I love posts like this because it always has the subtle insinuation that weight gain is some moral failing on individuals instead of the natural result of allowing food producers across the board to sell the most unhealthy slop you could ever dream of while simultaneously making healthy food (literally just fresh, unprocessed items - i.e. the things that everyone ate for tens of thousands of years) a luxury item. This, of course, happening after food lobbyists successfully brainwashed entire generations of people with their shareholder-approved “food pyramid.”
End of rant
Healthy food is absolutely not a luxury item. I’ll accept the argument that the time to prepare healthy food is a luxury, but in almost every corner of the US you will find basic ingredients (eg rice, beans, carrots, celery, corn, potatoes, pasta) are way less expensive than the pre-prepared slop in boxes in the middle aisles of the store. People are addicted to that sugary shit and actively choose it
Addiction means you have a strong impulse for it, but at the end of the day you’re still choosing.
“People are addicted” and “actively choose it” are contradictory statements. Addiction is a disease, not a personal failing.
I’d only refute the "active"part.
You physically choose to locomote towards the counter to make the purchase, you physically choose to lift the cup to your mouth.
The problem is your own mind is working against you to make that physical choice seem absolutely mandatory, via the importance of chemical signaling
Agree it’s a disease, but it’s also a choice. You choose to buy a big gulp when you crave it.
almost every corner of the US you will find basic ingredients (eg rice, beans, carrots, celery, corn, potatoes, pasta) are way less expensive than the pre-prepared slop in boxes
Someone never heard about food deserts.
People are addicted to that sugary shit and actively choose it
Way to victim-blame both addicts and people with little to no healthy choices available.
Huh, guess I might technically live in a food dessert
low-income census tracts that are more than one mile from a supermarket in urban or suburban areas and more than 10 miles from a supermarket in rural areas.
However, a number of studies suggest that poor health in “food deserts” is primarily caused by differences in demand for healthy food, rather than differences in availability.
Low healthy food demand == choosing sugar
I know about the uk but not USA. Food inequality is quite a big problem for low-income households.
(Millions of Britons live without a freezer or oven)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8976549/
(A large number of britons who dont own a car live over a mile from an outlet selling healthy food)
Etc
I was also reading an article about nutritional quality of food itself has been declining over the last 50 years. So to get the same nutritional amount, you need to eat more food period.
There’s also bigger systemic issues about food access that is driving people to “choose” it. Lack of time, cost, availability, transportation all factor in that are beyond a simple idea if a person having a pure choice between two equal (or even somewhat equal) options.
They are? Maybe rice is the least healthy of the four, but it’s just a basic grain. The issues come from what you eat with them.
If you have some homemade pasta with meat and vegetables it will be very healthy. Just regular corn has a small amount of sugar, but nothing crazy. Eat some potatoes and corn just like native South Americans did.
If you use pre-made pasta sauce it will come with less vegetables and meat, and more sugar. Yes they literally put sugar in the sauce. Fries from a burger place aren’t really healthy and you eat them with even more unhealthy foods. Mashed potatoes with something fried at a restaurant? Yes, unhealthy. But it’s not the potatoes’ fault.
Maybe it’s a bit of both though. People still have free will. You can eat unhealthy shit and not become morbidly obese.
Healthy food is very cheap.
Time to prepare and access may contribute, but the food itself is not a luxury item.
This little bit of news has been hitting the media circuit this week: Americans are eating a meal’s worth of calories in snack foods every day
…the average American had between 400 and 500 calories worth of snacks a day, which is typically more than what they ate at breakfast. Even worse, the snacks usually carried little to no nutritional value
All food has gotten expensive due to inflation/greedflation, but (at least in my area) snacks, desserts, and some sugary drinks got hit especially hard. Except maybe for people living in food deserts, snacks are way more of a luxury good than “whole” foods are nowadays.
Also fucked up is that fat doesn’t = bad. I dunno when this came about but you can be unhealthy and skinny as well, and you can be unhealthy and jacked. I won’t say that, kind of along the lines of a bodybuilder, it’s easy to be healthy and be fat, but you can do it. Sumo wrestlers. You want that subcutaneous fat, and not that visceral fat, and you wanna have good cardio and heart health.
Part of the reason why people become super fat is because they enter a kind of death spiral where they don’t believe they’ll ever get better, and then they eat more, because what’s the point if you’ll never get better at all. Part of the reason why they think they’ll never get better is because people are constantly telling them that’s the case, and that they’re at fault for being the way they are, when usually people get really fat through some childhood trauma or mental disorder. I’m not gonna blame someone for that, or demand they “take responsibility” for it. Especially if them “taking responsibility” for it just ends up making them eat more slop.
It’s really not that complicated. Positive reinforcement and active help is a lot better in these situations than demanding that people be held accountable for being so fat, or that it’s their choice, or whatever. I don’t really care to argue the semantics of philosophies of “free will” or whatever, I’m just saying people need to not be dicks to fat people, because that’s more productive to making them be healthy.
Hear hear. And it wouldn’t matter to me even if being fat were automatically a death sentence and the only reason people got that way was laziness. Even if it were a simple choice that someone made, it’s still none of my business, y’know?
It’s both none of my business, and being a dick isn’t an effective way to get them to change. I dunno why so many people kind of have that as like, a default response. I guess it makes sense to get mad when someone you care about “chooses” to self-destruct, but people are complicated and delicate machines, and they require better maintenance than the nuclear option, and ultimatums.
I think part of why people have this sort of desire for everyone to have agency, they have this narrative, is because it’s the only way that they’ll be able to keep dealing with all these shitty things in their life. It’s like a really bad survival strategy, or something, people become kind of fucked up and then they only function if they have this dire sense of internal pressure at all times, that they’re responsible for everything that happens in their life. It’s weird, and I don’t really get it.
I think you have great points, but I also don’t want to absolve personal responsibility entirely. I think I saw Boogie for on the Financial Audit and spends $900 per month on fast food? There’s definitely food deserts and busy people with busy lives and bad education. Absolutely. I also find that healthier living was easier in the UK as grocery stores had ready-made meals easier to access with better options. However, I do think there’s also a component of personal accountability for those that know the right thing to do and choose not to.
Both things can be true. People can be addicted or have limited access to food, but still choose poorly from their limited choices. It’s a “diminished capacity” to make and choose healthy food.
Yes, premade food has gotten more expensive and worse nutritionally. So choose better among your limited choices. There’s no one who actually has no options for fruit, vegetables, or meat. It just takes time to shop and cook.
I don’t disagree with you, but one aspect I think people overlook is addiction. Food has become a cheap form of entertainment for people who don’t have time to actually do anything fun, and food has also been formulated to be as addictive as possible through both chemistry and psychological trickery.
No one wants to talk about this because it asks uncomfortable questions about free will.
The reality is probably that kernel developers don’t get any younger nowadays. And believe me, when you get older, have children and less free time, your waistline suffers a bit. Or even a bit more than a bit.
A lot of people laugh at this, but it’s painfully true.
Hell, I do Brazilian Jiu-jitsu three times a week, and lift/run on the other days. At a certain point for many, you just can’t outrun a bad diet, and maintaining anything other than a dad bod requires all that exercise AND a strict diet. Good fucking luck doing all of that with a screaming baby at home!
I never thought I’d be fat, especially since back when I was 18 I could smash a meal at McDonald’s and exercise right after, while keeping a six pack. Now, it requires double the exercise to not have tits…
I was in the same situation. I started to walk and longboard every day and track my calories without exception.
Eventually, you can see changes and it becomes easier over time, but oh boy I never shame anyone for their body size, because it’s hella hard, and if you’re coping with other problems like depression or addiction, it’s gotta feel damn near impossible.
Linux is growing
Oh my god, Linux makes you fat.
Nice weve all been lifting.
