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Which part of CICO do you think this is a blow to? There has always been some noise level of individual variability. This is inherent in basically all biology research. Sometimes, folks are able to probe a bit deeper into it, and we already have a variety of different ways to do so. Many of them are just too complicated to do most of the time for most people... and they're often usually relatively small effect sizes, anyway. Like, yes, can we slightly refine our estimate of one component of your CO if we take precise measurements of your individual organ sizes; is that a "blow" to CICO?
There are determinants unrelated to willpower and unrelated to personal lifestyle changes which cause obesity. This is one factor and there may be many others. Everyone who uses “CICO” in obesity discourse means that, by everyone attempting to modify one of these variables, we can sizably reduce waist sizes. What this study shows is that in two cohorts controlled for willpower, one will simply be fatter due to their parent’s cold exposure.
Unless willpower and lifestyle changes can be shown to significantly modulate obesity rates at a population-level, and in the long-term, in a way that isn’t merely survivorship bias or an outlier, then CICO is as useful, insightful, and interesting as saying “narcoleptics need to stay awake”, “insomniacs need to sleep”, and “a thirsty sailor adrift at sea must never drink salt water”. It acts as a brainworm that just derails actual discourse around obesity.
That is not what this study shows. I'm not even sure how you would "control for willpower".
This depends on what you're trying to do. For example, there are tons of athletes and bodybuilders who modulate their body weight through diet and lifestyle. Is this suddenly useless to them if some larger population behaves one way instead of another way?
This community loves Science (TM) and Rationalism (TM). Suppose you lived in a religious woo world, and everyone believed that the gods wanted you to eat raw meat and they determined whether or not you got sick. You discovered that, actually, the cooking process can improve digestion and kill pathogens. But you just couldn't convince other people to do it, for whatever reasons. Maybe there are folks out there claiming that it's just because they "lack willpower" to do it. Is your knowledge suddenly "useless" in the case where a bunch of people don't do it... but it would somehow magically become "useful" if a bunch of people started doing it?
You control for willpower by looking at a cohort conceived in colder months and comparing to a cohort conceived in warmer months. This is simple. As we know that the month of conception has no bearing on willpower, and the study did not find a correlation in regards to temperature of month at birth, which I suppose may somehow change one’s willpower (if you squint), the populations are controlled for willpower.
A minority successfully do this, only in the short-term, and only by significantly modifying their social identity. It comes at an impractical expenditure of willpower for the population-level. You can probably get someone to not eat for three days with the offer of $100,000; you can get a competitive wrestler to stop eating when it’s required for his social reputation; and a particularly vain bodybuilder can probably bulk and cut when he has made his appearance his entire social value. But this has no effect on the longterm rate of obesity or the general population, because not everyone can turn their entire social identity into weightlifting (neither is this desirable). In fact, even those selected for willpower and who practice willpower in regards to weight during their athletic career are not protected against obesity. Studies show that weight cycling athletes are either at the same level of obesity risk as other athletes, or even a worse level of obesity risk than the general population. We also know that the yearly Ramadan practice of willpower does not affect longterm obesity. If willpower were a longterm determinant, we would see (1) Ramadan practitioners become less obese, (2) weight-cycling athletes are particularly protected against obesity compared to other athletes. Yet we don’t find this.
You can find people who have terrible willpower in regards to substances, energy drinks, candy, and yet don’t gain weight. Then you can find people who exhibit amazing willpower in all facets of life, and yet are fat.
Can you though, with any significant frequency? I find a remarkable degree of correlation between being overweight and most negative traits/life outcomes, in others as well as in myself.
The only examples I can think of are "strongfats", i.e. weightlifter musclebro types that are optimizing for mass ass opposed to musculature. Outside of them it's hard to picture anyone else who might fit here, and even strongfats aren't nearly as fat as the median body positivity activist
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Right, so that is not a control for willpower.
Please address my food cooking hypothetical.
This is not true. Many people do it year-round for many years.
Please address my food cooking hypothetical. One might say that it would require a significant modification to the hypothetical religious/social identity. Does that mean that knowledge about cooking is "useless"?
Please address my food cooking hypothetical. I don't particularly care if everyone "can" change their entire social identity or whether it is "desirable". I am speaking purely descriptively.
I will additionally note that I have not, a single time in this conversation, made any claims about willpower, except that your claimed control for willpower was not, in fact, a control for willpower. I have no idea if there is even such a thing as a "general willpower factor" or, if there was, it would correlate to any particular behaviors. It doesn't seem to factor in to a descriptive account of body weight chemistry, physics, or dynamics.
Different months of conception have different genetic effects on a future child. It does not have different effects on willpower. One large group in month A has the same willpower as one large group in month B. There is no reason to think otherwise. So we assume the same willpower. But the genetic effects are correlated with different adult obesity rates. Did you read the study? If you think that the month of conception can alter even willpower, then we are essentially redefining willpower and are all the way back to where we started — in needing cultural / societal changes which genetically change people’s willpower.
A cooking change is a one time change. You’re asking for half the humans on earth to fundamentally rewire their identity so that their primary value in life is their body; and this is implying that bodybuilders aren’t preselected for the epigenetic expressions not associated with obesity. This is an insane proposal.
Bodybuilders — the sliver of successful ones who actually succeed in modifying their body longterm without drugs, so 0.01% of the population or less — maintain their social identity through, essentially, thousands of hours of identity maintenance a year, changing what they think about, who they look up to, what they value. A world of bodybuilders would destruct, as no one would care about civic or institutional participation. So this proposal is not serious. We could make everyone become Buddhist ascetics whose new overriding value in life is not eating. This is is similarly possible, but not a serious proposal.
Anyway, please see my weight-cycling studying x3.
That is not a control on willpower. It's not saying anything about willpower. I've said nothing about willpower. It is not apparent how willpower is supposed to come into anything or what straw man you think you're arguing against.
No. You have to cook your meat every single time you eat it. Every single meal, every single day, for the rest of your life. You’re asking for half the humans on earth to fundamentally rewire their identity so that their primary value in life is their body; will you very clearly state that you think that this means that knowledge about cooking is "useless" if all of those humans on earth don't do it, but magically becomes "useful" if they do?
I never said any such thing.
It might be helpful if you wrote clearly what you’re trying to articulate. I will clarify that I am not interested in quibbling on the literalist definition of CICO that forgets how it is used in discussions. I am simply interested in how can we practically solve the obesity crisis, which is important. I’m asserting that CICO — telling people to focus on their calories and exercise — is not a practical framework, and there’s a study suggesting that a viable framework may be looking at holistic environmental determinants.
I'm very clearly trying to articulate that I want to know if you will very clearly state that you think that knowledge about cooking is "useless" if all of those humans on earth don't do it, but magically becomes "useful" if they do.
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