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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32962 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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Because they don’t stick with it.

That's because sustained willpower is hard. For a diet to work long term, it requires a more fundamental behavioral change than just toughing it out.

Do you think that the root cause of increased obesity today vs in 1970 is primarily due to people in 1970 being more persistent in sticking to a diet where they are hungry sometimes? If so, do you think that's due to a general decline in willingness to stick with unpleasant things in general between the 1970s and now, or something specific to dietary habits (e.g. "feeling slightly hungry" was a feeling with ~neutral valence in 1970, but is a feeling with negative valence now)?

It's food getting cheaper, more palatable and shelf-stable, plus the normalization of snacking (aka eating while doing other things).

  • Cheetos were invented in 1948

  • Sugar-frosted flakes were created in 1952

  • The first flavored potato chips were created in 1954

  • Trix was created in 1954

  • Domino's was founded in 1960

  • Taco Bell was founded in 1962

  • Froot Loops were created in 1963

  • Cap'n Crunch was created in 1963

  • Commercial production of corn syrup began in 1964, allowing for cheaper sweet food

  • Lucky Charms were created in 1964

  • Pringles were invented in 1968.

  • Cheese Doritos were created in 1972

  • Honey Nut Cheerios were created in 1979

It's a wonder people weren't getting fat in the 70's with all this sweet and savory junk, I guess with just PBS, CBS, NBC and ABC on TV they had more active pastimes.

Also, as mentioned above, smoking and leaded gasoline probably also played a significant role.

I think the root causes are multiple, but that an increasing unwillingness to stick with things that require putting in the work to achieve results is a major factor. I would also point to soda becoming cheaper to the point of being a replacement for water, and less home cooking alongside skyrocketing portion sizes, in addition to less tolerance for healthy but not especially tasty food.

I'm pretty sure they main relevant difference is the lack of smoking.

Also the reduction in environmental lead.

That's an interesting hypothesis. I imagine, if it were true, we would see a smaller increase in the obesity rate in people who are or were in professions that require a strong work ethic and significant grit, and a larger increase in the obesity rate of those who don't.

Specifically, I would expect, in that case, to see warehouse workers getting fatter faster than doctors (despite a similar level of physical activity being required in each job), since I would expect that doctors have not experienced significant slippage in willingness to put in work (if anything, my impression is that medicine has gotten more competitive). My impression is also that the Marines requires considerably more perseverance and grit than the Air Force, so I would expect former marines to be getting fatter more slowly than former members of the air force.

I have not yet looked at those data points, but do you think that those are a reasonable set of concrete observations that you would expect to see if the laziness hypothesis is the primary contributing factor?

Sure, that seems reasonable, although we should probably note that doctors are also, by and large, older than warehouse workers, and less likely to be kept in shape by their jobs, so you’d need more datapoints than just a few to average out confounder like that.

IIRC the working class(which has no great barrier to entry) has much higher obesity rates than the professional class(which filters out people too lazy/dumb/undisciplined to earn a college degree).

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