Oddbean new post about login | logout When I’m out in public watching humans in the wild, I find myself consistently looking at certain folks and asking this question.👇 How is it even possible to get that fat?🤔 Like when ur 44 years old, can literally barely move around, and struggle breathing…what the fuck happened? Isn’t there a point of fatness where people stop, realize it’s ruining their life, and make it a huge focus to be have some self respect and be less fat? Realize there are legit exceptions like mental illness, depression, hypothyroid, Cushing’s etc., but HEAVILY obese homo sapiens are ALL OVER in increasing numbers. It’s really hard to wrap one’s head around.
Yep, i want to believe it's something else, but a trip to grocery store shows what their carts are loaded up with... processed foods of all kinds.
I think about this all the time, too. Controversial to say, I know, but I definitely think we’ve made accountability on the obesity and general health front a taboo idea and have culturally defaulted to pretty much every explanation other than personal accountability. Of course, as you say, definitely some exceptions. But this problem is too ubiquitous to be credibly explained by the exceptions.
I used to be fat. I lost a lot of weight and maintained it for over a decade now. I had to ignore all the mainstream advice to do it. The food & "health" industries have no motivation to help you actually become healthier, so they actively work against that happening.
Getting fat is a bit of a trap, both hormonally & physically. Can you imagine trying to move with an extra 100lb skin attached to you? Once you stop moving you're dead in your mobility scooter, it's only a matter of time. It's much easier to avoid getting fat than it is to get unfat. Some eat the most horrendous shit - they've given up. Others eat what they've been told to eat (salads, fibre & lean meat) - they don't know how to eat. It's pretty simple when you know, but that knowledge goes against everything the health authority says. It's a fiat condition.
Children are taught to trust authority from an early age through a captured education system, which teaches them absolute horseshit from supposed experts. I grew up believing the food pyramid was correct, look what that’s devolved into 30 years later nostr:note13ynuxqxsu4gca37t35rceakzcqm7fvw7ump32c09p0ru0rf5r3kqrwfm7c
It gets me when you arrive at the nursing home for the bed bound 500+ who per the chart has gained 75+ since arriving three months ago. They are not sneaking into the kitchen for midnight snacks. If they can walk you can’t stop them. But if they are bed bound, someone is enabling them.
Obligatory "it's the seed oils" comment
Food guide pyramid generation fallout. “Just eat 6 to 11 servings of bread or cereal!” Protein? What’s that?
Fiat food
addiction think: cocaine, crystal meth it's really no different it looks like food, but it's not. it's an artificial substance engineered to addict fueled by billions or trillions of dollars of food engineering, marketing, governmental and medical industry corruption we don't stand a chance; once one steps into that whirlpool or quicksand, due to one or two bad choices at a particularly vulnerable time in one's life, it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself a few of us have been lucky to have avoided, or escaped, that addiction
It’s the physical manifestation of hopelessness.
Incentives are everything. We live in a society that pushes “quick fixes” and pills over lifestyle change. We push the artificial over the natural. We now have the hubris to celebrate poor health management and disease, like obesity, as if the people who have made that progression should be accommodated or are “heroes.” When the incentives make it easy, or even advantageous, to make poor choices — many in society will choose the path of least resistance. It’s definitely the darker side of human nature, but sadly, the fiat system has found a way to tap into that.
People are led to believe that their genetics are to blame instead of what they're eating. Doctors are more willing to suggest a pill rather than promoting people to change their lifestyles. The fact that most men and women are working 40+ hours a week, no one has time to cook meals at home and will stop and get fast food at the end of the day. It doesn't help that all restaurants use seed oils to cook with, which are probably the worst thing a human can consume. Also, the government has everyone thinking that red meat and eggs are bad for us when in fact they are the most nutritious food we can consume. Veggies and whole grains are pushed on people by doctors and the end result is higher blood pressure, more weight gain, and lack of important vitamins and minerals. I know at my work people are more likely to grab a pack of chips for lunch and keep working, rather than sit down and eat something with some protein in it
For the 10th time rewriting this reply: I have been really struggling to understand this phenomenon. I now, think I could make an argument for psychological awareness and responsibility. This is possibly one of the most scarce combination of resources in existence. I will make the case from experience struggling with my weight since I was about 7 years old. I would agree with most in this thread that it's an addiction, but one that can NEVER go away completely. Survival requires eating, but does not require drugs/alcohol. I say this from experience being around all kinds of addicts, friends/family, the symptoms are nearly identical. Some of these people had heart attacks, liver failures, kidney failures and still refuse to change their lifestyles. The just get their surgery, take their prescribed pills for the rest of their life and keep going. I would argue it's shares social-cultural attributes most closely to casual alcoholism(if that's even a thing), but with more acceptance. Example: It's easy to tell people I'm sober, it's a a lot more difficult to tell people I'm "ex-fat" and get the same support. You could throw a stone in just about any direction and hit a possible cause. So want to stay in my lane.