With the advent of Ozympic, it would be cool if at some point being slim became so commonplace and boring that we flipped back to being attracted to fat people like the middle ages.
This should not be surprising. Attraction is pretty hard-wired into humans by evolution, and for most of our existence, food has been scarce. There is absolutely no reason why a time of more plentiful food due to agriculture (relative to most of human history) would have resulted in changing the body types we generally prefer. To say nothing of evolution's timescales, which are measured in tens of thousands of generations for significant changes like that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8044k7/is_it...
- more trendiness of muscles/fitness
- plastic surgery (like the russian/housewives-of inflated lips)
People are lazy, I get it, but ozempic should provide the enabler for big people to get fit: it gets rid of a whole lot of fat that increases stresses on their joints. So you lose weight with ozempic, and then you could ... ideally ... start a good fitness program.
But we all know it will be used just for the pill popping convenience.
I believe Ozempic will probably lead to a lot of thin, but sarcopenic people.
Greasy, fatty, hyper processed foods are a quick trip to nausea-ville for me. The thought of a meatlovers pizza physically turns my stomach now. I am irrationally happy when my partner wants to go out to eat and we go somewhere that has grilled salmon on a salad. I'm not being driven by all the little fats and salts and cheeses they add to food to make it more additive, I can freely choose, and enjoy, healthier less processed options.
It's also crazy the portion sizes. Like I'm losing just under a pound a week, that should mean I have roughly a 400 calorie a day deficit (roughly 1.5 klondke bars). I routinely eat half of what's served in restaurants, or a third, and still have a minuscule deficit. Portion sizes in the US are just too damn big, and everyone expects them.
My partner has found it harder to eat large meals since I'm not eating large meals and he's lost weight too. It's been fantastic for both of us.
Hell yeah sounds good to me.
Just as an anecdote, I used to not understand how people got so fat. Just eat less lol? I’ve been a little light for my size pretty much my whole life, so I didn’t quite understand. In fact, if it were up to me I probably wouldn’t eat at all. So the concept of being overweight was foreign to me and I assumed that fat people must be lazy/weak/whatever. As I got older and a little more in tune with my body, I noticed what sugar cravings are really like. And my god, when that part of the brain complains, it gets front and center stage. I specifically remember trying hard to resist reaching for a soda for like an hour. I conceded and drank one. I couldn’t focus otherwise. Then I realized that there are people (typically easily spotted) that live every day of their life like this. And I get that the brain is hardwired for gluttony- I will literally never eat enough food in my life- so it’s a rather natural thing to want Calories. I’m lucky that I’ve got a passable relationship with food. I feel for those who struggle with it. I’m also glad that there is a stop-gap in drugs like ozempic that help effectively curtail eating, today. I’m also hopeful that the drugs of tomorrow will be even safer and more effective than we have now and that the systemic sources of obesity in society erode away. I think the future is only getting brighter (and lighter) for the millions struggling with their weight.
It's an hormonal imbalance, I 'fixed' it by fasting (you need access, time and money to do that in a controlled way, but you can also wing it. Careful, the second day is extremely painful). If you can fix it with medication and without torturing yourself (which the fast felt like), more power to everyone.
[edit] also you have a pretty empathic way of thinking.
This isn't really true. Or it doesn't have to be.
If you look at people with high muscle mass, you'll notice something. They eat a lot. Like... a lot.
Michael Phelps famously ate close to 10,000 calories a day. Now granted, he swam a lot. But did he burn 8,000 calories a day swimming and hitting the gym? No.
When you have more muscle, you burn more calories. Always, even when you sleep. So while a 20 minute run might only burn 150 calories... how many did you burn by running 20 minutes every day and building up leg muscles? Now it's harder to tell.
Personally I always used exercise, then you don't need to starve yourself, and you get all the benefits of hard exercise. But it's a discipline either, and hard for your typical weak-willed average first worlder.
First worlders have jobs and good economies as a consolation prize I guess.
Getting fit is a big psychological and lifestyle barrier, I agree. But, not having an excess 50-200 lbs sure helps if someone does try to start.
No I don't think you do.
We are dealing with a global crisis of obesity. We have a disease more prolific than ever before. There is something about the human brain that is wrong or imcompatible with the modern surplus of food. Something about our reward centers doesn't work. Not with modern society.
Addiction of this scale cannot be solved with individual actions. "Just stop" doesn't save an alcoholic, nor does it save a smoker. Fundamentally we need to rewrite how we view obesity.
We need solutions. Not more of this "try harder" fluff. Because it just doesn't work. If what you're saying is true, we wouldn't be in this mess. Obesity is more complex than we give it credit. It goes back to the food industry, health industry, advertisement. We can't just ignore everything and continue our "do nothing" approach.
This is not a discipline problem, this is a human problem. The solution MUST then target humans, not their actions. If that's a drug, for now, that's fine.
And there are examples like Iceland (this is secondhand from when Iceland made the World Cup, I don't have stats) where strongly enforced/encouraged sports participation leads to huge generational improvements in overall health.
Exercise has a 1 month hump. You need to stick to it for 1 month before it sticks and your body's endorphin rush + increased pain tolerance overcomes the initial discomfort/shock of exercise. One month is obviously a long way.
It does seem insurmountable to some degree based on decades of slow descent to the obesity valley that is America, but there are counterexamples in the world.
But we also have never had a government that REALLY embraced comprehensive fitness and health policies over a generational timespan, despite ample evidence it would improve productivity, reduce health care costs, increase mental health, improve quality of life, increase intelligence, improve cooperation / social interaction / culture, and probably increase fecundity and turn around the demographic declines of advanced first world economies.
That means extensive changes to schooling, heavily incentivizing the reconfiguration of urban centers for more human power transport, lots of facilities, probably a sea change of health care policy. There are huge and powerful lobbies that would probably kill those initiatives, from big corn syrup, big tobacco, big media, AMA, etc.
You're describing a societal solution. Not an individual one.
To be clear, you are agreeing with me. We need top-down big solution from the government and it needs to start in our schools.
The trouble is societal change is very slow. Very. For now, a drug will do. Because the alternative will take 80 or so years to take effect.
Nowadays the sky's the limit for how beautiful one can be.