this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
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Yes, let's blame it on moral failure rather than the destruction of walkable spaces, endangering as many outdoor spaces as possible with 3-ton emotional support vehicles, portion sizes at restaurants and grocery stores that are double of other countries because going anywhere requires committing to driving 15mins both ways and parking, and having fuck all for a health care system.
Don't forget putting sugar/HFCS into everything (in Hungary, we call them cookies), and the toxic gymbro culture of "everything or nothing" mentality when it comes to sports/workout.
Don't forget about the actual ingredients in the food, no matter what the portion size is. There's a reason that 1 year old McDonalds cheeseburger looks just the same as it did, fresh under the heat lamp.
Or we could blame it on a food industry that soaked up all the researchers and marketers who got unemployed when we cracked down on cigarette advertising
I'm dealing with all those things and I still maintain a healthy weight.
Congratulations, me too. Systemic problems don't affect every individual in the system in the same way.
But they do affect a lot of individuals in the same way. Those individuals can manage to maintain a healthy weight with a little planning and effort. Simply following CICO is enough for most people. I wouldn't say being overweight is really a moral failing but it does typically show that someone who otherwise doesn't have health problems is not making an effort to stay healthy. Most of my social circle falls into this category.
Physics tells us that CICO predicts weight gain and heaps of empirical data tells us it's one of many relevant factors.
Most people don't really control their weight by counting calories. They go by how they feel and our feelings,are heavily influenced by our biochemistry. Semaglutide doesn't work by giving people will power or self control; it works by targeting GLP-1 receptors to make them feel full sooner.
Sounds like not a very good approach then. I'll stick to the physics, thanks.
That approach always fails in the long run. Yes, you can lose weight by just counting calories. But you are fighting your body every step of the way. And even after you reach your target weight, your body will constantly be trying to return to the overweight state. In the end, your will will almost certainly fail. Are you prepared to religiously count calories, be constantly tired, and miserable for the rest of your life? Then sure, you can rely on physics alone to keep your weight down.
But that is not how human beings were meant to live. We're meant to simply eat until we're full. What we're talking about is a massive public health problem. And public health problem is not obesity. The public health problem is that the "full meters" of hundreds of millions of people have been irrevocably damaged by modern processed foods. Your set point, your full meter, your satiation reflex, whatever you want to call it. This is as a part of your body as any other organ or gland. When someone breaks their arm, we don't demonize them for having a broken arm. When someone has a broken full meter however, we decry it as a moral failing.
It seems to me you are mostly right but not all the way right. People eat until they are full and also many, many people have a broken sense of satiety. Of course part of the blame lies with foods designed to incentivize people to overeat.
However.
The average person is in my opinion inexcusably ignorant of what foods (s)he SHOULD be eating. This education topic is my wife's job, but the amount of people who can't tell you what a carb is, or as adults don't eat "green" foods, or a million other things is astounding. There's an education crisis on this front.
There are remedies to the problem of satiety (though surgical) but I suspect habit also plays a large role. You don't need to count calories your whole life to get the hang of portion size. Not everyone has the executive function to stick to it, but that's the next point.
We don't demonize people with broken arms, that is true. BUT people with broken arms seek treatment, and also they heal in less than a year no matter what. It's disingenuous to make being overweight for your whole entire life the fault of the rest of the world. There are absolutely contributing factors, but there is also only ONE person who is accountable. I'm not saying weight should be demonized or persecuted, but "it would be hard to lose weight" is a pretty dumb reason to increase your all cause mortality without at least trying a lifestyle change.
This last bullet point is why I'm suggesting the physics approach. It is irrefutable. If you put more in your body than you use, you will gain weight. If you put in less you will lose weight. There is literally NO WAY this doesn't work. It may not be pleasant or infinitely maintainable for everyone, but it's true.
Yeah, and that's why they're overweight and that's why I said it takes planning and effort. Wanting to feel "full" is a big part of the problem. The easy food options are too calorie dense for that.
Get off your high horse, buddy.
Weight is a pretty poor predictor of planning and effort.
The overwhelming evidence is that for some people it takes far more work to maintain a healthy weight than it does for others.
AKA planning and effort
That's a lot of words to say you don't understand the mental healthcare crisis in this country.
I guarantee you don't know shit about anyone's health in your social circle because you think of yourself so highly that you can diagnose others just by how they 'look'.
'Simply follow CICO' is another way of saying 'I don't understand how metabolic and hormonal disorders work, I am privileged with access to healthy food and don't live in a food desert, I don't work multiple jobs and feed a family of 4, I don't know what it's like to lack the biochemistry to ever feel full after eating a meal, I don't struggle with eating disorders.
Obesity is a health problem. Saying that 'someone who otherwise doesn't have health problems is not making an effort to stay healthy' is as stupid as saying depressed people who don't have health problems aren't making an effort to stay happy.
'Not making an effort' from you says more about how easy and privileged you have it than how lazy other people are. Grow up and learn to have more empathy than a 3 year old.
I don't base it off how they look. I base it off their actions. I see them going out and getting 1000 calorie fast food combo meals for lunch every day and then talking about their Uber order on discord later that night. Eating an entire pizza and then getting an entree when we go out to the bar. Shit like that.
I don't eat healthy food. I eat mostly fast food and boxed crap from costco my housemates make and I rarely feel full after eating a meal. Feeling full is not the goal when I eat, If you're eating calorie dense stuff you have to get used to not being full. Your stomach also gets smaller over time if you do this so it takes less to feel "full" when you do.
Yes, CICO works, since energy is a conserved quantity. That much is very true. What isn't true at all is that CICO is simple.
It takes time and energy to figure out how many calories you're ingesting. And that's the simple part. Knowing how many calories you're actually absorbing and how many you're actually burning takes professional help. And finally, those things are highly volatile and change a lot throughout your life, depending on a plethora of factors.
Many people don't have the resources to access that stuff, starting with enough free time.
You don't need a professional. You don't have to have it down to an exact science. There are calculators online that will get you in the ballpark and from there you just keep track of if it's working or not and adjust your intake according to your goals.
For example, on paper I'm supposed to be consuming about 1600 calories a day to maintain but I've found that if I actually do that I gain weight. The real number is around 13-1400. Which can be quite challenging with the food options that I have but I do it. If I keep it under 1200 I lose weight until I get down to about 13-14% body fat (according to the scale I have which admittedly is probably not 100% accurate) and it levels off. I don't go below that because I start feeling like shit all the time. This is all while living off mostly fast food and the boxed crap from costco that my housemates prepare.
Your personal experience does not make universal truth. Many people have highly fluctuating hormones and digestion. It's great that it works for you, but it won't work for everyone. There's a myriad of invisible diseases that can affect this. And that's not even counting that some people don't have the resources to even think of anything outside work, eat whatever is accessible, sleep, repeat.
Even if personal experience was universal: based on MY experience, nobody should be able to figure out how much to eat, even with professional help.
I desperately wanted to gain weight for over a decade. I started counting calories. The amount I was supposed to be consuming to safely gain would make me gain a few kilos over a few months and then, keeping the same amount since I wasn't at my goal yet, would make me lose them again. The rates of gaining and losing would vary wildly, too. After reaching my goal and eating for what was supposed to be maintenance, I suddenly lost 5 kg in less than a month. And I'm seeing a specialist for hormone tests once a month. Imagine how bad it would be if I couldn't.
Perhaps I should have said a professional is not always necessary. If your biology falls within the normal range then you can figure this stuff out on your own. If you have something going on that makes your body not work the same way as most then yes you may need to consult a professional.
The primary difference between skinny people and fat people is that fat people are simply hungrier. People have different set points that their bodies try desperately to stay at. And this set point is largely affected by the diet you experience in early childhood, and it's set for life.
Yes, obviously it is possible for a person with a fat set point to lower their weight through constant grinding effort and calorie counting. But that's not how human beings are supposed to have to live. Most skinny people don't have to count calories, they simply rely on their natural hunger levels to maintain their weight.
If a skinny person tries to eat past their set point, their body will actually fight them. If you try to eat past your set point, your body will force you to burn off calories in all sorts of ways. Your energy levels will soar, so you spend more time active. You'll experience insomnia, so you spend more time active and burning more calories.
If a fat person tries to lose weight just by counting calories, their body constantly fights them over it. Their energy levels decline so they'll burn less calories. They'll get tired earlier and find themselves sleeping for 10 hours as their body forces them to preserve calories.
Weight is not a moral issue. It is a simple health issue. Our modern food systems create unnatural foods that fuck up people's internal set points. Instead of your body trying to get you to maintain a healthy weight, it tries to maintain an unhealthy weight.
We see now through the invention of drugs like Ozempic that the whole idea of calorie counting and brute force willpower to maintain weight is a Medieval and barbaric approach to the problem. We've taken a medical problem and turned it into a moral failing. It's no different than how people used to ostracize, demonize, and banish those who caught leprosy.
We're supposed to be living in caves and gathering roots and berries. That ship sailed a long time ago and we have to deal with the reality of how we are living.
I've never experienced this. I can eat a ton if I choose to do so. The only thing "fighting" me is the capacity of my stomach. I don't get more energy or insomnia either. If anything I feel shitty afterwards.
Never said it was.
Of course drugs can help, but drugs require access to healthcare, which we've established is something not everyone has available to them. I am simply saying that for a lot of people being mindful of your diet works. Yes, it does suck sometimes not being able to eat all the things you want but in the long run you're going to be a lot better off by not dealing with the added health impact of obesity and all the problems that come with it. If someone has a health condition that prevents them from losing weight on a healthy diet I feel bad for them and they should seek treatment by whatever options are available to them but it is not the norm. All these posts from people like you make it sound completely hopeless when it's not. I'm not demonizing people who have problems with their weight, just that if they're not working on it they could be even if they are in a shitty situation. If they don't want to that's their decision. Life sucks and we all have to deal with it in whatever way works best for ourselves.
People are, for the most part, stupid and/or* lazy.
So they've gotten fat.
"Walkable spaces!! 😭😭"
🙄
Yes, and stupid and lazy people don’t want walkable spaces. Neither, it seems, do you. Curious.
Then why haven't they gotten fat equally?
Because not every metabolism is built equally? I ate like shit and barely exercised for 10 years working as a programmer and my weight stuck at 180lb/82kg the entire time. Nowadays I get a lot more exercise and still eat like shit and weigh 170. My buddy watches his food intake properly and takes a walk every day, and he'll gain 10 pounds just by looking at a tray of cookies, bounces over and under the 200lb mark constantly.
Your individual anecdotes are irrelevant. We can see obesity started to increase worldwide in the 1950s, especially in America.
There are other causes but it was partially due to the rise of more heavily processed foods.
We can, broadly speaking, link obesity to a person's economic status, as having the time to exercise and prepare/purchase healthier foods is a luxury.
We can also link this to the ris of car dependent cities as people walked less.
Countries with more regulation against unhealthy food and more walkable infrastructure have less obesity.
Blaming obesity on laziness is just short-sided.