Love the article. Kind of scary though that the latest push is to tell people that being obese is genetic and that they can’t help it. It really makes me sad. I work at a University and what I see of the kids walking around is heart wrenching. There are so many over weight people mixed in with the skinny fat people. Such a small percentage of kids walking around looking like they do some form of fitness.
Bry
To play devil’s advocate as someone who is in healthcare as a pharmacist, and whose almost entire family/family friends are in healthcare (ranging from phlebotomist to doctor with own office):
Many obese patients will get pissed off, if not downright willing to ruin your professional reputation, if you tell them to diet/exercise. Obviously this isn’t most of them, but it’s a sizeable amount to where you have to be careful with giving out “common sense advice.” So why not recommend a drug instead to stay safe?
It’s unfair to push a disciplined lifestyle on the masses when our ancestors didn’t need one to be fit. My greatgrandpas in India would walk/bike for miles in their 90s, not because they were into fitness, but because most Indians were farmers who ate healthy, filling foods. My grandparents on the other hand got overweight 30+ years sooner than their parents because India industrialized and its food became processed/unhealthy. Now many Indians are just as unhealthy as Americans. Same discipline in all the generations, but drastically different health outcomes due to the state of their society.
Similarly to the above, it’s unfair to make people get disciplined about eating healthy and exercising when many are already working overtime, struggling financially, have stressful home lives, etc. My great-grandparents were fit from their work. No exercising required. So now we expect stressed-out middle age folks to exercise outside of their already busy schedules?
A lot of these folks did not play sports at all while growing up, so they have to start at zero as an adult. That sucks haha.
I do not see disciplined eating and exercise working as a society-level solution at all. It’ll work on the individual level, but good luck telling the masses to do that lol.
No doubt and I don’t disagree with anything you said. Look at food prices in the grocery store, compare the calories between cheap sugary food and healthy food. It is very enlightening what is being pushed to those on the lower economic end.
Bry
Big one here is playing sports as a child imo
Just been watching Andrew Hubermans latest podcast with Andy Galpin 2 out of 6 series around 3hrs 20mins in he’s talking about the mind muscle connection and sports played as kid.
Being able to contract whilst standing from relaxed lats for swimming/wrestlers for example
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