Fat Men's Clubs (2016)
npr.org
npr.org
Today most young kids are glued to an iPad. At dinner, in the car, at home, everywhere. Maybe we'll look back at this behavior one day, similar to how we think of smoking or eating too much.
This is all a very selective lens, I'd say the younger generations now are better informed, more empathetic and curious. I don't blame them for "being glued" to their devices, they have the option to have friends and collaborators the world over, it's a more interesting life to be younger now than in any previous generation, notwithstanding the political and socioeconomic pressures (but I guess all generations have/had their demons to slay).
None of the generational research I have seen even remotely supports the "better informed" conclusion, and my anecdata from interacting with current undergrads suggests the opposite very strongly -- current undergrads are *substantially* less well-informed than the zillenials and millenials were about politics, current events, etc.
Not sure about about empathetic and curious, though those smell less implausible.
Hence why every single weight loss advice says 10% of it is physical exercise, 90% of it is diet (but highly recommends the physical exertion anyway for many side bennies)
https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/weight-loss-drugs-obesity-...
Unless you believe we're not animals too, numerous animal studies have shown this. The GLP agonists were discovered, I believe, during an experiment on diabetes meds with rats, where the rats ate so little that they nearly starved themselves.
Hunger is a drive controlled by hormones, and something in the Western diet has hijacked it.
And tell me, what percent of people successfully pull this off conventionally, in the long term, again?
If you took that success percentage and applied it to literally anything else, would it still make sense to blame the person who's trying but failing to be part of that percentage?
a) That movement is unrelated to diet, which is not true. Every moment that you're walking to the bus stop, that you're spending on the bus, that you're hanging out at the fat men's club is a moment that you're not eating.
b) That diet isn't related to behavior, which is also false. Being happy with other people likely reduces depression-driven eating triggers.
> Hunger is a drive controlled by hormones, and something in the Western diet has hijacked it.
Why does it have to be only diet and not environment? You could similarly claim that uncontrolled social media in the Western world is driving large numbers of people to depression and overeating.
The current second-best way are the GLP agonist drugs, which tweak hormones.
A very, very distant third is behavior modification/"changing diet and exercise regimen".
Now, to avoid gaining in the first place, you do have some points.
Someday soon, we're going to finally figure out the hideously complex orchestration of hunger, satiety and fat storage in the human body, and the obesity epidemic will finally end, and for the rest of human history this will be known as the "obesity era" /sigh
Lastly, speaking as a Mounjaro taker, you don't quite understand how this works. I do not have to exert willpower from the daily finite reserve I get in order to will it downwards. I do not have to change what I eat. I do not have to force myself to fast. I do not have to exercise (in fact, I exercise for other reasons, such as mood and mental clarity!). I do not have to calorie-track. I do not have to limit myself to specific foods. Here's what happens: I'm simply less hungry and reach satiety much quicker and that makes all the difference. I have far fewer "naggy" feelings of wanting to snack, I often don't finish meals, and I can use that spare willpower on other things in my life that need it, which is fantastic.
A Chemical Hunger opens up with a list of mysteries related to the obesity epidemic. I don’t endorse the list – for one, “wild animals are becoming obese” seems to have been pretty much made up (see the fourth point in this comment), and all evidence we have that “lab animals are becoming obese” is exactly one (1) unreplicated paper co-authored by a guy that has been involved in numerous controversies regarding his conflict of interest with the processed food and restaurant industries.[8]
This sometimes being seen as an acceptable cost to not have to look at working children gets us into the very much evil category. Its quite gut wrenching how often such distanced simplified signaling results in horrific situations for the people on the ground, even without bad intentions.
Just like we see some people being cancelled now for being casually racist in the 90s(eg blackface at parties), I think we might see people be cancelled who make jokes in 2020 like "I like my hamburger rare so you can taste the soul of the cow" and stuff like that.
Instead we got social media. Pretty sure if I am around in 30 years, I won’t be eating lab grown meat or yeast cubes and there will still be no jet packs for us consumers to be flitting about on avoiding traffic.
Or more likely - lab grown meat will be inferior but natural animal meat will be highly regulated for some arbitrary moralistic reason so only the wealthy can partake.
/remindme!30yrs
a) posture is dramatically overrated, in general. Having good posture confers few benefits. Would love to see studies refuting this but I'm not aware of any.
b) Posture is a habit. If you change your habits, it will change. There's no magic to it. Just remember to sit straight. If it's uncomfortable... that's just how it is. I don't recommend it. People have been lounging and slouching since we started walking upright.
c) Postural muscles are often weak, so general strength and conditioning can make a big difference in how taxing it is to use your postural muscles often. A deadlift and some heavy shrugs or farmer's carry are often more effective in my personal experience than any amount of reminders and bracing.
Anyway, there's no time like the present to make a change like that, and you're never too old to start. People in their 70s benefit markedly from strength endurance training and calisthenics as long as they're slow and cautious about ramping it up. I don't imagine you're 70, but even if you are, get a doctor's signoff and go nuts.
For example, anterior pelvic tilt, which usually comes from being hunched over on a keyboard, causes gait problems (since your lower spine is curved more outwards than it should be), which causes additional stress to knees, ankles, and the lower back that can become problematic later in life.
Then there's "tech neck", which happens when your neck is craned downwards towards a device for far far longer than it should be (yay infinite scrolling and endless content juiced for constant micro dopamine hits!). This causes your shoulders and traps to compensate for this unnatural position, which can lead to upper back injuries.
Endemic back problems are basically game over for a comfortable lifestyle. You use your back for EVERYTHING, especially lifting things. Once you have irreversible back damage, your quality of life drops by a lot. Forget running or contact sports, and forget lifting anything heavy. In more serious cases, you can say hello to taking terminal pain meds to do normal light-touch activities that were easy in the past.
But this is one of those things that rears its head at 45, not 25. Kind of like texting while driving (I.e. socionormalized addiction). It's totally chill to text at the red or in traffic because nothings happening...until you hit a car or a pedestrian who crossed the intersection late because you tapped the accelerator out of habit without gathering situational awareness.
Most of the reviews of PT literature I've read say "well you can spend a lot of time and effort trying to fix kyphosis/pelvic tilt through cueing, stretching, and bracing but it's not effective", whereas strength endurance exercises indirectly fix it and other issues as well. I'd love to hear more though, I have suffered from both and only was able to fix them with strength training. Ditto low back pain.
Ouch. I'm about 235 and 6'3" (190cm). I haven't seen the other side of 200 since 1993
Down from 275 and trying to reach 200 though (Mounjaro)
slaps forehead but it was so simple! please, do smoking next!
Up into the 70s the average lineman was 250.
I guess they all could be in fat mens clubs. Wild.