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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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I can eat as much as I want and exercise very little but remain thin.

The obvious retort is that the amount you want to eat is less than the amount fatties want to eat.

Yes but why is that? I never bothered counting calories or exercising any restraint. My willpower is pretty low, all things considered. I barely do much exercise, I guess I walk longer distances than most people but that's about it, I don't go to a gym or anything. I occasionally do some bodyweight exercises, I can do sixty pushups but that's probably mostly because I'm thin. It takes only a few minutes each day for a few months to get to that level and I plateaued since.

My BMI is 20. Australia is a pretty fat country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Australia

I can only assume that a diet of fruit, good bread, milk and whole foods is superior to a diet of largely processed foods. I have chips and icecream sometimes, I'm not a puritan about these things.

This sounds like humblebragging and I guess it technically is but I think there must be something that can be learnt. Back in the 1960s everyone was like me. They could eat whatever they liked, drink a lot of alcohol and still not get fat like we see today. They were working desk jobs too! They just got sated. I get sated. When I eat a big dinner, I might not feel any need to eat even in the next morning, it doesn't cross my mind. I barely ever feel hungry.

I just don't see how I can be a genetic freak when this is how everyone used to live.

It's probably something in the water, given that obesity rates are lower in the mountains and highest at the mouths of long rivers....

I mean, I think the steelman for chemicals causing obesity is 'endocrine disruptors changing desires' more than 'microplastics make you hold on to fat'. But for another, everyone in the sixties smoked cigarettes(which does control appetite). Everyone fatshamed. Snacking was very expensive so people didn't do a lot of it. People were just more active in general. Etc, etc.