Comment by borski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by borski | Hacker News Reader

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It's nice that that worked for you. Please clarify how "ozempic encourages poor nutrition" (it doesn't), and how it "entrenches body dysmorphia" (it doesn't).

Specifically, doctors prescribing GLP-1 meds counsel you on diet and exercise because it is necessary for the GLP-1 meds to be most effective, and "working out and eating responsibly" is not new advice to people who have been obese for a long time. Also, the moral judgment of "just need to work harder" is trash, and untrue. I guarantee you people who have been obese a long time have not spent their entire lives just "being okay with it." They walk into a doctor's office crying, not knowing what to do, at the end of their rope, or they have simply completely given up ever trying again because it has never worked.

Sometimes, it is laziness. It would be absurd for me to argue that is never true. But that is a tiny minority, and I would bet money on that.

You know what creates far more longevity? Not being obese, and working out and eating responsibly. Sometimes, in order to achieve that, some people need help; and we finally have some help in the form of these GLP-1 medications.

I'm not sure why anyone would be against people finally getting healthy.

Well I'd say it encourages poor nutrition by allowing people to continue to eat terrible food, while briefly suppressing their appetite for it by slowing down gastric emptying. While this isn't every case, people's nutritional choices are unchallenged and often remain unchanged.

That flows to the dysmorphia stuff. I meant that it indirectly encourages body dysmorphia because it side-steps the shame and compulsive behavior that lead to the person's original obesity. So long after the weight-loss, you remain freighted with the toxic "weight-based" mental model of your body, rather than a holistic one of nutrition and well-being.

> Well I'd say it encourages poor nutrition by allowing people to continue to eat terrible food, while briefly suppressing their appetite for it by slowing down gastric emptying. While this isn't every case, people's nutritional choices are unchallenged and often remain unchanged.

Someone on a nicotine patch can still smoke while they have it on. Does a nicotine patch encourage smoking?

The way the medication is supposed to be prescribed is with lifestyle changes, including diet and exercise. People don't have to follow that, but it certainly doesn't encourage them to eat worse.

> That flows the dysmorphia stuff. I meant that it indirectly encourages body dysmorphia because it side-steps the shame and compulsive behavior that lead to the person's original obesity. So long after the weight-loss, you remain freighted with the toxic "weight-based" mental model of your body, rather than a holistic one of nutrition and well-being.

I can see how you would logic that out, but it isn't true in my experience, on average. The shame and compulsive behavior that led to the person's original obesity usually compounds on itself, and people come to these medications when they want help. No doctor is forcing these down an obese patient's throat, or injecting them directly. It is still up to the patient to decide they want help.

Most don't simply want to be thin. Most want to play with their kids, be able talk a walk around the block, be able to breathe better, and so on. Obese people don't want to be thin - they want to be healthy. In fact, most assume they will never be thin, because it seems so unattainable. They just want to get to a place where they aren't dying faster than everyone else each day.

So no, I don't think anyone on this medication "develops" body dysmorphia in the sense you're thinking, though I could see why having not gone through it you might thing it does.

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