Comment by dkarl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dkarl | Hacker News Reader

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It's not very constructive or interesting to wrap up the whole problem in the word "stupid." What is the nature of this stupidity? Why are they stupid? What can be done about it, considering that we have to live in the same society as all these dumbshits? Maybe you should apply for a government grant to pay you to go around and personally slap each fat person and tell them they're stupid.

I can tell you it was damned hard to change the way I ate, and I'm not stupid. At least, I'm not stupid in the "underclass too stupid to do the obvious things that will fix their lives" kind of way that you're talking about. Intelligence wasn't the solution to the problem; long-term focus on accustoming myself to a different way of living was. For about eighteen months, maybe closer to two years, I paid more attention to losing weight than I did to anything else, including my personal life and professional development. And guess what? Even now I have to pay a certain amount of attention to maintain my weight. It just won't go on autopilot. I'm still smart enough and knowledgeable enough, but it's a small constant drain on my energy to execute.

The drain on my energy is much lower now, but I was lucky to be able to devote so much time and energy to get to where I am now. I was even unemployed for a significant amount of that time, which I could afford thanks to working in a pretty high-paying profession, and which was a big help in being able to focus on changing my lifestyle. Plus I happened to have a friend who decided to turn me into a running partner at exactly the right time. How lucky could I get?

All that happened in my mid-twenties, so I spent more than a decade being fat and bright (at least by IQ-type standards: test scores, grades, academic competitions, etc.) before I made any lasting progress on my weight.

> It's not very constructive or interesting to wrap up the whole problem in the word "stupid."

It's highly constructive when the prevailing mode of discussing the issue blames public policy and business practices, as this article does. I stand by my assertion that it's mostly personal failings. Therefore, nothing needs to be done. It's a free country. Let people make their choices and suffer the consequences.

I'll make allowances that agriculture policy (subsidies for grains and soy) and bad diet advice from the government probably play a role. But it's not the predominant issue.

>It's highly constructive when the prevailing mode of discussing the issue blames public policy and business practices, as this article does.

I've reread the article and I don't think that the author is blaming public policy. The article states some reasons why obesity may be more prevalent amongst poor communities, and also explains some proposed policies that may help to address the problem.

Really, there are two options here. One is to say "haha look at those stupid fat people" and watch the obesity rate climb. The second would be to realise that many of these people are on taxpayer funded Medicare, and then realise the logic of supporting cost-effective government policies that help reduce obesity and in turn the cost of government healthcare.

The second would be to realise that many of these people are on taxpayer funded Medicare, and then realise the logic of supporting cost-effective government policies that help reduce obesity and in turn the cost of government healthcare.

We could do is take away medicare and replace it with free gyms. That would probably make people healthier and save billions of dollars.

We do have free gyms. It's called parks.

Does freedom require being incurious and apathetic about other people's problems? Well, if so, consider that the teenage girls I'll be ogling from my chair at the cafe when I'm a lecherous septuagenarian won't be born for another thirty years. See, now I'm being appropriately selfish, but I'm still interested in understanding why people eat so much and what can be done about it.

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