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Comment by robrorcroptrer | Hacker News Reader

Could the global obesity epidemic not also be handled through mandates?

You can't catch obesity from someone coughing in the same room as you.

But to extrapolate further: Sugar taxes have been tried in countries - Mexico for one. I think there was massive backlash from CocaCola/Pepsi etc, for infringing on their freedom to make obscene profits. I seem to recall discussions here about some of the lawmakers finding Israeli spykits on their phones (the ones pushing for the sugar tax). edit: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/technology/hack-mexico-so...

Quoting the NYT for anything related to Israel is likely biased.

No matter what one's stance is on Israel, or the Palestine question, it's hard to blame the actions of one company on the Israeli government.

I should have clarified NSO group. They are an Israeli company with many ex members of Israeli NSA (whatever it's called).

No, but on a higher meta-level it is contagious. Obesity is more prevalent in societies where high-caloric foods are more readily available. Now I'm more libertarian leaning myself so I wouldn't actually advocate for this, but if we mandated a cap on calorie-per-serving for "foods", you'd see a drastic drop in the availability of high carbohydrate foods (particularly sugar) which would essentially cause forced sugar-withdrawal in most of the population.

A couple months later? Everyone's sugar-thermostats are reset, the lower-calorie food tastes nearly as good – if not better – and obesity rates would plummet.

However, since we don't/can't coordinate such a thing on a national level, everyone gets exposed to constantly increasing carb content in their food, and maintaining a lower calorie diet requires significantly more effort. I can speak from personal experience, I simulated this on a personal level when I moved to South Korea for 2 years where sugar is nearly non-existent. As a modestly thin person I lost an additional 15-20 pounds while I was there without having to work hard or suffer with worse-tasting food (well, I did experience sugar withdrawal for the first couple months).

Obesity is a complicated disease that manifests through a variety of biological, behavioral, and environmental factors. These factors differ widely between individuals. I think there are mandates that could help make the disease less prevalent, but it is very much ingrained in our daily life, so I'm cynical as to the efficacy of such measures. It's very difficult to mandate behavioral (look at how many people don't even want to put a mask on) or environmental (think what foods are available in a region based on scarcity, culture etc - and yes this is a real factor in obesity) changes. A concise video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZC4rfSMq8c

>Obesity is a complicated disease that manifests through a variety of biological, behavioral, and environmental factors.

Obesity is not a disease. It is a condition defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of >30[0].

Yes, there are a variety of factors that contribute to a BMI >30, but like "tobacco use disorder," it's emphatically not a disease. Some obesity may be related to actual diseases, but obesity in itself isn't a disease.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/defining.html

FYI, clicking on another page from your link states obesity is a ”serious chronic disease”. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/about-obesity/index.html

It wasn't my goal to argue nomenclature, but a disease is: "a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury." or "a particular quality, habit, or disposition regarded as adversely affecting a person or group of people." (Oxford Languages) By this definition it makes sense to me to call obesity a disease. For what it's worth, I was trying to convey that obesity is far more complicated than many consider - the official definition may imply that you can just "lower BMI" and solve the problem. I also see immense value in understanding obesity as a disease in order to de-stigmatize it - you wouldn't tell someone with high blood pressure to "just relax", or imply they aren't trying hard enough to cure it - which is what a lot of the public stigma around weight related disease is effectively doing. Also, BMI when combined with waist circumference can help to correct issues with BMI to better understand your individual risk: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/obesity/in-de... https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/how-to-measure-your-wai...

True, I imagine that would be quite frightening and have a lot of data to support a number of initiatives that the population would vehemently disagree with.

Even in grade school, I remembered dreading when they would have us run a mile as fast as we could and record the times.

Fat taxes are a form of this. I think the primary difference is that they have strong economic incentives aligned against them. I don't see this as the case with vaccine and mask mandates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_tax

If you could avoid getting obese with two shots in the arm and wearing a piece of cloth every time you leave the house for a couple years.

You becoming obese doesn’t affect me the way you catching Covid does. Yes obesity eats up healthcare resources as well but not to the degree and certainly not as quickly as Covid cases do.

Obesity is the #1 reason covid is a problem though. And metabolic syndrome, nearly the same thing.

True but my colleague become obese doesn’t make me obese by working next to him. (Unless he insists on sharing all his snacks lol. Even then I have a choice)

You don't get fat, because your neighbour coughs on you.

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