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?
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.
There’s no one single approach.
- Stop overincentivizing HFCS; as a sugar replacement, its main feature is suppressing natural hormones that tell you “I’m full, let’s stop eating”. It’s a corn product, which often makes it a very “American” thing to support.
- Design walkable communities. Many people can’t schedule out time to get exercise, but should get it regularly through their job or community.
- Make programs designed to promote home cooking, ensuring people have time in their day to do it, adequate kitchen space, and buy-in from their family or lifemates. Many people live off take-out or ready meals, which means they don’t know what goes into it, and also don’t socialize with family.
When my kids were younger we subscribed to a meal kit service. They would select from a limited menu, then we would get ingredients and instructions. It was great at teaching my kids how to cook. It was also much more efficient than trying to do the same from scratch: we already had the right amounts of all ingredients and simplified step by step. We saved time.
However it was expensive. I wonder if some sort of subsidized service like that would help people learn how to cook and develop the habit
A localized meal service like that would be really awesome. Locally sourced ingredients where available, pick up or drop off within X miles. It might be hard to match price at scale bring smaller, but with a subsidy it absolutely could work.
Yeah, I know it’s just reinventing the soup kitchen.
A coop for meals not groceries would be nice
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?
The education system needs to be redeveloped from the ground up. It’s a 19th century system in the 21st century.
Physical Education needs to be prioritized as does social engagement.
Start re-educating treatlerites
give them all ozempic or GLP-1. almost every method, they want quick fixes, or dont want do dieting or exercising or they dont want to do it. glp-1 has a side benefit in helping with other addictions.
People on ozempic loose around 7 % of their bodyweight and gain it back when they stop. Not a great solution to a non existent problem.
obesity a non-existent problem, you must be smoking something. obviously people were joking on surely on it.
Switch to Scientific Socialism where people aren’t overworked and in deep debt over shitty capitalism.
Whats the link? Stress, obviously.
Obesity was essentially nonexistent in Ukraine during the 1930’s and China during the 1950’s, before unscientific capitalism came along and screwed everything up
People were also severely stressed in the centuries past (remember, the 8 hour workday is a recent invention). Less stress helps for sure, but the availability of calorie-dense food engineered to be delicious is probably even worse.
Did they have long hours before industrial revolution though?
I mean farmhands would work from sunup to sundown. That was the profession of a lot of people pre-industrial age. I’m not sure what white collar workers would’ve be working but I doubt less than 10 hours on average.
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.
Pay people to lose weight and then pay an even better rate for maintaining a healthy weight
Why does it need solving in the first place?
Because… it’s a disease that shortens people’s lifespans?
Aside from that, it’s also terrible for the environment.
We can start by not eating highly processed, industrially made food-like substances.
This will be unpopular, but: just stop caring. Let people be whatever size, treat them equally, and don’t sweat it. You may not like that but one way to solve an issue is to realize there is no issue.
Would people be healthier if they weren’t obese? Possibly. The evidence is a little mixed. I’m in the middle where I think not being obese is healthier but the effect is overblown by related factors. People would be healthier if no one drank alcohol but I don’t think banning alcohol is worth it.
(Revealing my biases: I’ve been extremely fit, I’ve also been technically obese, and I’m on a GLP-1 inhibitor because I want to lose weight. But I’m not interested in telling other people how heavy they should be)
Bring on the downvotes, my body is ready.
I disagree. Obesity is medically proven to be unhealthy, and many obese people might just give up trying to improve their health, especially if they are told that there’s “no issue”.
Even if we didn’t care about them or their health, society at large still pays for the extra inevitable medical bills, since we can’t really just stop providing healthcare for medical issues caused or exacerbated by obesity.
So you agree that alcohol and automobiles should be banned because they are harmful to health and society pays substantial costs due to their negative impacts?
As you’ve been both fit and technically obese, I suspect you also realize exercise is much harder to do when you’re obese. Not just because moving your body is harder, but because you have less energy and thus it might be much harder to motivate yourself. It’s a vicious cycle where gaining weight is even easier when sedentary and being obese makes it harder to not be sedentary.
And with socialized healthcare in most countries, everyone’s paying the price. I say this as someone currently technically obese as well.
Luckily most people don’t WANT to be obese, so GLP-1 inhibitors are a bit of a godsend. Forcing anyone to lose weight I can’t condone, but giving people the best possible chances to be healthy seems like a no-brainer.
Thanks for this sane comment.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
But zucchini is delicious
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.
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.
Fruit and vegetables are already cheaper than whatever atuff their faces with.
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
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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.
