In modern society, people generally eat ridiculously calorie dense overprocessed garbage food that ravages insulin sensitivity and then they remain inactive for 23+ hours a day, barely shuffling from a car to a desk to a car to a couch. Unsurprisingly, they gain weight.
Raw calories in calories out surely plays a part, but many people eat 1.5x their daily burn with no discernable weight gain.
Obesity, like most human conditions including "sick" and "cancer" are actually a family of related conditions with overlapping symptoms.
Also, dietary guidelines for caloric intake are far too high for a modern sedentary lifestyle. There was actually a study about this recently discussed here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/26/meals-parents-mad...
And yes very rarely there may be some underlying condition. But that is indeed rare. Keep in mind obesity was practically nonexistent 40 and 50 years ago.
Even in 1962 (54 years ago) the prevalence of adult obesity was 13% in the US -- and it has increased steadily since -- so it was very far from "practically non-existent" 50, and even moreso 40, years ago; to the extent you might have some legitimate point, ludicrous hyperbole like this tends to obscure it.
It's extremely easy to say, "Oh those people are fat because they're sedentary." Re-examine this though, because it's a variant of a common "you get what you deserve" mindset that plagues health issues for many people contracting conditions that cause society to look down on them.
It's also untrue that obesity didn't exist in the 50s, however even if it was less prevalent ... it's simply not true that people were substantially less sedentary in the extremes back then. If anything, employment was MORE demanding of a sedentary lifestyle.
It's probably a combination of multiple factors including things like available diet options, a reduction in habits like smoking with proven weight reduction side effects, etc. Is it really unimaginable that a virus makes people on certain diets more prone to obesity, requiring substantially more work to reduce weight?
What's more, given that employment is a precursor to survival in our society and it is difficult to obtain and maintain employment while obese, it seems to behoove us to examine every avenue we have to make sure we can resolve those conditions regardless of value judgement about lifestyle. A strictly capitalist analysis of the situation suggests preventative and accessible care will be substantially cheaper and more productive than the "let them die of poverty-related complications in the streets" approach should people fall out of where the system can reach.
Allowing health insurers to adjust rates based on BMI would be a capitalist/market based solution as well. Dietary choices would directly impact a persons health care costs. That is also currently not allowed.
If you're concerned about market approaches for some reason, you could go the government sin tax route and tax BMI on a progressive scale, and also tax sugar and carbohydrate products. Dietary choices would directly impact someones costs. Considering junk food is an unhealthy lifestyle choice, that particular idea is not any different from taxing alcohol, smoking or gambling.
In the meantime, related health care costs will keep rising.
Nah, because this is a terrible outcome on a few levels. Let's cut over it:
1. BMI is widely acknowledged as a terrible metric of health best relegated to old high school textbooks about "overall health-wellness". It's basically statistical noise outside extreme outliers on either end of the spectrum. And yet, people here keep offering it because they seem opposed to modern health education.
2. Capitalism is ultimately built on a foundation of a relatively stable workforce. Without a constant infusion of human capital it's profoundly shortsighted and suboptimal to simply let people die in the streets. It takes time to train people, and so it makes sense to maintain their health.
3. The cheapest healthcare by leaps and bounds is preventative. So if we take it as a given that a stable workforce is good for the long term growth of industry then it makes sense for us to act early, prescriptively and preventatively.
Of course, I personally find these motivations vile. It is a profoundly silly idea that unguided capitalism should be the gatekeeper of health care. A more mercurial and senseless angel of death you could not dream in your darkest nightmares.
But unless we're happy with a society built on building lots of money for a few people in castles surrounded by dead bodies, we probably need to reconsider our stance on health care.
And I'm a bit disturbed at the confidence you show in debating this subject given how many misconceptions you seem to have about it.
-- The literal part of the comment was misinformation.
-- The subtext of the message was flamebait, implying that people are fat simply because they cram too much food down their throats.
-- No response would have just left the false information hanging thus validating the idea. Therefore no response was not a useful option. (Think anti-vaxers. Don't want to leave misinformation alone because it propagates.)
-- A response that talked to the points made in the comment would have validated both the text and subtext even further.
My response pointing out I was aware of the misinformation and the subtext to let the poster know I wasn't going to validate it nor accept it seemed to be the appropriate solution.
What would have been the proper response that would nullify both the misinformation presented in the comment AS WELL AS the subtext?
"Congratulations on completely not understanding" --> snark and personal swipe—definitely uncivil.
"the entire issue of weight gain and obesity research that's been happening for the last 15 years" --> ok, but just mentioning this isn't the same as saying anything substantive about it.
"You win all the prizes" --> more snark and personal swipe
Civility is most important, so if you'd dropped the first and third bits and kept the second, we wouldn't have chided you. But if you wanted to post a good comment, it could have begun like this:
Obesity research for the last 15 years has shown there's a lot more to this. For example, ... and then add something specific.
Consider how much more polite and specific KirinDave's reply was: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13267354.
No, No, Absolutely not!
Don't you understand?! Anything specific would legitimizing the comment and subtext of the posters comment. This feeds into a false narrative that's been going on for years.
Anything without snark would have made the commentator's message seem legitimate! Only the snark shuts down false "scientific sounding" narrative and the fat shaming subtext.
KirinDave's reply, while well intentioned, still feeds into this narrative and allows the commenter to continue arguing that fat people just need to buckle down and stop shoveling food in order to balance calories.
We'll disagree on this. I think a lack of civility and the addition of snark is indeed called for in these types of comments. However, I understand your comments and realize that the mods make the community. Time for me to step away I guess.