Thought experiment: A drug* that reduces people's weight and massively boosts physical fitness with no negative side effects is discovered. The discoverer of that drug declines to patent it, making it a cheap generic available everywhere. What would your reaction be?
Take a moment to consider what your reaction is before continuing.
...
The comments I'm reading here are diverse and fascinating. Weight loss, diet, and fitness are almost quasi-religious issues that people tend to have strong and personal reactions to. The unfit are desperate for a solution, especially an easy one. The very fit subconsciously resent the notion that people could achieve, with a pill, what they have achieved through discipline and hard work (or genetic luck). Others are keen to point out diverse evils of modern society that they believe are the true culprits which must be tackled instead of masking their effect with a pill.
Nutrition and fitness are classic examples of pseudo-science. Studies that would meet the bare minimum standards of scientific rigour in any other field are practically impossible. Getting a statistically significant sample of people to go on special diets or exercise regimens long term is just not feasible. Whenever an "expert" makes a tentative statement on what they think might be the case, media picks it up and amplifies it. Butter is bad for you. Butter is good for you. Blueberries are superfood. Keto diets. Crossfit. etc. Countless "experts", often with no credentials and no compelling data, are happy to write best-selling self-improvement books. They assume that what works for them (or didn't work, but seems like it should have) will work for everyone. Everyone wants to know how to be healthy, fit, and happy, so there is insatiable demand for books that are, by scientific standards, pure spit-balling.
Then medicine and drug research, which are legally required to be at last somewhat scientific but are always profit-motivated, enter the fray. They can prove a drug meets safety standards and quantify certain specific effects, but interactions with the pseudo-science of the greater health industry eventually become unavoidable.
Perhaps the first step to becoming more objective about drugs like this is to recognize that we really aren't.
*a hypothetical one, not the one being discussed here
Let me tell you, the number of thin people I've met who got there through discipline and hard work is vanishingly small compared to those genetically blessed. This is probably why it's such an appealing delusion -- who doesn't want the world to think they're disciplined and hardworking, instead of just lucky?
I don't think it's so malicious as you make it out: being thin seems like the default option, because that's how it was for most of human history and because you can't become fat without lifting the fork yourself and putting the food in your mouth. That obesity could be a disease questions our notions of free-will and the cascading questions that come along with that are quite uncomfortable.
How do you know they got it through being "genetically blessed" and not just...putting the fork down? In my experience a lot of skinny people don't outwardly signal that they're "dieting" because they're literally always dieting.
Being able to easily put the fork down / always dieting is the genetic blessing. Some people maintain a low weight with almost no effort, while the genetically unlucky seem to be hardwired to always be craving food & would subjectively suffer a lot more to eat like the naturally skinny.
I'm full (and would get nauseated if I continued eating) with an amount of food that would leave my sibling still feeling constant hunger pangs... the feeling of "fullness" here is the genetic/hormonal blessing
People who stay "fit" and hit a lot are the opposite of lucky, they probably have thyroid issues or other similar issues that will cause more serious problems down the road.
People who think they're lucky are obese with a food addiction problem
> Nutrition and fitness are classic examples of pseudo-science
I think it's pretty well agreed upon in the medical community (and proven) that a healthy diet (lots of fruit and vegetables, not too much sugar, etc) and regular exercise leads to better health. It's not pseudo-science. Neither is the statement that consuming more calories than you burn will make you put on weight.
Take a moment to consider what your reaction is before continuing.
...
The comments I'm reading here are diverse and fascinating. Weight loss, diet, and fitness are almost quasi-religious issues that people tend to have strong and personal reactions to. The unfit are desperate for a solution, especially an easy one. The very fit subconsciously resent the notion that people could achieve, with a pill, what they have achieved through discipline and hard work (or genetic luck). Others are keen to point out diverse evils of modern society that they believe are the true culprits which must be tackled instead of masking their effect with a pill.
Nutrition and fitness are classic examples of pseudo-science. Studies that would meet the bare minimum standards of scientific rigour in any other field are practically impossible. Getting a statistically significant sample of people to go on special diets or exercise regimens long term is just not feasible. Whenever an "expert" makes a tentative statement on what they think might be the case, media picks it up and amplifies it. Butter is bad for you. Butter is good for you. Blueberries are superfood. Keto diets. Crossfit. etc. Countless "experts", often with no credentials and no compelling data, are happy to write best-selling self-improvement books. They assume that what works for them (or didn't work, but seems like it should have) will work for everyone. Everyone wants to know how to be healthy, fit, and happy, so there is insatiable demand for books that are, by scientific standards, pure spit-balling.
Then medicine and drug research, which are legally required to be at last somewhat scientific but are always profit-motivated, enter the fray. They can prove a drug meets safety standards and quantify certain specific effects, but interactions with the pseudo-science of the greater health industry eventually become unavoidable.
Perhaps the first step to becoming more objective about drugs like this is to recognize that we really aren't.
*a hypothetical one, not the one being discussed here