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Comment by vanilla_nut | Hacker News Reader

I don't believe this myself, but I do know a lot of people who believe being overweight is unfairly demonized and not as harmful as TPTB would have us believe. Many point to BMI as an inaccurate gauge of healthiness (there's a fair point there about eating disorders and ethnic predispositions towards higher BMIs) and unhealthy obsessions with thinness (as opposed to fitness). Look up "Fat Acceptance" if you'd like to know more.

Personally, I don't think we should view fatness as a moral failing; some people do naturally tend towards higher weights, especially as they get older. But I also feel that fatness is really dangerous and unhealthy and the "Fat Acceptance" movement makes me a bit uncomfortable because, much like smoking cigarettes, some people need a bit of a push to kick bad habits like overeating. Obesity is very expensive, both in money and lives, so if we can reduce it, we should.

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The dirty secret is that unhealthiness is demonized. Health has been adopted as a moral responsibility.

You’re not supposed to say out loud that you smoke, drink, or overeat because you enjoy it and have accepted that you might live a less long life and/or one with greater medical needs. You’re supposed to say that you’re ashamed and you can’t help yourself and that you know you’re supposed to be healthy.

This is the moral trap that makes people try very hard to find proof that X or Y is ultimately healthy. In Christian moral language, it’s like being handed a biblical passage that supports that thing you want to do. If being fat is healthy, you don’t have to wallow in shame, you just have to convince everyone that they misunderstand the facts.

It’s hard to make social systems like universal healthcare work when people are openly and unrepentantly unhealthy, but the fact is that health is no more universal a form of piety than faith in some specific God. Some people will just want to eat a lot of ice cream and hamburgers because they’re yummy.

> some people need a bit of a push to kick bad habits like overeating

I think this is the real culprit - the idea that overeating is the root cause and not a symptom, and that a little bit of a push makes a difference.

Overeating is the "cause" of obesity because that is the mechanism of action that facilitates obesity. How else could one reasonably become obese?

Overeating is the "how" not the "why" -- at least, that's how I see it.

It would be like saying alcohol is the root cause of alcoholism, when in reality, the root cause of alcoholism is often much more nuanced. Hence why many people with addictions tend to be polysubstance users or "hot swap" to a new vice after abstaining from another. It's not about the mechanism of escape, but rather the need to escape.

Overeating is the cause of obesity like saving money is the cause of being rich.

Yes, but that's not what we're talking about. It's an accounting tautology, not the root cause.

> Yes, but that's not what we're talking about

What are we talking about?

> I do know a lot of people who believe being overweight is unfairly demonized

Because it is. As you yourself allude to later...

> I don't think we should view fatness as a moral failing

It clearly is not. I suspect the only people who believe that are the folks 'born on third base' as it were.

> some people need a bit of a push to kick bad habits like overeating

Some people? The vast majority of people are overweight. Anyone who isn't fit & trim has no business commenting on anyone else's bad habits and moral failings. None. Got a little bit of a spare tire? Shush. Got some love handles? Shush. Skinny fat? Shush again!

> if we can reduce it, we should

100% agree.

Edit: Downvote all you want, guys, most of you pushing that downvote button need to lose weight just as much as I do.

> Because it is. As you yourself allude to later...

No its not. Its nowhere near demonized as it should be.

> It clearly is not. I suspect the only people who believe that are the folks 'born on third base' as it were.

It's a failure of self control.

> Some people? The vast majority of people are overweight. Anyone who isn't fit & trim has no business commenting on anyone else's bad habits and moral failings. None. Got a little bit of a spare tire? Shush. Got some love handles? Shush. Skinny fat? Shush again!

Untrue. The vast majority of people in rich countries are overweight.

> It's a failure of self control.

Disagree. The root cause of the problem is that you can't apply to more willpower if you don't know how to actually fix it, and we don't.

There are currently 0 known methods to lose fat sustainably. Yea, you can starve yourself for a few weeks in a thousand ways, but none of them lead to lasting fat loss. Neither does any kind of exercise.

We need to find the true root cause, or this will not change.

Based on seeing what is in most shopping carts, most people are not even trying to control weight.

Starving one’s self is not necessary. Not buying ice cream, cookies, chips, added sugar foods, and beer is necessary. Do not eat out, and do not let unhealthy foods into the house. And do not shop while hungry.

The root cause is all that unhealthy stuff gives everyone a dopamine hit they want.

Living in an environment that discourages walking and physical activity in exchange for sitting in cars also does not help.

> Not buying ice cream, cookies, chips, added sugar foods, and beer is necessary. Do not eat out, and do not let unhealthy foods into the house. And do not shop while hungry.

I've done all that and more for 10 years and still gained 100lbs. Exercise didn't help, just made it worse. Yes, I've gained 20-30lbs (not muscle, I wish!) in a few months by exercising more. I've failed to lose fat doing 10 months of 4x per week intense exercise.

It just doesn't work.

Then I just lost almost 50lbs with some "crazy" diet experiment by eating as much heavy whipping cream as I feel like. No working out at all.

These mainstream theories of "just eat healthy" simply don't work for obese people.

I lost 150 pounds in 1.5 years doing literally nothing different but eating less, and kept it off for the next 15 (present)

You own failings are due to you lying to yourself about how much you eat.

Humans are not able to break the laws of thermodynamics. If you consume less than you burn, you will lose weight no matter what.

> You own failings are due to you lying to yourself about how much you eat.

False. How much you eat is only indirectly related to energy partitioning, which decides if that food energy will be burned or stored. Trust me, I've tried more than you and am more obsessed with the topic :)

You probably decreased carbs and PUFAs significantly as part of "eating less."

> Humans are not able to break the laws of thermodynamics. If you consume less than you burn, you will lose weight no matter what.

Ah, the ol' accounting tautology :)

Of course you're right, but of course it has nothing to do with the topic. "Being in an energy deficit" does not necessarily come from "eating less" or "exercising more" and eating less or exercising more do not guarantee a deficit.

Turns out the human body is full of miraculous biochemistry, it's not an oven.

> I lost 150 pounds

Ah, that explains it. You had a serious moral failing and you corrected it.

Sorry to hear that, and while I obviously cannot speak for your experiences, the lifestyles of overweight people I am familiar with does not lead me to believe they are making the necessary sacrifices to be a healthy weight.

There aren’t any exercise (in whatever amount) that lead to fat loss? Sounds like massive cope. It’s extremely obvious that doing something like running every day (if it leads to a calorie deficit) will make you lose fat.

Well, I've tried it. I've lost tons of weight, but never with exercise. So it's not cope, it's just a matter of science.

> It’s extremely obvious that doing something like running every day (if it leads to a calorie deficit) will make you lose fat.

But what if it doesn't because your body is a self-regulating dynamic system that changes energy partitioning and intake demands based on output?

Your body can't magic up energy out of nothingness. If you reduce your caloric intake enough, you'll always lose weight.

So you're saying science is wrong? Cause I ran the experiment and it failed.

The reason is, of course, that your body can downregulate energy expenditure according to energy intake. I've observed my body downregulate to about 1,000kcal/day. No fat loss on a 1kkcal/day OMAD diet for 2 months straight. No exceptions.

If you get below the bare minimum (say 1kkcal/day for me) your body will start shutting down pretty essential systems like the immune system, you won't be able to concentrate, sleep will be messed up.

Yes, I've done all these experiments, obviously.

> So you're saying science is wrong? Cause I ran the experiment and it failed.

So by "science", you mean your n=1 "experiment" and not conservation of energy?

Yes, of course. Only takes 1 experiment to disprove a hypothesis, remember?

Conservation of energy is a whole other story and I don't see how it's related to fat loss.

If you spend more energy than your body takes in, there is no way you don’t lose weight, no matter what your body does with it.

If someone isn’t losing weight on a caloric deficit, they’re not tracking their food intake and exercise properly.

The problem is: human body is very energy efficient, and processed food is very calorie dense. Burning enough calories to make up for all the junk food is almost impossible, except maybe for professional athletes that spend 5+ hours a day training or competing. You can't outrun a doughnut, basically.

When you start having a sense of how many cals any amount of exercise burns, no. It's way faster not to ingest them in the first place.

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