this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
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I'm always baffled by the lack of curiosity around this subject. It's just blame the victim for being obese. Just eat less, bro! and then defend that viewpoint to the death. There never seems to be a point where the question comes up "I wonder why only in the last 30 years or so that the western world has seen this dramatic increase in obesity?" Can't be large food corporations making cheap unhealthy foods highly addictive. Can't be a significant reduction in nutrition education. Can't be a reduction in access to mental healthcare.
Nope. Just fatty goin' to be fat. Such a fucking lazy take.
Part of it is that we have more leisure time, and even much of our working time is sitting around. You don't gain weight working 70 hours a week mining coal. Personally I spend a lot of my time eating, because donuts are awesome.
There’s actually a phenomenon where Americans move abroad, and suddenly start losing a ton of weight. Not because they consciously changed their eating habits, but simply because the food that is available in their stores and restaurants is healthier.
American grocery stores tend to prioritize convenience and unhealthy foods. You have to really search to find anything that is worthwhile, even when the store is packed full of food. There’s a ton of variety in American grocery stores, (Europeans are always baffled by the entire aisle dedicated to breakfast cereals) but basically none of it is healthy. So Americans naturally end up buying lots of unhealthy shit, simply because it’s all they realistically have access to.
But then that gets flipped on its head when those Americans move abroad. Suddenly, the stores they’re shopping at aren’t full of junk. And so they naturally start losing lots of weight. Many Europeans assume that Americans are simply complacent with their weight, but the reality is that the entire infrastructure surrounding them is singularly focused on keeping them fat.
walking and biking for evertday errands make a big impact too.
I actually made a comment addressing the car-centric layouts (and how it is basically impossible to walk anywhere in many parts of America) elsewhere in the thread here.
That can be a serious challenge for large parts of the USA. Growing up, the nearest grocery store to my father's house was nearly three miles, up a narrow and busy highway. Biking was possible, but definitely a little harrowing. Walking was prohibitively time-consuming. And that's in a relatively dense New England town. I've lived places out west where it was over an hour to drive to the store.
To me New England has no excuse. Where I live, measured directly, my fav grocer is .6miles from my house. Tell me why I have to take the higgway, jist for one exit, to get there. Walmart and Aldi are basically across the street, and yet, it is not walkable. the road you must cross is 5 lanes and 45mph which is exceeded as if the road is a highway.
If Mcdonalds can tear down, AND rebuild their stupid store in 6mos for no other reason to make it a grey box, I think our local civic engineers can do better.
Maybe out west will be hard, but New England literally has no excuse. The attempts at bike lanes ive seen in CT are fucking laughable. Its like they are trying to make it so people dont use them.
All the people with money have cars because its so impossible there to live without them. They also see themselves as paying all the taxes. Their cars are sunk costs of tens of thousands of dollars. They see improving infrastructure as taking their money to help other lazier shittier people. The only way it looks attractive is if it can be taking federal dollars to line the pockets of a minority of rich people and "create jobs" by which they mean pay 1 dollar to the company so a penny can filter into the hands of the peons accidentally.
I'd be curious if there might also be a cultural aspect at play.
Apparently in America, their portions tend to be quite large, since the expectation is to get as much for your money as possible. Anything you can't stomach can then be taken home to finish another day.
Whereas many other places don't tend to do that. Food served in the restaurant is to be eaten there, and wanting a take-away container to take your meal home means paying extra for the container.
Yes, also walking to the store, walking to work. I don't use my car much - arranged my life so that I can get everywhere I need to, mostly, without driving but that is unusual as fuck where I live, everyone else in my office arrives by car. I am not usually the only bike in the rack at the grocery but maybe 3, 4 bikes and a hundred cars in the lot. No bike rack at my doctors' offices, nor dentist, nor aesthetician. None at restaurants.
Walking a lot or even biking on e-bike everywhere like I do, makes a difference in what you can eat without getting fat. But also I cook at home, from ingredients, do make sweet stuff for the kids & husband but don't like it much myself. Grow some of our food, and lunch biggest meal.
I don't think it's impossible here, to have a reasonable lifestyle, I do it and am not an unusual person, not super rich or super ambitious or determined. I do think it's more difficult and you have to be intentional AND either be lucky (city grew up around me) or flush with money, to create a life that is the "fifteen minute bubble" with everything nearby.
So did I; unfortunately that means not having to leave my house. So I offset that with self-mandated walks and runs.
I actually made a comment about walking elsewhere in the thread, just a few minutes ago.
I saw that recently in a video about food in Japan. Japanese people going to Western countries and gaining like 25 pounds in a couple of months, then returning to Japan and shedding it within weeks.
Sugar content, portion size, nutrition vs empty calories and other factors...
Everything you mentioned, PLUS:
The list goes on.
The single most important thing everyone can do is take a walk. I make sure I do this rain or shine, even if it's down the block and back.
GLP-1 and other "weight lost methods" gain popularity in the US due to our population's proclivity of saying "I want x, but I don't want to change anything about me." In other words, "I want to lose weight but don't want to change my lifestyle."
Study after study has shown that slow, gradual, and intentional weight loss is healthier and will last longer than any fad, drug, or food plan.
Not only will your body naturally learn what it means to eat and be healthy, you'll actually feel better too.
One criticism of this analysis (which I think is mostly spot on) those GLP drugs help people change their lifestyle by turning off the 'food noise'. They don't, by themselves, make anyone lose weight. They help people who overeat be not hungry all the time so that they can eat better and work out more - it's the eating better and working out more that is causing the weight loss.
Just eat less? Golly, why didn't I think of that? So simple!
Also if you have basically an addiction to food, this is like telling a drug addict "just use less heroin!" And the survival rate of withdrawals from stopping cold turkey with food is approximately 0%. So you will be managing that addiction for your entire life.
Without a doubt.
Addicted to alcohol? Stop drinking. You can't control an addiction so you have to completely stop.
Addicted to cigarettes? Stop smoking. You can't control an addiction so you have to completely stop.
Addicted to crack? Stop smoking crack. You can't control an addiction so you have to completely stop.
Addicted to food? Must be your fault for being weak-willed. Just don't consume so much of that thing that you're addicted to. You can control your addiction. Just stop being a loser...
The literal solution to every addiction is stop it, cold turkey. One Day At A Time. But you can't stop eating food.
Except you are ignoring the concept of tapering.
If you cold turkey alcohol or benzos you will have seizures and do permanent damage to your body. You're supposed to be weaned off.
In a similar way, you can wean yourself off of excess calories by reducing portion size.
Obviously the end result isn't a complete stop but it could be a complete cessation of certain foods. Just like how heroin addicts are given suboxone/methadone for their cravings.
Except with alcohol and benzos you don't have to consume a perfect, healthy portion of alcohol and benzos for the rest of your life to stay alive.
You're missing the point. No one would suggest to an alcoholic that they just get better at consuming the right portion size of alcohol, because that's not how addiction works.
As tmyakal said echoed, and I said originally, the better comparison is suboxone/methadone, its about weaning off the harmful food into healthier ones with medical help.
I wasn't trying to snark, and I understood the point, I was primarily trying to point out how harmful it is to 'stop cold turkey' with drugs, and how the relationship with addiction is still similar.
You can wean off of Xanax onto Valium and then reduce dose/dosing frequency until cessation.
You can wean off Heroin onto suboxone/methadone in the same way.
You can wean down from 20mg nicotine to 12, 6 and 3, before switching consumption methods and then finally quitting.
In the same way you can wean down from mcdonalds and taco bell, to home made meals with controlled portions, you can try foods that have high volume. You can stop drinking your calories and consuming sugar. Over time those meals that make you fat will become disgusting and your habit and addiction will falter.
Obviously you can't stop eating completely, and just like alcohol addiction the triggers are ever present in society. But the idea that you can't approach it in the same way is faulty.
And once weaned off of whatever the addict is addicted to, then what?
Is it OK for a crack addict to have a reasonable portion of crack? Or an alcoholic to have a reasonable portion pf alcohol? Or an ex-smoker to have a reasonable number of cigarettes?
No it's not OK. No one would ever suggest that. And if you think that a food addict is only addicted to sodas and Ruffles, you're mistaken and have never seen me at a sushi bar.
I mean, methadone is a portion-controlled opioid used to treat heroin addiction. It's traditionally meant to be weaned off of, but there are plenty of people that use it their whole life.
It's the equivalent of sitting down with a dietician, making a meal plan, and holding yourself accountable to it. Addiction only ends when the user is willing to commit to the action.
To come full circle, that's what GLP-1 drugs are. A medical intervention for an addiction. Same as methadone. It's not a coincidence that GLP-1 drugs also curb cravings for other addictive behaviors.
And that's why the snark of the "Did you know you can just eat less to lose weight?" falls flat, because it's completely uninformed.
Can't forget metabolic disorders too. I'm a T2 diabetic. Well controlled, to the point I've had a few doctors literally not believe I was diabetic (at the time my A1c was like 5.1, a decade later it's generally between 5.5 and 6). I'm pretty strict with my diet. I occasionally will fall into snacking, but when that happens, I literally just stop buying snacks altogether to prevent it.
I eat the same meals often, and roughly track my calories. I do intense workouts weekly, and roughly tracking via my fitness watch indicates that I'm burning around 800kcals per HIIT cardio workout 2-3x per week most weeks, plus my other sessions with weight training. I'm taking in probably 1800 calories give or take most days, and burning off over an entire extra day and a half worth of calories weekly. But I'm still struggling to lose weight. Even at what should be a high caloric deficit where I'm feeling regularly straight up ravenous, it took me a year to lose around 15 lbs, and my weight still flip flops up and down weekly, even though the overall trend is downward.
I'm a big believer in fitness, in the idea of calories in -> calories out, and managing my TDEE. But it's just downright harder for some folks, and I'm apparently one of them.
Well at least part of the "addictive" part of food addiction is sugar, and that you can absolutely ditch.
It's possible to cut out sugar, yes. But also keep in mind sugar is literally everywhere and the cheapest easiest food substance to access. It's on every menu, it's at the check out counter of every store, it's offered for free by coworkers bringing in treats or birthday cakes, offered in bowls at the exit from some restaurants or other businesses, it's thrown out at parades, etc. It's possible to avoid eating sugar, but avoiding temptation is basically impossible of you have a habit of leaving your home to work or shop. If you are addicted to sugar, it's a constant struggle.
It's like wine in france.
But you can do it OP!
Do you mean added sugar? Because cutting out fruit and veg from your diet is pretty unhealthy.
You can ditch any veg that's filled with sugar (corn, and a few others).
An apple has fructose in it which is absorbed slower so if you don't abuse it you'd be fine.
I'm mostly talking about refined sugar, if you are already living off fruits and vegetables I think you're fine.
I've noticed first hand the impact of environmental factors.
I moved from a place where I needed the car for EVERYTHING. This include taking off the garbage. Even going for a walk wasn't possible without taking the car first.
Most of the food I was eating was imported (mainly from the US). I was able to find few local fruits and vegetable but choices are quite limited and the supply erratic.
Then I moved back to France, I now live in a small village where everything is available at a walking or biking distance. School, work, small grocery shop, bakery, doctor, pharmacy, coworking space, kids activity. I'm might be using the car once a week now.
There is plenty of farmers in the area with local produces and even supermarkets have a wide selection of decent fruits and vegetables but I prefer the local producers as I can.
I stopped working out, I have not purposely changed my eating habits but without any surprise I am in a much, much better physical shape now.
This is something that can be difficult to convey to non-Americans. The go-to assumption is that Americans are just lazy and dislike walking. At my last apartment, it was literally illegal (and wildly dangerous) for me to realistically walk to my local grocery store. I had to cross a major highway to get there, and there were no sidewalks or crosswalks nearby.
If I wanted to drive to the store, it was a quarter mile. Half a mile for the round trip. Basically just across the highway. Go down to the end of my street, cross the highway, and arrive at the store. Easy.
If I wanted to legally walk to the grocery store, it would be a 16.5 mile round trip. Because the nearest pedestrian highway crossing was ~4 miles away. I’d have to go all the way down to that crossing, make the cross, then march all the way back to reach the store. And that also assumes that I’m going to be able to legally make it to the crossing… There were several sections between my apartment and the crossing that had no sidewalks, so I’d have to walk in the road for at least a mile in each direction. Here is a quick and dirty diagram to illustrate what I mean:
That’s ~8 and a quarter miles in one direction, not to mention the fact that I’d then have to take the same route back, with my arms full of grocery bags. Oh, and there is no public transit along this route. Literally zero bus or train routes. Yeah, it’s no fucking wonder that I choose to drive instead.
4 miles between pedestrian crossings should be illegal. Here, though it's for sure a car city, the small roads that go under the stupid highway that bisects the city are about 1/2 mile apart. And where there is no sidewalk, on smaller roads, legal to walk in road, off to the side, facing traffic.
Not everyone even has a car. Or license.
"pEOple WeRe jUsT mORe ActiVe iN thE PasT"
I call bullshit. Like sure, in the early 1900's and before, people were more active. But in the 60's, 70's, and 80's? We had cars. People still used them a lot instead of walking. People still chose to sit and watch TV, or read, or listen to music. People still worked in offices and spent the majority of their day sitting. The average number of steps between a person back then and today is really not that different. Maybe a bit higher, but no where even fucking close to explaining the obesity epidemic.
Claims that the extreme increase in obesity is simply due to increased sedentary lifestyle just fucking reeks of lobbied attempts to shift the blame from the real problem.
It's the food, stupid. High-volume processed bullshit with low-cost additives and filler ingredients SWARMED the shelves and replaced nearly every good product with unhealthy convenience with a longer shelf-life. Our portion sizes didn't even change that much, it's just the quality of what we're eating has dropped tremendously.
You can't even fully escape it by trying to only buy fresh food. Modern fruits and vegetables have been bred to be full of sugars and starches. Raw chicken is pumped full of salt and preservatives, sometimes making up more than 30% of its weight.
They are poisoning people and then blaming them for the consequences.
I am going to take this opportunity to shit on car culture. Walking several miles a week because I live in a walkable city is pleasant, and almost certainly good for my health and weight.
I don't have objections to the rest of your post. I just hate car culture.
Oh totally agree with car culture. Walkable cities are fantastic. But again, it's not like cities were more walkable in the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Hell, if anything, cities have become MORE walkable in recent decades than they were back then.
I've always been baffled by how people keep their weight off so easily. I live in a walkable city, love walking, walk everywhere as my primary means of transport, and frequently take 3-5km leisure walks multiple times a week. Yet I only ever seem to gain weight, it's beyond maddening. My meals are nothing outrageous either
Of course, my weight is the first thing my doctor points out every time like I'm not keenly aware of how much my body hates me...
Are you healthy? I am thin but not as much as I'd like (mental issue) and always have to remind myself that the result of a healthy lifestyle is a healthy body. Not one that necessarily looks like your ideal form. I can walk & dance, stand on my hands & cartwheel, eat healthy, exercise and work on athletic goals not size goals.
If you are happy with your lifestyle and feel like you are nourishing your body and exercising it, weight lands in different places for different people (or as I found, different for same person at different ages.) But you feel good? That seems like a good result.
If you don't feel good, that is when I would push the doctor for more tests to figure out what the heck is going on.
I'm a performer! I do yoga every night and am generally active. No major health issues, just unhappy I can't fit into old clothes and tired of my doctor bringing it up often
What's funny is that there are fantastic performers who are much, much larger than me, which further shows the disconnect between effort and result
Changing the framing can help from weight loss to health improvement.
You may always be overweight by health standards (BMI) but if your blood work is good, you're happy with how you are able to do the activities you like, you feel/are strong, you eat quality foods, and are mostly a happy person then I would say that you're successful.
If you're interested in what worked for me
Calorie counting is a good step. I'm not skinny because I have an active lifestyle, I'm skinny because I force myself to listen to my body in how much I put into it and when I give it more it's because it's telling me it's doing something good with it.Calorie counting helps you understand how much you're actually eating. After a week or two of it you can look up what your maintenance calories should be and create a general plan for how to get that much food in a day. The goal there is to learn what a healthy maintenance portion is and to get your body comfortable with it. Breaking a large meal into smaller plate sizes and only getting more after 10 minutes if you're still hungry is a great trick too.
Once you're no longer hungry all the time on maintenance you can start doing a cut (start with 500 deficit, don't exceed 1000). Have a goal weight and once you hit it maintain your controlled maintenance calories until it's instinctive.
Also, building muscle and more cardiovascular exercise are great additions to walking. Muscle burns more resting calories and is denser than fat, a good goal weight can look very different depending on how much muscle you carry.
I did try calorie counting and frequenting a gym when I was in college. I barely lost any weight and ended up more miserable because of the regimen, so I stopped. I really don't think it's a hunger thing either, I have ADHD and frequently skip meals unintentionally
I really don't know why my body just isn't receptive to anything and my bloodwork doesn't shine any lights
Yeah when I did my big loss it really sucked for like a month or two until my brain adjusted to the fact that I wasn't going to give it what it wanted. I'll also admit my big loss was not at a time where my mental state or material conditions were great, so it may have been more obsessive than most people are willing to engage in. And thats key here, the goal in life is to be happy and good, I'm happier skinnier and with an active lifestyle I have no judgment for those who find this process misery inducing and choose not to lose weight or look for alternative means of doing so.
You have adhd you mentioned, so do I. So firstly, actually getting my adhd properly treated is vital, I can't maintain good eating habits when unmedicated because I lack structure and willpower.
But also, do you eat out of boredom? And have you tried making food in your home inconvenient to snack on. I have to do that sometimes, especially making food that's easy to snack on out of the way. I've also found starting with a seltzer or gum helpful between meals. Aside from stuff like that, putting half what you expect to eat for your meal on your plate then waiting a bit after finishing before deciding if you want the other half is something else I've found helpful.
I'll try the half plate tip, thanks :) Seltzer is the main thing my partner and I drink. We have a sodastream we use heavily (no syrups)
Good luck!
As someone whose body doesn’t make enough dopamine, food is one of the few things that gives me the hit I need to keep going consistently. There’s enough variety that in my almost forty years on this earth I haven’t found an end to what I enjoy.
So yes, I’m fat and I eat too much, but for me it’s better than being miserable.
What serious person says it's just fatty being fat?
They can be found in the "never had any issues with weight control/I'm always forgetting to eat/I ate a small bag of chips so I'm not hungry" crowd
I mean to be fair there's also other reasons to forget to eat (AuDHD gang here, haha)
(we DO get hungry though, and then just... still don't eat. executive dysfunction is a fuck)
-- Frost