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Comment by tomjen3 | Hacker News Reader

There is only one reason possible: we eat more than we need. A lot more.

Why we do this is maybe up for debate (personally my guess is because we can and food is tasty), but the basics of thermodynamics is not up for debate.

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The reason is obvious: carbohydrates are addictive. The more you eat them the more you want to eat them. Brain scans show that carbs gives you the same kind of pleasure that other addictions gives you. To maximise the addition even more, you mix carbs, fat, and salt. The food industry knows this and does everything it can to turn consumers into addicts of their products. They have succeeded spectacularly.

This is an annoying take that comes up every time. It’s like saying people die because a critical organ stops functioning. It adds nothing to the discourse and tends to imply that it’s lack of will power.

How is this analogy even supposed to work?

When you eat too much, you can choose to eat less. When your critical organ is about to stop functioning, what can you even do? Use that organ less?

Either I am missing something major in that analogy, or it is just bad.

I think you're missing the point of the analogy; it's not about assigning culpability for health problems, it's about illustrating the kind of comment that centers proximate causes when the surrounding discussion is about root causes.

It wouldn't have to come up every time if lots of people wouldn't deny it.

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