I don’t know if it’s rooted in jealousy over access the drug (either via insurance or having a provider willing to prescribe) or whether it’s because people see those who take it for weight loss as “cheating”.
And then I listed to a few. The stories are horrific.
Most have tried 10+ different diets throughout their life, none of them successful in the long term. They get fat-shamed, discriminated against, insulted.
They go to a doctor for any reason whatsoever, even for things totally unrelated to obesity, and their doctors tell them to lose weight. Either in a very careful and sympathetic manner, or very condescendingly.
Many develop shame, anxiety and anger around the topic.
I've also learned how hard it is to change deep-seated behaviors, especially if your environment isn't really helping, or provides incentives in the other direction.
In the end, most medical intervention are a form of "cheating". Your eyes aren't good? Wear glasses or contact lenses. Your immune system can't cope with these bacteria? take antibiotics. Cholesterol too high? Take a statin (or whatever it's called). Can't control your eating habits and hunger? Take GLP-1s.
We should strive to reduce our moralizing and help those we can help.
I've felt and thought about it the same way for a long time. Especially because the solution to obesity is just so easy: Eat less (and healthier) and exercise more.
It's just so easy, just do it. Why do I struggle with that? Well, probably not disciplined enough. Time to feel bad about that and question everything or at least something...
In theory it is easy, but reality is much more nuanced with job or personal stress, psychic health, impact of your surroundings, your body chemistry being disturbed and whatnot. This medicine seems (so far) to take stress (somewhat) out of it, so I can focus on changing the underlying behaviour without having to worry about calorie counting at the same moment.
But yes, if you stop taking it, and nothing has changed, you will probably bloat up again.
No one is screaming at a schizophrenic to summon the willpower to stop hearing voices, but many certainly will do so to those fighting addictions or other ingrained behavior. This might seem like false equivalence, but they are both abnormal psychological traits, one happens to rely on the environment more than the other.
As another example, some animals will overfeed if you let them, and you can craft super obese animals genetically. No one is damning fat squirrels, screaming "If only they had the willpower to stop overfeeding!"
I think it'll be gone over the next few years as these drugs become more prevalent.
No, it's because you can get the same result, plus other ancillary benefits, by simply stopping the behavior causing the issue.
Imagine smokers rambling they can't stop smoking because bad tobacco put addicting chemicals in their cigs. Just put that shit out already, right? Same for food. Eating for survival =/= the american diet.
Processed food is bad, and everywhere. Ok. What are you going to do, take semaglutide and then eat the same shit, but a bit less? Or are you going to switch to healthier food? Then why don't you switch now and skip taking a medicine for the rest of your days?
GLP1 is a drug to heal the lack of willpower, not to heal the body.
And people who are 5'7" can dunk basketball if they "simply" jump higher.
Must be nice to have a metabolic system that works correctly. A lot of us don't.
For too long obesity as a mental fitness issue without considering underlying causes. Too often overeating is considered the cause not the symptom.
For many, our bodies lie, telling us we need to eat because our blood sugar is low, when in fact it's already normal-high but other process is getting in the way of energy production.
Ok, and so what? If some people lack the willpower of others, and this drug helps them gain that willpower, isn't that great?
You sound like someone telling a clinically depressed person "just stop being sad".