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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   4098 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 9, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Well, one major reason is that obesity is almost entirely a phenomenon of the last 50 years or so. People in past generations maintained a healthy weight regardless of nature. That doesn't entirely rule out the role of nature - perhaps something in the environment has changed in the last 50 years that people with certain genetic predispositions are especially susceptible to. But my impression is that all that's changed is food is so much more delicious and ubiquitous. And in that case, it really does just start to look like a failure of will (except for people who are fat, know they're fat, and accept the health and aesthetic tradeoffs because they just love food so much. All the power to 'em!).

Now, you could be reductive and claim that this failure of will is largely nature too. People's ability to abstain from overeating is surely partly nature like everything else about our behavior is. And as someone who doesn't even believe in free will, I'm certainly on board with that at a certain extremely abstract level of analysis. But outside of philosophical musing, I assess someone who can't resist overeating the same way I assess someone who can't resist reckless driving, drug use, risky casual sex, and lashing out in anger: I hold them responsible, regardless of the contribution of their genes to their behavior.

People in past generations maintained a healthy weight regardless of nature.

I don't believe this is correct. Was gross obesity vastly less common in the past? Yes, definitely. But malnourishment and starvation were considerably more common, to a degree that exceeded the rate of modern obesity at least in some times and places.

You're right! I suppose I meant to write "were able to avoid obesity". And I'm thinking less pre-modern times and more 50-100 years ago.

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