

This is all great. It also helps to drink a lot of water.

> The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we are not the problem

You lack accountability.

For those who are obese, in 99% of cases, they are the problem, not genetics. A lack of discipline is attributable to the individual, rarely external factors alone.

Your claim that "trying harder" is "akin to insanity" is such an overreaction that it's misleading exaggeration, not worthy of further dissection.

Science disagrees.

On an individual level, yes, "try harder" is all we personally can do (well, until GLP-1 agonists, LOL). So, sure, it's "good advice" in that it's all there is.

On a policy level? As far as medical intervention efficacy? It's entirely useless. Even crazy-expensive interventions involving several hours of professionals' time per week, for months on end, are wildly less effective than one might think.

What does work? Changing environment! Just ("just", lol) move to a skinnier country. You'll probably lose weight. Conversely, if people from there move to the US, they'll probably get fatter. That is, willpower and accountability and all that are not why certain populations are skinnier than others. Environment, which likely encompasses tons of factors that'd be incredibly expensive and take decades to change, seems to be it.

> Your claim that "trying harder" is "akin to insanity" is such an overreaction that it's misleading exaggeration, not worthy of further dissection.

"Akin to insanity" in the sense that nobody who's aware of research on the topic thinks it can work over a population... I mean, yes, very much so.

It's hard to wrap your head around that when you got fit working out. They will firmly believe that obesity will be solved by people working out and having a stricter diet. I took me years to understand that it's doesn't work for an entire population. Honestly, even if that happened (everybody started working out), people would have a lot of problems with body image, as we can see in teenagers boys nowadays.

Dieting and working out definitely does work, the problem is that the median person attempting it will badly yo-yo over the years while feeling terrible about themselves and probably not really getting that much healthier over the long term. So it does work, but it also doesn't, practically at all, for the overwhelming majority of people who attempt it. That's why a lot of these posts end up having people talking (well, writing) past each other: diet and exercise does work. It works great. It's also a miserable failure that's nearly useless.

Again, even those with extensive and expensive outside support see depressingly poor outcomes on average, though of course that does improve things somewhat. Those are still a ton worse than GLP-1 agonists, as far as efficacy. And that's the very best effort we've got for "diet and exercise" interventions, short of live-in dietitians and chefs and personal trainers or putting people in total institutions.

Meanwhile, people move from a skinnier country to a fatter one and usually get fatter. Willpower wasn't what was keeping them skinnier. It makes no sense to expect willpower to be what'll make the fatter country skinnier when that doesn't seem to be why skinnier countries are skinnier.

I seems like people cant help but discuss this issue in a black or white way, when it isnt a binary. Choice obviously matters. It is difficult to change. Environment obviously matters. It is difficult to change.

When talking about human society, environment is a culmination of collective choice.

People who say willpower is futile are still faced with choice of if they feed their kids soda and McDonalds for breakfast.

It's difficult to do but demonstrably possible. That's why it is hard to consider any non-willpower solution. And why it is very easy to be consumed by ego if you've done it. I used to be in the militant-willpower camp because I pulled myself up by the bootstraps, so to speak. I had to study... me, in order to make it work. I had to be smarter than default mode network me and anticipate my behavior.

To change my lifestyle meant somehow incorporating all the good behaviors I wanted to do but within the limitations of being me. It took a lot of work. I carefully measured my caloric intake (gram scale all the things) and expenditure (fitness watch with optical HR, fancy schmancy scale that does body fat estimation) plus doing things like: always taking the stairs, combine my morning run/cycle with my commute (shower at the office), taking the longer way, etc. Dropped 40kg. Went from couch to running half-marathons and cycling centuries. I had to completely change my relationship with food and study all of the nutrition stuff that was never taught to me. I had to unlearn habits instilled by my parents (emotional eating, boredom eating) which meant finding different ways to deal with stress and relieve boredom. ADHD is a bitch. And weed is awesome. Learning how to accommodate munchies without putting on weight also requires forethought.

No. It really isn't all that realistic for everyone to do what I did much less have the same privileges and opportunities. I had to treat my body like a biologist studying a critter. I was incredibly lucky to be at the right spot in my life where I hit a glass ceiling at work and had so much fuck you energy pent up from feeling out of control of my life. I chose to exert maximum control over my body in order to cope and prove something.

It was a monumental amount of effort over a two year period. It is extremely unrealistic to ask people to use a gram scale for their food consistently. Or to log/track their food intake for every bite. Or to always monitor their heart rate to estimate/track your caloric output. Hyper monitoring your body is a weird hobby.

I really do think instead we should be legislating and regulating food more strictly. Labeling isn't really enough. Food science is being weaponized, much like psychology has been with advertising. We shouldn't allow that kind of manipulation for profit.

On a micro level you can change your environment easily - stop buying foods that are bad for you at the store. Don't go down the chip and candy aisle. If you are not the one who shops for food in your household, inform the one who is that for your health they need to not purchase snacks.

In my anecdotal experience, fat people grossly underestimate how much they eat or lack the understand of how calorically dense the foods they consume are.

Taking a picture of everything you consume in a week that isn’t water, and reviewing it at the end of the week is fucking mind blowing if you’re honest about it.

Science is a process, not an agent that can agree or disagree.

On a personal level we can do a lot more than just try harder. We can make permanent lifestyle changes in which healthier options become the default rather than something that we have to actively choose. This can be done in (almost) any environment.

I remember two churches I attended.

In the first one, the communion was actual wine. The priest was adamant about it being real wine. But, we had a guy who was a recovering alcoholic in the congregation. Now, if you know anyone that is recovering from alcohol abuse, then you know that even one sip of booze is enough to send you on a bender. But, our priest was adamant that we all take communion in full bodied wine.

The other church I was at had communion too. But this church has the communion wine as sugar free grape juice, and all the bread served was gluten free. Covered the diabetics and the alcoholics with the 'wine' and covered the ceiliacs with the bread. No one in the congregation ever complained about the tastes; we all grew to rather like it that way, thankyouverymuch.

Which, I dare ask, was the more christ-like way of taking holy communion?

It's wild to me that the question of "why in the goddamn fuck are we eating Jesus's body and drinking his blood?" is in the background of this entire comment.

Could you please stop posting flamebait comments? We've already had to ask you this. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, so we eventually ban accounts that keep doing it.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Many churches meet in the middle with heavily watered down wine

This seems far too harsh. Some people just poop out excess calories. Other people store excess calories as an energy reserve much more efficiently. Not everyone who is obese does that, but it's definitely a factor for many people.

For what it's worth, completely putting the environment at fault also doesn't seem right to me. But genetics absolutely plays a part, as does what is considered a "standard" meal/portion.

No, that's not how it works. Everyone will store excess calories as fat. People don't just poop out excess calories unless they have a serious medical condition that inhibits functioning of the digestive system. Outside of rare genetic conditions that cause adipose tissue hypertrophy, genetics only play a minor role like a few percent plus or minus.

> For those who are obese, in 99% of cases, they are the problem, not genetics. A lack of discipline is attributable to the individual, rarely external factors alone.

If the environment doesn't nudge the individual to be more disciplined, whose fault is it? If it's the individual, how exactly do you think this can be solved? Any solution that starts with "if everyone just did X then Y would be solved" is a non-solution, people respond to nudges, and incentives.

There needs to be something systemic happening for so many individuals across many different cultures to be lacking the will power to change something that the majority of the sufferers are not happy with, just brushing this into the "personal responsibility" bucket is a cop out, it's a non-solution, and not even wrong.

It might make you feel better but it doesn't provide any path to a system-based solution.

Not really. genetics play a huge role in satiety signaling, and you can't just willpower your way out of it the way someone who simply lacka discipline can.

Not genetics is forcing people to order a whole pizza instead of a bowl of soup for a lunch?

And a can of coke (30+g of pure sugar) on top to make sure they'll get diabetes later.

Not sure how this relates to what i wrote.

> You lack accountability.

Accountability for what? To who? And for what purpose?

> in 99% of cases, they are the problem, not genetics

Where'd you get that number? What are you basing it on?

> Your claim that "trying harder" is "akin to insanity" is such an overreaction that it's misleading exaggeration, not worthy of further not worthy of further dissection.

What does this even mean? How is my claim an overreaction? An overreaction to what? In what context or reference frame for appropriate reaction is my claim an overreaction?

In my comment above I am basically just saying "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Yeah, I think accountability is a straw man.

If you make it cheaper, easier and more socially acceptable for a group of people to eat low quality processed foods, even a portion of the time (as is the case where I live), that group of people will be more likely to eat processed foods.

It’s not impossible to follow the advice in the in the article, it’s just harder than it should be for some groups of people. Unfairly so, I think.

Accountability for putting food in your mouth.

And then claiming it's not your fault.

It 100% is.

Of course it's your "fault", obviously. But why do you think so many people are so messed up then?

Because food is cheap and they have no self-control.

And because certain groups promote fatness as a virtue, or that fatness is healthy.

Just a few comments above you claimed "The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we are not the problem", and now you admit that it's your fault. Which one is it?

I see it the same as with alcohol, tobacco and other substances. Lack of self-control. Modern food is specifically engineered to be addictive and easy to get. Full of starch, sugars and fats.

There will be no obesity if person maintains a low calorie intake.

Like let's say all of a sudden wolves started getting super obese. What happened to wolves that they evolved for millions of years just fine, and then whoop all of a sudden they were all diabetic and obese?

What, do they need to try harder at being wolves?

This would be a useful analogy if humans were unable to think more abstractly than wolves.

We have no idea what wolves think.

They're certainly not discussing it online.

Aoooooooooooo

Wolves know nothing about the horrible consequences of being fat. Most people do.

You lack accountability to yourself. Read this comment you wrote:

> People should also talk about the volition trap. I'm 40 and it feels like I've had more than a life's worth of people talking about how "you can do it if you just try!"

"People should" instead of "I'm going to". "It feels like" instead of making a direct statement.

Nobody here knows your situation or why you formed the way you did. But also, it doesn't actually matter. We always want some deep explanation but understanding is often just a way of dealing with impotence.

Just do it. No excuses.

> Just do it. No excuses.

This just sounds like you got brainwashed by Nike ("advertising signs that con / you into thinking..."). I'm not a person who makes excuses, and I'm not making excuses here. I'm not even obese.

I'm just observing phenomena. And the question I want to know is how is it that so many humans, who came this far evolutionarily, are all of a sudden so messed up? I mean, literally every single person alive today stands on the shoulders of giants. We are progeny of the winners, the tenacious, the survivors, the killers. What happened??

You live in an imaginary world.

> We are progeny of the winners, the tenacious, the survivors, the killers.

You are a progeny of a chance, nothing more.

People who don't have the will to live die. And they usually don't procreate, especially under adverse conditions.

Whether you live under adverse conditions or not is essentially a matter of luck. It's a variant of the birth lottery problem.

What happened? My morbidly obese coworker eats almost an entire pizza for lunch. That's really the whole thing summed up.

We allowed the normalization of incredibly calorie and sugar dense foods. We got kids hooked on the diet young. We made cartoons showing that kids hate vegetables while demonizing Michelle Obama got wanting good meals.

At some point, the social pressures got removed. Being severely overweight and eating more than a normal share stopped getting ridiculed. And then doctors started getting pushback because patients would rather giggle about their obesity and pretend it's okay than accept they're killing themselves. And those people fed that attitude to their kids, who are now dealt a losing hands when their parents raise them fat. Our culture's "iconic breakfast" is a bowl of milk filled with marshmallows and sugary carb bits.

But the unpleasant reality is that if my coworker just stopped ordering the pizza, they would start losing weight. It's hard, especially once in the hole, but everyone who isn't morbidly obese does that every day.

Societal norms are the problem. We’ve normalized unhealthy food. Big business has figured hit that if they make processed/refined foods easily accessible, you will buy them. Nobody wins here except shareholders, and only those shareholders in good health who don’t have to compete to get access from doctors who are overbooked with patients who have manifested a chronic illness that is statistically correlated with the aforementioned food.

I don’t want to disagree with you but I have a hard time with preaching that people are not be personally responsible for themselves.

I get your point that genes are important and some are blessed while others are not. But regardless what your genes are, you need to find a way to take care of yourself. You are not entitled to someone else taking responsibility for you and your problems.

> you need to find a way to take care of yourself

Here's the crux of the issue; for most people who are fat, finding a way to take care of themselves is so onerous, complex, and difficult that they're not technically stuck, but they're effectively stuck. If you need to drive more than an hour to get access to food that won't be terrible for you, it's not surprising that so many people have a problem.

Slowly getting into fasting is not onerous, complex, and difficult. It just sucks, especially when you're physically addicted.

But no one needs to eat above BMR? Eat whatever you want but control the portion.

Who is shoving food down your throat for years on end?

Millions of years of evolution.

evolution makes food taste good. society creates status games to regulate this behavior?

Their choices led them to get stuck and their choices are the only thing that can get them unstuck. Maybe they don’t want to get unstuck, who are we to tell people how to live?

It's not genes here, it's the food industry, constant advertising... There's an entire industry predicated on keeping people fat through overconsumption.

Telling people they should "take care of themselves" is cute, but it's completely pointless. You have to solve the systemic issues.

> The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we are not the problem, that our volitions are not the problem. Certainly so many people can't be too weak to regulate one of the most basic facets of existence? How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation? Certainly so many people shouldn't have to try so hard? Sure, some people succeed, but in world where the overwhelming majority are failing, maybe "trying harder" is just akin to insanity?

At least in the US where the problem is much worse than in the EU, I would say the major driving factor is the lack of cheap healthy foods.

We're starting to get more healthy options in the US but the problem I see again and again is that food is always painted as "trendy" and therefore commands a higher price. I can go into McDonalds and buy fries and a cheeseburger for around ~$5. But if I try to get a healthier option from another place I'm looking at $10-15 for just about anything.

Every time I travel to Europe or Latin America I'm always shocked at how easy it is to find cheap healthy food. I can pop down to a local fast food place and for around $5 get a piece of chicken, beans and rice. This by no means fancy but it's solid healthy food.

I’ve heard this before and just don’t get it. Buying healthy food is generally cheaper, or just as expensive in my experience. Buy some vegetables, some chicken, some fruit, eggs. These are generally very affordable, you just have to cook with them.

Sure, buying Just Salad is more expensive than buying McDonald’s, but that’s not the only options.

The bigger problem IMO: we put way more sugar, sweeteners, and addictive substances in food and have big portions where people feel obligated to finish. It’s very easy to eat 100g of sugar every day and hardly notice. Combine that with most American activities involving food and alcohol.

We have a culture that encourages eating and food that responds by being more eatable

A couple of years ago, I was researching modern food science (for unrelated reasons). What really struck me was how focused we are on product longevity. Everything must have low available water in order to survive warehouses, transit, and shelves. Sugar, sodium, oils, and phosphates are all just tools to accomplish this.

Put another way, the bag of chips at the American grocery is _designed from concept to factory_ to be unable to support living beings. Microorganisms would die from dehydration trying to eat the chips. But due to a bug in human psychology, when we eat them we just feel more hungry. There only regulating feeling we get is guilt.

> Put another way, the bag of chips at the American grocery is _designed from concept to factory_ to be unable to support living beings.

This is a weird leap. Yes, there is some degree of modern engineering in packaged food to prevent spoilage but "unable to support living beings" is the wrong conclusion. You're implying the food lacks nutritive value, which is not true.

That is because Americans shop every 2 weeks so things need to last 2 weeks.

In other countries that shops more frequently there is less need for that, and there these products has much fewer additives.

>At least in the US where the problem is much worse than in the EU, I would say the major driving factor is the lack of cheap healthy foods.

And portion sizes! There a several factors that lead to such large portions. Americans expect (and now desire, thanks to the ever expanding gut lines) to be stuffed from an ordered meal so producers spend the extra $1 on food costs to ensure larger portions and fewer complaints. We'd complain is the the $9 burger was made into 1/3 sized $3 burgers. Additionally the fixed costs of running a food joint require to low cost and high margin items (like fountain soda) to survive.

Portion size isn't an issue if you make your own food like most of the world does. But that is just yet another reason why Americans are fat I guess, its easier to get fat when you don't cook the food you eat.

But if you go to the grocery store, enough beans and vegetables to last multiple meals will run you $5...

Watch other people shop at the grocery store. They buy the vegetables, beans, raw meats, and dairy. They spend more time there than anywhere else on the store.

Watch what other people eat in their day. How many of their calories came from meals created with only the above ingredients? 25%?

I’m thin but I agree with you, I don’t have to think or try to be this way, I just am. I do probably have healthier habits than average. But still, it comes naturally to me. I would feel awful and exhausted if it took willpower all the time just to maintain my weight.

A real mystery indeed ... Or ... we are slowing moving towards some crescendo where all this enshittification is intertwined: cheap packaging, maliciously deceptive marketing, marketing EVERYWHERE, garbage food, exploited workers, etc. The "rant" about corporations are ruining everything is just real life now more than ever. Finding healthy food is difficult and getting more expensive. In general finding quality anything is getting more difficult and more expensive. All while we are bludgeoned with advertising that tells us the opposite.

The idea that one person could fight this battle day in and day out on their own if they just try harder seems comical at best. Feels like victim blaming to be honest and I hate it. Make healthy food easy to find, identify and buy and tax trash food because it is a burden on the community, just like actual pollution/cigarettes/etc.

The premise of western civilization is that most of us are unfit idiots and natural slaves and we must fight to get out of our miserable subaltern state.

> The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we are not the problem

The "obesity pandemic" is a very distinct trait of USA. The rest of the world does not have this problem at this magnitude.

Most of the rest of the world is where the US was 20-30 years ago when the US certainly had an “obesity pandemic”.

There are 127 countries with an obesity rate higher than 20% (roughly what the US was at 30 years ago).

In nearly every country in the world, your ancestors from 30 years ago would call you fat.

The US is just ahead of the curve for some reason.

Depending on the coutnry, this is somewhat overstated.

For example, here in Europe it's rather clear just by eye (but also borne out in the data) that the increase in obesity here is actually just an increase in age.

Older people (up to a point) tend to be plumper than young people. The rapidly increasing average age in Europe then causes an average increase in obesity.

There’s something to that. Obesity rates do peak in middle age (but they drop after that).

But obesity rates don’t correlate well with average country age, and if you look at childhood obesity rates in Europe they have increased dramatically.

Most European countries have childhood obesity rates close to the US childhood obesity rates in the early 90, many are much higher.

The US has also increased in average age quite a bit as well.

The rest of the developed world is catching up.

While the US is one of the most severe cases (and in particular has a large number of _very_ obese people, making it more _visible_), most of the world does have an obesity problem.

The answer, I believe, is that we are unique among all other creatures in that we are not equipped to be able to master our own actions. We all do things we would say we ought not to have done. The whole concept of fairness is built around the fact that people don’t always do what they should.

And just because everybody isn’t fat doesn’t mean they don’t struggle with porn, or substance abuse, or some other hangup they can’t seem to shake. In fact it’s the people who deny having any issues that are sometimes the least self-aware, having the most glaringly obvious issues to everyone else around them.

Do or do not, there is no try.

When you frame the issue as a matter of willpower or trying harder then you're already setting yourself up to fail. Everyone that I know who has succeeded in maintaining a healthy body composition has done so through permanent lifestyle changes in which they set up better defaults and positive habits. The daily exercise program then becomes something that they have to do whether they want to or not, rather that something that they can really choose. And some of these people literally used to be obese alcoholics, so it's totally possible. Discipline has to be progressively built up over time through exercising it, just like a muscle.

I think sticking with is is still hard. You can commit to doing hard things and still fail - aka "trying hard".

The longer you stick with it, the easier it becomes. It's just a matter of habits and discipline, not trying hard.

I think that's a simplistic take, or at least not a universal thing. For many (most?) people it simply doesn't work like that.

Plenty of reasonable, disciplined people do all the reasonable things to develop new habits and fail.

> How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation?

IMO: because we have always had nowhere near enough food. Agriculture revolution was what, 10,000 years ago? That's a blip.

It's entirely possible in my mind that the same mechanism and behaviors that fuel obesity were actually helpful for almost all of human history. It's just now, like right now, that they're a problem.

And it becomes even more obvious to me when I look at other animals. I look at my cute dog. If I gave him infinite access to food, I have no doubt he'd be dead by the end of the week. Is he stupid? Is he broken? Or was he never intended to be in that situation?

> IMO: because we have always had nowhere near enough food. Agriculture revolution was what, 10,000 years ago? That's a blip.

I think its the opposite, agricultural is much more reliable food so then population could grow until everyone barely starved. Before then people either had more food than they could use or they just died from starvation, people generally lived better lives before agriculture but there were much less people.

The reason we grow fat is because its good to be fat when you are a hunter gatherer, since there is more food than you can possible eat when you kill a large animal you just eat as much as you can, and then you survive better if you don't find another kill for a while.

Agriculture only started to produce enough food for everyone when we human stopped multiplying, before then starvation was only a few generations away as people would multiply exponentially until there isn't enough food again.

There is a blame industry and an excuses industry in an arms race with each other.

> Certainly so many people can't be too weak to regulate one of the most basic facets of existence?

Why not? We're all weak, in one way or another.

> How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation?

There never was enough calories to go around. Getting as much as you can and storing them for later as fat used to make sense until very, very recently.