Hacker News Reader

Comment by smallpipe | Hacker News Reader

The obese are mad at the diabetics, the diabetics are mad at the obese, while they should be mad at their failure of politicians who won’t regulate the drug market like any other functioning democracy. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so tragic

View on HN

> who won’t regulate the drug market

And the food industry, the real root cause of all of this

Saying food is the cause of obesity is boiling down the visible aggregate effect of a million different things into one big cause. I eat pretty much nothing but garbage food -- pizza, wings, burgers, subs: just salt and grease. And I went from 220 to 120 and stayed there doing it. It's a meme at this point that when we go to restaurants with friends it's the skinny people ordering apps and burgers and the overweight people get salads. The difference is that all the skinny people get full and leave half their meal on the plate. For most of my life I was dumbfounded that this could happen and they must be forcing themselves to stop or something but nope, I hit the wall same as the rest of them now. No issues with cholesterol or blood pressure either.

So we 1000% should deal with the amount of crap that's in our food but I don't think it'll be the cure-all that people expect.

The problem is that we're not talking about well educated adults making a conscious decision about eating shit food and ruining their lives. We're talking about entire generations of kids who don't know better being purposefully fed addictive food which will ruin their health.

> I eat pretty much nothing but garbage food -- pizza, wings, burgers, subs: just salt and grease. And I went from 220 to 120 and stayed there doing it

Fast forward 10 years later and you'll get a very concerning blood work result. (I don't wish it on you but the web is full of "fat/skinny/I only eat junk food and I was healthy until I hit 45 and discovered XYZ is 5 times over the recommended limit" stories)

Also you might have a damaged thyroid or other similar health issues, I know a few people coming from an industrial region known for pollution, they have more thyroid issues than the average, as a result they can eat 6+ times a day and much more calories than you'd expect while not packing a gram of fat.

I can put down enough calories in a meal to make a garbage truck blush. It's not necessarily that skinny people (or somewhat squishy people who carry it discreetly in my case) don't eat all of their food. It can also be that when you see me down a trashcan lid of nachos, it's my treat for the week (or two) and I accommodate for that in my normal habits.

Personally I’d like to thank the food industry for creating all these amazing products. I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault that some people find it very difficult to control the urge to eat too much, and I definitely don’t think I should be punished for that by making tasty food more expensive/harder to find.

Personally I'd like to thanks latin american cartels for making heroin feel so good, I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault that some people find it very difficult to control the urge to consume heroin, and I definitely don’t think I should be punished for that by making heroin more expensive/harder to find.

Once your body is ravaged by years of junk food you're an addict in the medical sense of the term. When you give a soda that contains 2x the daily recommended amount of sugar to a kid because "it tastes good" you're sabotaging their future health.

They don't make the food taste good to make you enjoy good food, they make food addictive to make you keep consuming.

Yes, they should make the food taste bad. That will make everyone better.

Of course, healthy food taste bad and the only good tasting food is junk food, gotcha

It tastes bad compared to junk food the same way caffein is bland compared to cocaine, ie. you have to be addicted and in denial to believe it

Lol. You don't have to be an addict too admit caffeine is bland compared to cocaine.

I would say properly cooked, fresh healthy food tastes better than junk food. But most people don't have time for that.

> But most people don't have time for that.

But again, if the best economical system of the galaxy in the richest country of the universe can't guarantee basic things such as feeding yourself properly I'd say you have quite a big problem

When do we start acting ? 50% obesity ? 75% ? It's already the top 1 cause of death (cardiovascular disease). What does it say about our society ? Looking at it from the outside makes it look like sabotage if not suicide, very few people profit from it, and in the long run everybody loses

Ah you’re only scratching the surface. It’s really the “big fork” doing all of the damage.

Yep, just like cocaine addicts have problems because of "big straw" and heroin addicts have problems because of "big needle" /s

Regulating both would be good start.

They should be mad at themselves for failing to take ownership over their own lives and health. But no, its someone elses fault that they eat an entire box of oreos every night.

I’ve gained roughly 5lbs a year for the past 10 years. At 3500 calories per pound, or 50 calories per day, that’s one oreo each night.

That only works if you consider that everyone starts life as a well educated and healthy adult

When you factor in junk food marketing targeted to kids it starts to be a bit different. Then you add lobbies fighting to keep fast food in schools, the sugar industry, "fat makes you fat" and other clearly bs takes ...

What happened between the 50s and today that made < 12 year old obesity for from 5% to 20% ? https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6002a2.htm

Is it because 5 years old kids can't put the box of oreo down ? They must be stupid right ? Why can't they possess high level long term thinking ??? Don't they know about insulin resistance ? and calories ?

Sigh.

"Just put down the fork" is why we can't have single-payer healthcare. Come back when you have feasible suggestions for the population level.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com