According to some sources, at least 1 in 8 of the world population is classified as ‘obese’. Since nobody in any government seems to have thought up a working solution, what do you believe can be done to solve the epidemic?
This is gonna be an unpopular take, but I vote for federally subsidized meth rations. I bet I’d be super productive and who needs sleep?
What needs to be done and what will be done are unfortunately never going to align as long as someone stands to get rich on it.
What needs to be done:
- Healthier food options
- Healthier work/life balance
- Education on what is healthy and unhealthy
- Encouragement to daily physical
Why this will never be done:
- Too much money to be made on “tasty” premade meals, which “tasty” and “profitable” require lots of flavor enhancers and preservatives, both very calorically imbalanced / dense and also toxic in large quantities (toxicity is how preservatives work). If you don’t flavor enhance, your competitor will for cheaper and people won’t buy your option. Also each growing industry insisting their food in solo is the healthiest when it is not. I’m pointing at you corn and grain industries.
- 40 hr 9-5 8/5 work week is only office workers. Servicemen and retail sales often work 10-12+ hours per day or have all hours on call.
- points at every part of the American education system and its exported policies other countries sometimes take up
- Point 2 is the reason a lot of people don’t exercise. There is no time to do so.
- Healthcare is expensive. When there is money to be made, it is always in healthcare. If you can’t afford a consumer product, you don’t buy it. If you can’t afford a surgery or medicine to save your life, you die. This simple fact makes it nearly impossible to have any say in how much a treatment costs.
This is not just an American problem. Other western countries have this issue as well, and I hope people in other nations see the danger and keep themselves healthy.
Start re-educating treatlerites
Stop subsidizing animal feed. I’m not opposed to eating meat but it’s easy to get too many calories per bite from it. Farm subsidies for human crops in order to keep farms stable is semi reasonable though. Local food forests (such as community maintained gardens along walking paths where people live and parks) I think are a great supplement to peoples diets and amenities for communities but aren’t replacing staples anytime soon.
Limit food advertising for any meal over 800 calories. Limit the amount of money that can be paid for food advertising per business.
Mandatory cooking classes in schools for all genders.
The rest requires more radical solutions. Unfortunately a big part of it is our socioeconomic situation. One example low worker bargaining power leading to too few meaningful after work hours. Another is the push for hyper individualism, cooking 3 meal for 7 people once a week is easier then cooking 3 meals for one person everyday forever. Few of our living arrangements are built for potluck or communal cooking though. The resteraunt experience just isn’t it either because of the strong dehumanization between staff and customer.
The other being mental health. Both in part from above but also constant comparison with imaginary people (advertisements, celebrities, and social media profiles for example). Better crisis support(I.e. not just cops and grippie socks). Community support. More access to therapy and pychiactrics (including for this topic peptides like glp-1). I am biased towards the last ones being “last resort”. Not in a “oh you’re at a breaking point and need help, let’s try talking to your friends first before we can prescribe you something” kind bs way, but more so assume we, as a society, are already doing the rest first but also have easy access to professional services.
Walkable cities would help probally both improve community potential and exercise.
Lastly, if we drastically improve work life balance, have better self esteem and community support, improve our food, we could see exercise be a lot easier to solve. Access to physical game spaces is one way to help (again IF people have time and friends). Physical involvement with the community (cooking, collecting food, cleaning up the community garden, etc) honestly would be a huge step away from sedimentary lifestyle for a lot of people.
education about food would help. nutrition courses starting from a young age (veggies=smart choice, fried cheese=bad choice) carrying right through high school (insoluble fiber=smart choice, saturated fat=bad choice) that steadily increases the depth/complexity of what is essentially the same information would help.
caloric density is the main factor in choosing healthy options, but what is equally important is giving people the free time and resources to devote to both preparing food and the act of choosing itself (planning/prepping meals, grocery shopping, logging or otherwise tracking intake). when both of a family’s adults’ work day has to include an 8.5-hour shift with 2 hours of commute/preparation time, child care, cooking, cleaning, exercise, reading a couple of books per month, and more, you have to start prioritizing. the first things to go are cooking, exercise, reading, recreation. so the more the working class gets squeezed, the more a work day starts to look like: a 10-hour shift if you’re lucky enough to qualify for overtime, eat on your commute from a fast food place, get home and feed said garbage to your children whom you are steadily poisoning now (just look into the effects of the ingredients and additives that go into a mcdonalds meal and tell me you would ever eat there again if you weren’t hopelessly addicted to those ingredients and the convenience), and then half-assing the rest of your life’s upkeep because you have no energy from being overworked, getting no exercise, and eating trash day in, day out.
the obesity epidemic is 100% a problem of modern capitalism. it stems from min-maxing your life’s profitability in terms of how you use your time and money. gym memberships are expensive and a routine requires 10 hours a week you don’t have. hiking trips and other outdoor activities take time and equipment you can’t afford. proper diet and cooking take time and money you don’t have. it self-reinforces when you no longer have energy to develop new habits and can no longer see a way out of it.
it’s gotten so bad that now people are cutting children and social interaction out of their lives because they don’t have the time, money, or energy.
instead of improving these conditions, the current US regime’s solution is to force us to submit by outlawing abortion and probably contraceptives at some point, to tie healthcare to employment status, to reduce public assistance and welfare, among other social paradigms that isolate us and disempower us.
Idk man but the root issue is people have a massive lack of discipline. With discipline and will, almost anything personal like this can be solved. I guess it’s an issue of the education system… Not sure exactly
Ah yes, just discipline and will yourself to better access to nutrition and exercise science, balanced food options, and opportunities to do physical activities.
Okay i am assuming you are well meaning so i hope you have kept an open mind and are actually interested in “solutions”. I am also well meaning but my frustration will come through in my comment. I am urging you to actually read up on the issue bc you have not .
There is no epidemic. Fat people don’t need to be eradicated, be mindful about what you put out in the world, talking about fat people like THEY are a disease is incredible dehumanising. Other “unhealthy” habits we talk about are something you do not what you are.
Imagine we would treat everyone who isn’t perfectly fit like we treat fat people, imagine people commenting on your body all of the time because you aren’t jacked. We are accepting and even in favor of a level of virtriol towards fat people that would be unimaginable if done to any other kind of populace.
If you are worried for the health of people than go from there, what are the specifics you care about? Because i can guarante you thin people have all the same problems. I am thin as a stick but certainly unhealthy as fuck.
Here are some points for you to think about
- The health sector isn’t perfect, doctors can believe in myths. Just like black people and women don’t get the pain medication they need fat people often don’t get the care they need because doctors are solely focused on their health. If you listen to fat people they will tell you all about it. BMI is not a great tool since everyone is different and just having a higher BMI is not enough information to go on.
- Fat peoples higher risks often don’t go away when they lose weight. We need more studies here.
- Stress is bad for your overall health. How stressful do you think it is when everyone and their mother makes your body their problem. Poor people are more often stressed too.
- Lets be honest people don’t care about fat peoples health, they care because they don’t like seeing it. We are all unhealthier and unfitter than we could be but for everyone else it is " don’t tell others what to do"
- The constant talk about weight triggers eating disorders and make fat people gain even more weight this is a fact not an opinion.
- Everything can become a healthrisk, boxers destroy their brain, basejumpers regulary fall to their death, bodybuilders take too many drugs. Its not an epidemic people will do people things.
There is so much more to it, one of my favorite health podcasts is “maintenance phase” give it a listen they talk alot about all kinds of health myths.
So just don’t focus on weight focus on overall health and what people need to succeed and if people are still fat let them be fat. They can decide for themselves.
Hi, OP here. First of all, yes I am absolutely keeping an open mind. Second of all, I wasn’t ever suggesting that fat people were ‘lesser’ or anything like that, and I certainly never said any of the things you suggested I said in the post, I get that people do do that, but I’m not one of them and that is not the point of my question. As for your question about what specific things about their life do I care about, well quality of life would be one. And make no mistake: I’m not suggesting that every case of obesity means negative effects/quality of life. However, as I stated in the post above, 1 in 8 people are classified as obese, which amounts to approximately one billion people worldwide (I don’t know if you’d classify that as an epidemic) and I can imagine that a portion of those suffer from diminished QOL. Most studies I’ve read don’t contain figures for this, but they do conclude that there is evidence of a direct link between obesity and lower quality of life. If that’s not motivation to seek help for them (providing they want it, and I’m fairly sure a lot of them would) then I don’t know what is. I’m not doubting that thin/average/anything else people can also be unhealthy, but the root cause and therefore the solution is different for poor health due to obesity compared to poor health from lack of weight. We have to tailor solutions/treatment to help those asking for it depending on weight because each cause of poor health warrants a different solution. It’s not a case of singling them out as a group, it’s a case of tailoring treatment to that specific issue. And by the way: Im not the one who decided to classify obesity (not the people) as a disease. The World Health Organisation (and others) are the ones who classified obesity as a disease. They are the ones who classify it as an epidemic, stating on the website linked above. Heck, they literally have a page called ‘controlling the global obesity epidemic’. Furthermore, I’m not saying that we should force the cure on all obese people — if they are overweight, and have no issues, then no problem. But it’s estimated that 2.8 million people a year die due to complications of obesity. You say the epidemic doesn’t exist — 2.8 million people a year might disagree. What I’m saying is we should work for a cure so as to offer it, not force it. In any case, it’s their choice, but I still believe we should strive for a remedy so everyone at least has the option.
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Cheap access to fresh fruit and veg
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Education for healthy eating starting in childhood
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Public outdoor spaces that are enjoyable to exercise in
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Cheap, frequent public transit to allow everyone to access food and public spaces
If those don’t take care of most of it we can keep going from there.
And not just fresh fruit and veg, but a variety of good quality fresh fruit and veg. Red delicious apples are cheap fresh fruit, zucchini is cheap fresh veg, but you won’t enjoy eating your fruit and veg if all you’re getting is nasty apples and zucchini.
I feel like we could do a lot by simply removing the sales taxes from raw vegetables and non-exotic fruits.
That would be a government subsidy, but it would be a subsidy primed to go towards the consumer.
Can’t hurt. The state with the least obesity is Colorado, and they don’t have a sales tax on groceries, but do with candy and stuff.
Only 11 states charge sales tax on groceries as it is. And all but 3 of the ones that do, have a reduced rate.
But zucchini is delicious
if all you’re getting is nasty apples
Growing up I thought I didn’t prefer apples. It turns out I just don’t like the most common apple that was fed to me. “Red Delicious” is false advertising. Fuji, Jazz, Honeycrisp, Yellow Delicious, Pink Lady, are all far far superior. I’ll even eat a Gala apple even thought those are just okay. Red Delicious apples are trash tier apples.
Bro what are you talking about zuchcineine and appel GOOD you are the avatar of the demiurge
I like red delicious apples. I like all varieties of apples. The hate comes from familiarity and snobbery. It’s like coffee, cigars, and wine--marketing and price is the only real difference. One isn’t worse than the other, we’re just taught that. Every variety of apple can become mealy if left tool long, but people associate that with RD because that’s the apple they had as kids and sometimes they were mealy, and kids are very sensitive to differences in their food.
I posted my comment before seeing yours and my experience is a close match to what you describe.
One isn’t worse than the other, we’re just taught that.
Hard disagree. Even as an adult a Red Delicious is a disappointment. I don’t turn down free apples when offered. I always turn down Red Delicious.
Nah, the hate for Red Delicious comes from the fact that they’ve been bred to look good and have a long shelf life instead of having good flavor. They used to taste better, but due to the industrialization of farming, orchards were paid more for better looking apples. Eventually, the cultivar developed into the modern Red Delicious, which has a thick skin and starchy texture that resists bruising during machine handling.
A thing most people don’t get is that knowledge of how to prepare food and the time to actually do it are also key. My parents could cook 3 meals between them and poorly at that. I didn’t know anything about how to use a knife including the most basic things like sharp knives being less dangerous than blunt ones. I have learned later in life and I am fairly accomplished in the kitchen, including making a roux, making passata from scratch, fermenting and pickling vegetables, making yoghurt, making adaptable stir fry dishes, making stews and soups, and all manner of other things like breads and pâté. None of those things were taught to me by my parents or through schooling. All the access in the world wouldn’t make me able to use chicken liver without making it chalky and nasty, or cook a steak without ruining it.
It’s a very good suggestion, but do you think any government right now would push for that? Not disagreeing with you, just wondering about the feasibility of such ideas?
Those are two separate questions, without a strong public push for those things it’s unlikely governments will do it of their own accord unless they’re specifically trying to cut healthcare costs. But there are places with the things listed; you can’t go anywhere in Central America without running into a fruit cart, cities with good public transit exist, and places with public spaces that encourage exercise exist, programs to educate the public about healthy eating exist. Each thing is individually accomplishable.
Nah. There’s not really any significant benefit to making such changes from a government perspective.
Nah, can do stuff like the UK did - taxing sugar - so that instead of getting less income from removing sales tax, it’d be more income from new tax
To add to that, if weight loss peptides like Ozempic are working, let them work.
My mother, in her late 60s is obese. She was forced to retire early due to this, she has had lifelong self image issues due to this, and she’s very aware that it’s both robbing her ability to enjoy her later years, and years of her life. Until this year, she was staunchly against taking Ozempic due to potential side effects, but the reality is that the side effects of Obesity are so much worse.
For an analogy, there is a lot of evidence that the quantity of people who need to wear glasses has increased because in infancy, children are not looking at distant objects, and irreversible damage is occurring to their vision as a result. Of course this is something we want parents to consider in how they realise their children, but it would be monstrous to then deprive that person of glasses because the fault is societal.
Everything on your list is the equivalent of encouraging children to exercise their eyes, and is absolutely the best way to treat obesity, but medication should be considered as a treatment beyond this.
And cheap non processed food overall.
Fruit and vegetables are already cheaper than whatever atuff their faces with.
Cheap access to fresh fruit and veg
Won’t work. In my hospital cafeteria at lunch, med staff is lined up at the salad bar, patients line up at the deep fryer. People get a plate of fries and pour gravy over it and call that a meal.
Why does your hospital have a deep fryer to begin with? I’m sure if they set out a pile of low cost cocaine they’d consume that as well, it’s silly to offer people addictive foods and then turn your nose up at them when they eat them; especially in the context of being in the middle of what is probably one of the most stressful events of their lives and likely wanting familiar comfort food.
Anyway, the only difference between you/your colleagues and your patients is covered by my second point: education.
Why does your hospital have a deep fryer to begin with?
Because the cafeteria needs to stay open and patients demand it. If we didn’t have shit to feed idiots, idiots would order shit in. You cannot force people to eat well.
If you’re just reading the first sentence of everything I type I don’t see a reason to continue
I have an 11 word tolerance for stupid. No idea what you are talking about.
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Eating the rich has been shown to have a positive impact on weight loss and health in general.
Seriously though, this is the answer. Obesity is a systemic problem.
This sounds a little… cannibalistic
But what does that mean in terms of real actionable steps though?
Organize, educate, advocate
And when that fails, kill.
People don’t realize* that processed food is engineered to make you eat more of it. You’ll also feel like shit for at least 3 days if you start eating fresh foods and you will crave the junk (cuz it’s made to be that way), but it’s worth it. The price is about the same to eat if you make it from scratch, but it’s so much easier than you think. Your body will thank you. Also, if you’re craving something sweet, drink water.
Examples:
Soup
- boil a bunch of veggies and you get veggie stock.
- Boil the bones of your rotisserie chicken and you get chicken stock.
- Microwave a potato and put it in a pan with your sauteed veggies, then add milk. You now have cream of type soups
Grill
- veggies
- meat
- seafood
Baking
- cut up your veggies and put a whole chicken in there. Cook for awhile, then you have 3 or 4 meals of different varieties. Here’s an example recipe, but you can do any herb or veggies you like. https://simply-delicious-food.com/oven-roasted-whole-chicken/
These are just few.
Sounds like the detox diet in that spurlock film
Do you mean the opposite? You must not have seen it.
lol. I meant his wife’s vegan detox diet at the end (the one above’s obviously not vegan, it just reminded me of the concept) obviously I didn’t mean the main diet of that film…
In any case, I much preferred Tom Naughton’s Fat Head
“Honey, I have chest pains! Quick! Get a tripod!!!” XD
Oh sorry, lol, I didn’t understand what you were saying. You can have junk in moderation, but processed food companies make it really hard on everyone to do anything in moderation.
Have you seen Fat Head by Tom Naughton? If you liked the Spurlock one, watch that one (it’s kind of a refute with comedy)
No, we’ve been looking for new things to watch. I’ll look for it. We just got done with Widow’s Bay. Boy does that deserve the hype.
It’s on Tubi. Just stick an American VPN on (unless you live in America of course)
his wife’s vegan detox diet
detox diets are bullshit. Just stop eating crap. Spurlock’s wife stopped being vegan and the cult almost crucified her.
And he died of cancer. They say it didn’t have anything to do with the diet, but it could have
He had testicular cancer, but he was also a huge alcoholic. He didn’t die of cancer but his publicist would only admit to “cancer related complications”.
Interesting. I’ve never heard what kind of cancer he had, can you provide me a link that says it was testicular?
There’s not a single, one-size-fits-all solution, there’s a lot of factors going into this
In no particular order, off the top of my head, a couple things that would need to change
- Better nutrition/health education- a lot of people have almost no idea what eating healthy means
- Better labeling requirements, there’s a few weird loopholes in how food and such can be labeled, and companies get away with using some pretty misleading labeling, and we need to be tightening that down so that people can actually make better informed decisions about what they’re eating.
- Better pay and work/life balance- Planning and preparing a healthy diet takes time and money. Same with going to the gym. We need to free people up to be able to make those better, healthier choices for themselves
- Addressing food deserts- In some places people just may not have easier access to healthy food. If you don’t drive and public transit is spotty around you, and the only stores within walking distance of your home are gas stations and convenience stores, it’s going to be hard to eat a healthy diet.
- Pedestrian and bike friendly infrastructure- In a lot of cases, people don’t walk or bike places because it’s just not safe for them to do so. If you provide that opportunity for them, a lot of people will actually use it, they’ll get more exercise, and save money on gas that can in turn be used for other healthier choices.
- Healthcare- In some cases it may mean getting things like glp-1 drugs or surgeries to aid in weight loss, in other cases it might just be checking in with a doctor or nutritionist to come up with a weight loss plan to make sure you’re going about it safely and effectively. Maybe you need blood work or other tests to identify other underlying health problems, maybe you have depression or anxiety that are making it difficult for you to be motivated to go to the gym or some sort of trauma you need to work through to address an eating disorder. Whatever the person’s specific needs are, they need to be able to access them.
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Non shitholes teach children how to eat in schools.
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no one reads.
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people have hours to sit in front of screens
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i don’t buy this. just lazy
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Never will happen in USA.
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No one can afford that in USA.
1,2,5, & 6 - yes, I’m saying that these are issues that need to be addressed. What do you think you’re adding to the conversation here?
3&4- yes, because after working, often in excess of 40 hours a week, commuting, running errands, and with little money left over to show for it at the end (ties into point 6) what else is there for them to do? People do not have unlimited energy or money. People are tired and need time to relax and enjoy themselves as well, if they spent hours reading or knitting, or tinkering with electronics instead would you still begrudge them that? As far as physical health goes, that’s about the same. Planning and preparing a proper, balanced meal takes some time and energy, and a lot of people are running on empty, and if they want to have any time to enjoy their lives that may mean microwaving a frozen dinner or ordering takeout.
My wife has lost a lot of weight over the last year, getting up at the ass crack of dawn to hit the gym, and sometimes again after work, she’s often leaving the house before 5am, and doesn’t return home until 5 or even 7pm if she hits the gym twice. That leaves her with about 2-4 hours to herself when she gets in to have dinner, prep her breakfast and lunch for the next day because she won’t have time for it in the morning, and do whatever other chores she needs to do.
Imagine trying to squeeze that in if you also have kids or other obligations you need to take care of after work, or if you work more than the 40 hours a week she does.
And sure, if you stick to a diet of beans and kale or something, it can be an affordable diet, but most people aren’t going to last long eating such a limited diet, and a lot of the more diet-friendly foods can get pricey fast.
And food deserts are absolutely a thing, I live in one. It’s a solid 15 minute drive to a grocery store, there is no public transit in my area, it would be the better part of an hour one way to bike there, and close to 2 hours if I needed to walk, and those roads are absolutely not friendly to pedestrians and bikes. If we didn’t have cars, it would be pretty hard for us to get groceries, especially if I didn’t have friends I could get a ride from, and borderline impossible if we were elderly or disabled (especially since I work night shift which further limits when I can get to a grocery store while I’m awake.) I can get a couple things from a convenience store and CVS that are in a somewhat more reasonable walking distance (though those roads aren’t exactly pedestrian friendly either) but that’s mostly going to be prepackaged junk food, if I’m lucky maybe I can get a couple fresh apples and bananas or an overpriced premade salad.
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Treating it like the multifaceted issue it is instead of a moral failing would be a start.
In the US that would mean labor laws which favor the human instead of the business. With hours that allow more daily personal time and pay that allows prosperity even at minimum wages. These things would take care of most people.
It would also mean medical treatment being available without burdensome cost, and with consideration to it being a mental hurdle like addiction and destigmatizing seeking aid for it in that manner. Universal healthcare removing the need/demand for private and employment tied insurance would help this as well.
There are many more facets, and facets within facets to all of this, but from a mile high view I think this would help a lot.
I can tell you what I did. I went from 92 kilos to 69 kilos in a year.
- Nearly removed all carbs from my diet
- Increased diet to include vegetables and chicken and eggs
- Removed artificial sugar
- Removed all apps which allowed food delivery
- Went to gym 5 days a week
- Told myself everyday “trust the process”
I started noticing changes after 3 months.
Now how do you convert this into government policy? That is a huge problem altogether. Long term thinking + strong regulations. Even if you try something like this, you will be ridiculed for suggesting government overreach. At the end of the day, a diet is a personal choice.
This works, I did it too. I lost 65 pounds in six months, and It’s been gone for over ten years now.
But, that doesn’t make profits for the rich and takes effort, so they made a drug instead.
If you reduce obesity, how will healthcare insurance companies survive? Won’t someone think about the poor billionaire CEOs?
Free healthcare including counseling, free gyms, shorter work weeks to give people more time for activities, and subsidize healthy foods so they’re more affordable.
Thanks for highlighting counseling. I think people kind of ignore/underestimate the mental aspect of trying to be fit. A true long-lasting healthy life needs its ground work to be based on sustainable habits. It needs to be taught that fitness isn’t what you do for 1 hour in the gym, but the full 24 hours in your day. At the same time, fitness isn’t torturing your body. You need to reward yourself from time to time (but within limits).
I’d like to add that this education and building of habits should start in grade school.
We’ve invented the cure to obesity. We should be dancing in the streets and throwing parades for scientists. Again. We invented the cure to obesity. It’s just a distribution problem at this point. We just need to work on getting the drugs out to everyone that wants them at a price anyone can afford. Do that, and the obesity crisis is solved.
It turns out that when you give humans calorie abundance, it just breaks a lot of our “full meters.” And we can fix that with a simple shot or pill. Generations fretting and brow-beating people over morality and gluttony. Generations of forcing people to painfully starve themselves to achieve a healthy weight. Generations of shame, guilt, and cruelty. But all along, the real issue wasn’t moral. It was medical. Or perhaps, historical.
The reality is that many of us just have a part of our biology that isn’t calibrated for the modern world. We have satiation systems that are designed for ages of famine. It’s only in the last few centuries that food has become cheap and abundant, and it’s still not that way everywhere. You take a satiation system that is evolved for an age of famine, but require it to live in an age of abundance? Obesity is the inevitable result. Sure, you can always starve yourself into a healthy weight. But the point is human beings aren’t evolved to have to maintain their weight through painful conscious self-denial. We’re supposed to simply eat when we’re hungry and stop when we’re full. That’s how human beings have lived for most of history and pre-history. And until the era of modern cheap calories? Our ancestors never really had to worry about eating themselves to obesity. There was only so much honey you could get a hold of, and it required taking quite a few bee stings to get it. Maybe the Lord in his castle had to worry about obesity, but this is a burden our ancestors never had at scale. We guilt ourselves for failure to maintain healthy weights, when that’s just not something humans should have to consciously do.
But we need not accept endless calorie counting and weight maintenance through intentional starvation. We also don’t need to return to an age of deprivation. We CAN have our cake and eat it to. We don’t need to accept obesity or starvation. We can build a world where calories are cheap and abundant, but people can simply modify their satiation systems to achieve whatever body weight they want without conscious effort. Find a way to get these drugs to everyone. That is how you solve the obesity crisis. Some may not want to take them or have medical reasons they can’t. But it doesn’t matter. Imagine lamenting if we only cut the obesity rate by 80%. Simply giving these drugs out free to as many people as want them will inevitably be the most effective form of obesity intervention a government could ever do. Forget public health campaigns and presidential fitness tests. Just get people the damn medicine they need.
We invented a miracle. Let’s share the wonder.
The drug stops people from getting fat, but that doesn’t mean they’re suddenly healthy.
Here’s what’s going to happen with that. They’ll take the drug and not exercise and still end up dying early. Because, keeping the fat off is, at best, only half a solution.
Also, the long term effects of the drug aren’t known, they can’t be, it hasn’t been around long enough to know.
It means a hell of a lot healthier than they were before! We’ve seen that these drugs improve a myriad of health issues. The idea that they don’t help with health is just cope. And no, it really isn’t a half solution. Your health improves the same whether you lose weight via dieting or drugs. Because ultimately you’re doing the exact same thing - eating less.
You’re stuck in Christian cultural thinking. Instinctively you think any boon must have a terrible price associated with it. And we can’t know the side effects? I’m sorry, but that is not how side effects work. There are not medications that never show a side effect for years and then suddenly have it show up decades later. A side effect can become more common with time, but it will show up in some people in the short term. People have been using these drugs for years. We’re not going to see mysterious terrible effects show up decades from now.
By your logic, we could never implement any new medication. There would always be the risk of unknown effects decades down the road. If we followed your methods, we would have never been able to deploy the covid vaccine and hundreds of millions of people would have died. But thankfully that doesn’t happen. We can test drugs in the short term and be reasonably confident of the long term risks.
I challenge you to find a single medication of any kind that showed no side effects in early studies, only to have them be widespread after decades of use. Show one medication. Just one medication that has ever worked the way you’re speculating. You will not find it. The closest I can think of is thalidomide and its negative effects showed up very quickly. Thalidomide was the result of improper testing, ignoring test results, and it resulted in the complete overhaul of the drug testing process.
Drugs simply do not work like you’re suggesting. Side effects don’t just show up mysteriously after decades. That has literally never happened.
You’re stuck in a Faustian mindset. Any boon must have a terrible cost. You simply can’t accept a wonder of modern medicine when it’s right in front of your eyes. It’s not surprising. It’s the same underlying belief structure of every anti-vaxxer.
Theres a whole host of issues, many of which are already mentioned, but two other big ones are treating it more as a health issue rather than a moral one, and improving healthcare - especially mental health care.
People don’t realize, but a lot of obesity cases are tied into other health issues - especially mental health. This is doubly true for more extreme cases. For a very simple example, those who are neurodivergent often struggle with specific stimulations including food textures (limiting food options), especially in combination with food deserts or areas with little selection. On the other hand, this can often be improved or worked around with medication and/or therapy. Medication such as antidepressants or antipsychotics causing weight gain is another very common example, and while it isn’t as easy to avoid, better medical support can make it easier to manage, especially if you need to change diet as a result. For a more extreme example, trauma is very closely tied to weight gain and eating disorders. Watch any episode of My Six-Hundred Pound Life (or better yet, don’t), and you’ll notice that almost all of them have significant trauma. For example, childhood abuse can lead to difficulty self-regulating, or sexual abuse can cause someone to feel that being “”“ugly”“” will help prevent future assaults. These examples just scratch the surface too, and things only gen messier when you have comorbid conditions. Just imagine, for example, someone with OCD affecting how they eat, depression treated with a weight-gain causing medication, and PMOS (a hormonal issue common in women, which often makes it extremely difficult to lose weight). Doctors often ignore or struggle to treat any of these individually, nonetheless all three together, and thats before we open the conversation around affordability.
Given this, and just how sensitive and defensive humans are in general, that makes it all-the-more important that we treat people respectfully and kindly. Even ignoring basic decentcy, demonizing or mocking people for their weight delegitimises efforts to change systematic barriers, makes accessing care more difficult or unfriendly, often wastes time or confuses with “advice” that is unhelpful or outright destructive given the context of someone’s medical background (I.E. telling someone with an eating disorder to control their eating more), and increases stress, which in turn, makes medical issues worse and harder to cope with. Instead, if we treat it as a medical issue, we avoid all of this and stop moralising or hurting people already struggling.
