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Comment by timcobb | Hacker News Reader

> but you have the choice to step out of the fat trap.

People should also talk about the volition trap. I'm 40 and it feels like I've had more than a life's worth of people talking about how "you can do it if you just try!"

> ... advertising signs that con / you into thinking you can do what's never been done / meantime life goes on all around you

The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we are not the problem, that our volitions are not the problem. Certainly so many people can't be too weak to regulate one of the most basic facets of existence? How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation? Certainly so many people shouldn't have to try so hard? Sure, some people succeed, but in world where the overwhelming majority are failing, maybe "trying harder" is just akin to insanity?

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I love Dr Jason Fung. His position is that our current system focuses on calories and not eating all the time, not avoiding processed foods, being insulin insensitive, and eating real food. Here's a good video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgmFEb0b0TI His hypothesis is that having high levels of insulin is the issue.

People need to remember that being insulin resistant and being overweight are chronic conditions. You won't be able to fix them overnight. Don't focus on decreasing calories, focus on eating real food. The article mentions this too.

One thing that was counterintuitive to me is that most people's bodies produce insulin in response to artificial sugar so there's no real difference between diet coke and coke on your body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzdwiOfW4b8&pp=ygURbGF5bmUgb...

In India, most people don't take huge junk food. They still get diabetes because of calorie heavy food and eating all time without letting the stomach get empty even for a minute.

It's the food addiction. People can't stop eating just like alcohol, cigarette or drugs.

I agree we shouldn't eat all the time. That's what was in my comment.

Quick question, in addition to eating all of the time do they eat processed foods like I mentioned in my comment? Examples include soda, white rice, flour (Naan), etc. https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/curbing-indias-ult...

A lot of people mentioning willpower but not as much attention is given to the fact that everything in our millions of years evolutionary design is biased toward heavy reward for caloric foods, and within the past 100 years we are suddenly in an environment where those cravings can be fulfilled in abundance.

A modern diet is a restrictive diet. We live in a time when half of our produced food is thrown away. That's why veganism makes so much sense nowadays. Nothing about the modern diet is "natural" for most people.

Meat was awesome when calories were sparse/intermittent. Now it's just excess for the sake of a status symbol. Same can be said about a lot of our foods.

>We live in a time when half of our produced food is thrown away.

I don't see how this is a relevant fact. If we threw away 10x the food does that make our diet even more unhealthy? Moreover if technological innovations like refrigeration decreases food waste, does that magically make our diet healthy again?

>That's why veganism makes so much sense nowadays. Nothing about the modern diet is "natural" for most people.

>Meat was awesome when calories were sparse/intermittent. Now it's just excess for the sake of a status symbol. Same can be said about a lot of our foods.

If you turn back the clock even more (ie. pre-agriculture), you'd probably see the reverse (ie. more meat consumption).

> If you turn back the clock even more (ie. pre-agriculture), you'd probably see the reverse (ie. more meat consumption).

I believe you're agreeing with the comment you're commenting on. Before calories were easily available, meat was the most reliable form of protein and fat in most environments.

>If you turn back the clock even more (ie. pre-agriculture), you'd probably see the reverse (ie. more meat consumption).

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Or really your entire reply doesn't make much sense.

Pre-agriculture people starved on a regular basis. Calories were scarce in general which is why meat was important. It was a calorie and nutrient bomb when those were irregular/hard to come by.

And even then their diets were primarily plant based, think about 80%. Analysis of human scat remains has repeatedly confirmed that ancient diets were primarily plant based. Most of this research comes from academia in countries not obsessed with beef(not the US).

Modern misinformation directly contradicts fact in this area and much of it is driven by cattle/dairy industries and bro-science marketing that the carnivore diet makes ya stronk/patriotic/manly. In reality, the meat heavy western diet is associated with a long list of preventable diseases and ailments. Gotta love heart attacks at 40 yrs old cuz of these beef heavy diets.

Which is easier(and burns less calories) to harvest: an animal you have to spend hours tracking/killing/processing or stationary plants you can forage throughout the day? Remember, they didn't have guns, vehicles, etc. This was spears and running in the elements.

>I don't see how this is a relevant fact.

Meat was great when calories and nutrients were scarce. Nobody is denying that. However, we live in 2025, not 10000BC, which means calories and nutrients are so abundant to the point we throw away half of what we produce. This means the benefit of meat is no longer a benefit.

Meat is awesome when you need an optimal mix of nutrients — not just empty calories. Of course it's certainly possible to get the right proportions of macronutrients and sufficient micronutrients on a vegan diet but it takes a lot more planning and attention to detail.

> an optimal mix of nutrients

not much: meats lacks A. fibers and B. carbohydrate. Some can argue removing B isn't a bad idea, it certainly is quire restrictive. Removing A. have many short and long terms effects that are not very desirable.

Therefore most meat eaters also eat thinks like vegetables, beans, grains etc... which "unbalance" the "right proportions" (if that exist) of meat. It's very hard to achieve near perfect macro and micro nutriments if not with an artificial and perfectly calculated meals taking into account daily physical activity, psychological state, temperature, infections exposure etc... I'm not even sure ISS guys get such a calculation.

> sufficient micronutrients

This is easily done by eating plenty of plants -which is exactly what non meat eaters do- and a pill of B12. One can count but it's not more necessary than if they want a perfectly balanced meat diet, which also have its "problems" when not perfectly balanced.

How does veganism help in this case? The problem is not meat, the problem is junk food, high sugar and carbs.

If by "veganism", you simply mean healthy diet, then I agree.

Think of it this way: Meat is a junk food. It's a calorie bomb that lacks essential macronutrients, fiber being a key one. Without managing your intake it leads to health problems. It can be addictive("But meat is soooo delicious I could never give it up"). It's not necessary for your survival; it is optional in 2025.

Sure sounds like a junk food.

Then there is the long list of benefits of giving up meat. Not just for you but the environment, which means it benefits every living creature on the planet.

Something being evolutionary is not an argument for anything. Just like something being natural isn't necessarily good for you.

Sometimes I really really want to punch a certain coworker in the face, but I still don't, and that's despite the temptation by "evolutionary design".

I agree. I really like wearing shoes for example.

It's still worth noting everything in our programming wants us to consume sweet foods, but this is maladaptive in the modern world.

> [...] I still don't, and that's despite the temptation by "evolutionary design".

This too, is downstream of evolutionary design. What drove us into becoming that which cares about discovering and conforming to complex social structures / rules?

> ... "within the past 100 years we are suddenly in an environment where those cravings can be fulfilled in abundance."

And an environment where a massive completely out of control advertising industry that's injected into pretty much everything these days abuses every psychological trick in the book to capitalize on those evolutionary cravings.

This. If the ad industry put half as much effort into promoting healthy eating, we wouldn't train everyone to eat poorly and/or excessively at a young age.

FFS, look at how long it took to get calorie counts on menu signage! And that's the lowest hanging fruit.

1. Fix fast food + the ad industry by financially penalizing pushing unhealthy food.

2. Rework the food supply chain to support healthier eating. (Less ultra-processed, shelf-stable items, more easy-to-cook healthy options + increase availability in food deserts)

Between lost productivity and end of life health expenses, I can't believe there isn't an economic argument for this.

It's difficult to drive systematic changes in the food supply chain because there are so many different entities involved, each trying to maximize profit. But we are finally seeing limited positive steps with some states banning junk food purchases with food stamps (SNAP) and the FDA banning some synthetic food dyes.

https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-ten-states-changing-rules...

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/hhs-fda-...

> the FDA banning some synthetic food dyes.

This feels like a really weird first thing to spend effort on. I don't think it would make a list of the top 100 things to fix in the US food system.

For the most part, supply follows from demand than the other way around. If people cared more about healthy food more than convenient and tasty food, then companies will sell and advertise healthier food. Chinatowns were historically poor, but they never turned into food deserts because vegetables are a quintessential part of Chinese cuisine.

Taxing unhealthy food may work, but that would also piss a lot of people off who have their palates destroyed from eating too junk food, especially since you'd need taxes to be high enough to basically force people to change their habits. Subsidies for healthy food tend to benefit the the upper-middle class the most. Subsidizing school lunches that are both healthy and not disgusting is the only option I see as both feasible and effective.

> Chinatowns were historically poor, but they never turned into food deserts because vegetables are a quintessential part of Chinese cuisine.

The key component you're talking about here is culture, which is absolutely malleable to advertising over intermediate timespans.

Look at the Chinese shift towards greater amounts of meat consumption, driven by its promotion as a symbol of wealth.

And many of these beliefs are set in childhood. Imho, the rest of the world would do well to follow the Japanese/French tradition, where introducing children to healthy food options is taken seriously.

>Certainly so many people can't be too weak to regulate one of the most basic facets of existence? How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation?

There have been fundamental shifts in CI and CO. Food went from fundamentally scarce and requiring effort to fairly abundant, and the effort to acquire keeps going down. Over the course of US history we have gone from farmers to factory workers to desk workers. Each of those transitions has lowered "natural" daily CO, as such each one has brought about weight increases.

>"trying harder" is just akin to insanity?

Yes, try smarter. CI/CO is true but I find it to be bad advice because a) it is damn near impossible to measure, and b) straight forward CI/CO changes can lead to opposite results.

What I find works for me:

Cut CI a little bit, large calorie cuts can slow metabolism. Up CO a little bit, exercise boosts metabolism even when not working out. Anerobic is better at boosting metabolism than aerobic.

Food wise, sugar and salt drive the human appetite. Reducing them will help you not feel as hungry while reducing CI. The other is just get used to eating less. Low food days help reorient to smaller meals feeing right. By "low food day" I mean find something small, low sugar, and salt (personally I use unsalted peanuts) when you feel hungry stop and focus on the feeling and try to determine if it is actual hunger or just habit hunger, if it is "real" hunger then eat a handful of peanuts and wait 15min before you reevaluate. The day after eating less will feel normal.

This is all great. It also helps to drink a lot of water.

I don’t want to disagree with you but I have a hard time with preaching that people are not be personally responsible for themselves.

I get your point that genes are important and some are blessed while others are not. But regardless what your genes are, you need to find a way to take care of yourself. You are not entitled to someone else taking responsibility for you and your problems.

> you need to find a way to take care of yourself

Here's the crux of the issue; for most people who are fat, finding a way to take care of themselves is so onerous, complex, and difficult that they're not technically stuck, but they're effectively stuck. If you need to drive more than an hour to get access to food that won't be terrible for you, it's not surprising that so many people have a problem.

Slowly getting into fasting is not onerous, complex, and difficult. It just sucks, especially when you're physically addicted.

But no one needs to eat above BMR? Eat whatever you want but control the portion.

Who is shoving food down your throat for years on end?

Millions of years of evolution.

evolution makes food taste good. society creates status games to regulate this behavior?

Their choices led them to get stuck and their choices are the only thing that can get them unstuck. Maybe they don’t want to get unstuck, who are we to tell people how to live?

It's not genes here, it's the food industry, constant advertising... There's an entire industry predicated on keeping people fat through overconsumption.

Telling people they should "take care of themselves" is cute, but it's completely pointless. You have to solve the systemic issues.

> How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation?

IMO: because we have always had nowhere near enough food. Agriculture revolution was what, 10,000 years ago? That's a blip.

It's entirely possible in my mind that the same mechanism and behaviors that fuel obesity were actually helpful for almost all of human history. It's just now, like right now, that they're a problem.

And it becomes even more obvious to me when I look at other animals. I look at my cute dog. If I gave him infinite access to food, I have no doubt he'd be dead by the end of the week. Is he stupid? Is he broken? Or was he never intended to be in that situation?

> IMO: because we have always had nowhere near enough food. Agriculture revolution was what, 10,000 years ago? That's a blip.

I think its the opposite, agricultural is much more reliable food so then population could grow until everyone barely starved. Before then people either had more food than they could use or they just died from starvation, people generally lived better lives before agriculture but there were much less people.

The reason we grow fat is because its good to be fat when you are a hunter gatherer, since there is more food than you can possible eat when you kill a large animal you just eat as much as you can, and then you survive better if you don't find another kill for a while.

Agriculture only started to produce enough food for everyone when we human stopped multiplying, before then starvation was only a few generations away as people would multiply exponentially until there isn't enough food again.

Societal norms are the problem. We’ve normalized unhealthy food. Big business has figured hit that if they make processed/refined foods easily accessible, you will buy them. Nobody wins here except shareholders, and only those shareholders in good health who don’t have to compete to get access from doctors who are overbooked with patients who have manifested a chronic illness that is statistically correlated with the aforementioned food.

> Certainly so many people can't be too weak to regulate one of the most basic facets of existence?

Why not? We're all weak, in one way or another.

> How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation?

There never was enough calories to go around. Getting as much as you can and storing them for later as fat used to make sense until very, very recently.

I’m thin but I agree with you, I don’t have to think or try to be this way, I just am. I do probably have healthier habits than average. But still, it comes naturally to me. I would feel awful and exhausted if it took willpower all the time just to maintain my weight.

The premise of western civilization is that most of us are unfit idiots and natural slaves and we must fight to get out of our miserable subaltern state.

> The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we are not the problem, that our volitions are not the problem. Certainly so many people can't be too weak to regulate one of the most basic facets of existence? How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation? Certainly so many people shouldn't have to try so hard? Sure, some people succeed, but in world where the overwhelming majority are failing, maybe "trying harder" is just akin to insanity?

At least in the US where the problem is much worse than in the EU, I would say the major driving factor is the lack of cheap healthy foods.

We're starting to get more healthy options in the US but the problem I see again and again is that food is always painted as "trendy" and therefore commands a higher price. I can go into McDonalds and buy fries and a cheeseburger for around ~$5. But if I try to get a healthier option from another place I'm looking at $10-15 for just about anything.

Every time I travel to Europe or Latin America I'm always shocked at how easy it is to find cheap healthy food. I can pop down to a local fast food place and for around $5 get a piece of chicken, beans and rice. This by no means fancy but it's solid healthy food.

But if you go to the grocery store, enough beans and vegetables to last multiple meals will run you $5...

Watch other people shop at the grocery store. They buy the vegetables, beans, raw meats, and dairy. They spend more time there than anywhere else on the store.

Watch what other people eat in their day. How many of their calories came from meals created with only the above ingredients? 25%?

I’ve heard this before and just don’t get it. Buying healthy food is generally cheaper, or just as expensive in my experience. Buy some vegetables, some chicken, some fruit, eggs. These are generally very affordable, you just have to cook with them.

Sure, buying Just Salad is more expensive than buying McDonald’s, but that’s not the only options.

The bigger problem IMO: we put way more sugar, sweeteners, and addictive substances in food and have big portions where people feel obligated to finish. It’s very easy to eat 100g of sugar every day and hardly notice. Combine that with most American activities involving food and alcohol.

We have a culture that encourages eating and food that responds by being more eatable

>At least in the US where the problem is much worse than in the EU, I would say the major driving factor is the lack of cheap healthy foods.

And portion sizes! There a several factors that lead to such large portions. Americans expect (and now desire, thanks to the ever expanding gut lines) to be stuffed from an ordered meal so producers spend the extra $1 on food costs to ensure larger portions and fewer complaints. We'd complain is the the $9 burger was made into 1/3 sized $3 burgers. Additionally the fixed costs of running a food joint require to low cost and high margin items (like fountain soda) to survive.

Portion size isn't an issue if you make your own food like most of the world does. But that is just yet another reason why Americans are fat I guess, its easier to get fat when you don't cook the food you eat.

A couple of years ago, I was researching modern food science (for unrelated reasons). What really struck me was how focused we are on product longevity. Everything must have low available water in order to survive warehouses, transit, and shelves. Sugar, sodium, oils, and phosphates are all just tools to accomplish this.

Put another way, the bag of chips at the American grocery is _designed from concept to factory_ to be unable to support living beings. Microorganisms would die from dehydration trying to eat the chips. But due to a bug in human psychology, when we eat them we just feel more hungry. There only regulating feeling we get is guilt.

> Put another way, the bag of chips at the American grocery is _designed from concept to factory_ to be unable to support living beings.

This is a weird leap. Yes, there is some degree of modern engineering in packaged food to prevent spoilage but "unable to support living beings" is the wrong conclusion. You're implying the food lacks nutritive value, which is not true.

That is because Americans shop every 2 weeks so things need to last 2 weeks.

In other countries that shops more frequently there is less need for that, and there these products has much fewer additives.

There is a blame industry and an excuses industry in an arms race with each other.

A real mystery indeed ... Or ... we are slowing moving towards some crescendo where all this enshittification is intertwined: cheap packaging, maliciously deceptive marketing, marketing EVERYWHERE, garbage food, exploited workers, etc. The "rant" about corporations are ruining everything is just real life now more than ever. Finding healthy food is difficult and getting more expensive. In general finding quality anything is getting more difficult and more expensive. All while we are bludgeoned with advertising that tells us the opposite.

The idea that one person could fight this battle day in and day out on their own if they just try harder seems comical at best. Feels like victim blaming to be honest and I hate it. Make healthy food easy to find, identify and buy and tax trash food because it is a burden on the community, just like actual pollution/cigarettes/etc.

Do or do not, there is no try.

When you frame the issue as a matter of willpower or trying harder then you're already setting yourself up to fail. Everyone that I know who has succeeded in maintaining a healthy body composition has done so through permanent lifestyle changes in which they set up better defaults and positive habits. The daily exercise program then becomes something that they have to do whether they want to or not, rather that something that they can really choose. And some of these people literally used to be obese alcoholics, so it's totally possible. Discipline has to be progressively built up over time through exercising it, just like a muscle.

I think sticking with is is still hard. You can commit to doing hard things and still fail - aka "trying hard".

The longer you stick with it, the easier it becomes. It's just a matter of habits and discipline, not trying hard.

I think that's a simplistic take, or at least not a universal thing. For many (most?) people it simply doesn't work like that.

Plenty of reasonable, disciplined people do all the reasonable things to develop new habits and fail.

> The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we are not the problem

The "obesity pandemic" is a very distinct trait of USA. The rest of the world does not have this problem at this magnitude.

The rest of the developed world is catching up.

Most of the rest of the world is where the US was 20-30 years ago when the US certainly had an “obesity pandemic”.

There are 127 countries with an obesity rate higher than 20% (roughly what the US was at 30 years ago).

In nearly every country in the world, your ancestors from 30 years ago would call you fat.

The US is just ahead of the curve for some reason.

Depending on the coutnry, this is somewhat overstated.

For example, here in Europe it's rather clear just by eye (but also borne out in the data) that the increase in obesity here is actually just an increase in age.

Older people (up to a point) tend to be plumper than young people. The rapidly increasing average age in Europe then causes an average increase in obesity.

There’s something to that. Obesity rates do peak in middle age (but they drop after that).

But obesity rates don’t correlate well with average country age, and if you look at childhood obesity rates in Europe they have increased dramatically.

Most European countries have childhood obesity rates close to the US childhood obesity rates in the early 90, many are much higher.

The US has also increased in average age quite a bit as well.

While the US is one of the most severe cases (and in particular has a large number of _very_ obese people, making it more _visible_), most of the world does have an obesity problem.

The answer, I believe, is that we are unique among all other creatures in that we are not equipped to be able to master our own actions. We all do things we would say we ought not to have done. The whole concept of fairness is built around the fact that people don’t always do what they should.

And just because everybody isn’t fat doesn’t mean they don’t struggle with porn, or substance abuse, or some other hangup they can’t seem to shake. In fact it’s the people who deny having any issues that are sometimes the least self-aware, having the most glaringly obvious issues to everyone else around them.

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