Obesity, what needs to be done?

Holy ****, broadband internet isn't the only way to access information, and the people without it aren't without it because they're poor, they don't have it because they choose to live in more remote areas that do not have providers for it. You know nothing of the subject but that doesn't stop you from pretending you have the solution to it. Education is important for a lot of times, you should actually try it some time. The rest of your argument falls apart once you realize people DO have access to that information, and have for a very long time now. You're jumping down the wrong rabbit holes.

Never said it was. But it is one of the most common ways for people to have access to information these days. Especially in the industrialized world. I even specifically brought up both schools as well as the internet. As well as being a safety net, incase the schooling fails them. As I told mrbojangles, us southern swedes were not taught how to cook healthy food in school, only SAD junk.

And no, people generally do not have access to good nutritional advice, especially the poor. You would know this if you actually bothered to read any of the links I had shared. There *IS* a reason education is closely correlated with obesity rates.

Do you ever get tired of being wrong? Being contrarianism can be good in some cases, such as when playing devil's advocate, but you are at the point where you are disagreeing for the sake of it. I have provided MULTIPLE sources throughout this thread, and all you offer is: "Lalalalala, I can't hear you you are wrong". Zaryia also constantly provides sources proving you wrong. And yet, you continue repeating the points we already refuted a dozen times in the thread. Does that ever get tiring?

Just for once, read up on something in your life. You are arguing against methods that have repeatedly shown to work. There are reasons why countries like Japan and Italy do so well. Limited knowledge IS universally considered to be one of the key factors here. The importance of making information accessible to everyone is not even up to debate.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8941308/

Here is yet another source agreeing with my stance, that you will continue to ignore. Who knows? Maybe you can cite that YouTube Nurse again. The one you did when you tried (and failed) to downplay COVID. It's almost like you are pro-disease.

You've gone down the rabbit hole of complaining about what you BELIEVE is a lack of access to broadband internet and none of it is even remotely relevant to the topic. But the problem is, ignorant generalizations based on something you've read online with ZERO effort put into your own research is a common theme with you.

Who or what do you think "the poor" are in the United States? "The poor" in the US quite often have much of their food paid for, their rent paid for, heating in the winter paid for, even health insurance. "The poor" in the US aren't even remotely close to as bad off as you have imagined. It's not being "contrarian" to point out you know NOTHING of what you are speaking of, and your own ignorance is guiding you off track on the topic.

And have you ever been to Japan? Have you been to the United States? Have you ever seen an ecosystem for farming any more different than those two? If something works for Japan, that doesn't mean it's going to work here. Agriculture is completely different, yet you seem to think what works for one must work for the other? Have you ever actually put any real thought into this or do you just like to talk a lot?

You clearly see things in black and white if you still think I said that broadband is the only solution. I said that lack of broadband internet is one of the many issues leadign to a lack of knowledge. I even specifically mentioned schools repeatedly.

And yes, I have been to both countries, my visit to japan was the last straw I had with car culture for instance. But I do realize that when you have absolutely nothing to support your argument, trying to attack my standing, rather than my argument is all you can do. But it doesnt work, anyone here can see you have absolutely nothing of substance to offer.

No, you are being contrarian. Whether it is your global warming denialism, COVID downplaying, Russia Apologia, election conspiracy theories, car culture apologia, and pretty much 99% of the times you speak. You do so not because you have valid reasons to, but because you want to oppose the lefties on this board. Even as they continue to be correct in their positions. Even in this thread, you continue to argue against positions argued for in medical journals really says everything. You have no real argument, just personal attacks you like to throw at those who do have actual arguments.

You do realize that access to fresh, healthy food is not available everywhere right? ONE of the many sources I cited even SPECICALLY stated as such. Others users also chimed in with arguing that healthy food should be more widely available and cheaper. There is a reason I specifically stated that I had to order food online to eat healthy.

If you continue to base your arguments on ad hominems, accusations and stuff that have already been adressed, I shall not respond to your inevitable reply to this.

And lastly, reading academic papers is not "just something I read online". Stop downplaying the value of empirical research.

LMFAO, you never had any interest in an actual discussion, you were just looking for a podium to live up to the typical vegan stereotypes of telling everybody else what they should be allowed to eat. Yeah... that's what I figured.

Now you're telling me your sources that says fresh, healthy food isn't available everywhere. Well, it's available pretty much everywhere here, it's available pretty much everywhere in Europe... so you're imaging things. The places without good access to healthy food are usually the places that have a trouble with access to food, period.

Thread Premise: "We should make healthy eating and exercise available to everyone"

Eoten: "you were just looking for a podium to live up to the typical vegan stereotypes of telling everybody else what they should be allowed to eat"

smh...

Anyways, lets see if we can get an actual discussion back, I think most people here can agree that food availability is an issue, which is why several of you brought it up :)

And I agree availability of healthy food is a massive problem that needs to be considered.

• 3 Billion people worldwide cannot afford healthy food.
• Healthy food have much lower availability in poorer neighborhoods Yale Researchers find

What should be done to make healthy food more widely available?

May be true in other places. But i can tell you there is not a shortage of healthy food here in the states. There is affordable healthy food... Like at every single grocery store.

The actual problem is people dont want to get the cucumbers, salad mix, frozen chicken breasts. They want pizzia and corn dogs. They aren't saving money by doing it, they just don't give a shit. IF they dont give a shit, i dont give a shit, their choice right?

heres an example im sure most people here in america has seen.

Somebody using thier food stamps/EBT card to get a $300 of soda, pizza, mac n cheese, pop tarts and hohos.

now we don't let people use this government assistance on alcohol and cigs, maybe dont allow them to spend it on food thats giving them diabetes... which just leads to them now asking for the government to pay their health insurance.

Do you have anything to support your claim? Or are we just going with your personal anecdotes?

Because both studies and several people in this topic seem to disagree with your assertion.

@Maroxad: Go to any grocery store. Produce like tomatoes cucumbers, broccoli, salad mix is cheap. Bag of frozen chicken breasts is cheap. Rice is cheap.

This idea that we can't get healthy food because it's too expensive is just flat out wrong. Truth is people are lazy and like Mac n cheese stoffers to throw in the microwave instead of eating veggies or making a salad.

People would rather buy hot pockets and jimmy dean sausage biscuits than snacking on a bag of carrot sticks that cost $2.79

@sargentd: In other words... personal anecdotes.

I shall counter them with my own. Because when I go to the personal grocery store. There are barely any healthy foods there. Perhaps it is no coincidence that obesity is really high where I live compared to other places in Sweden.

Which brings me back to my original point with mrbojangles. The reason I can eat healthy is in the first place is because of the internet. I order Nooch and other healthy food online. And rely on the internet in order to be healthy.

Food desert has some controversy in Academia, but overall, arguments for it tend to carry more weight than arguments against it. And most of the controversy stems from disagreements in its definition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts

Edit: that said, one thing we can both agree on is that if you live in a place with strong access to healthy foods, heavily walkable, and if you are still fat. Despite having EVERY opportunity to not be. That would definately be a case of (lack of) personal responsibilty. But these irresponsible people alone will not account for the massive difference in obesity rates across various OECD countries. Especially since the countries that take the Personal Responsibilty rhetoric seriously, are also the ones where the obesity epidemic is at its worst.

Luckily there is an answer already developed to face this issue.

Scared ****less fitness. Look it up on youtube. Language isn't suitable for this place.

Personal experience. Work-life balance is very important. Hard to have energy for anything if you work lots of overtime in what feels like a meaningless work.

Now that made me chuckle :P

I wield quadwield chainsaws in a video game? do I win any awards?

Quadwield? Like one on each limb, or two in both hands?

It is weird that even though we know this problem and lots potential negative side effects from it, in planning we do very little to combat it.

I grafted 2 extra arms on myself. giving me 4 arms to mow down my foes with. The only problem is that dual wielding is already bad compared to 2 handing, but 4 weapons, just increases the negative modifiers. Still hilarious. RPGs are the most fun when you put as many bad ideas on your character as possible and somehow make it work.

Japan did a while back. But I do NOT want to see their solution applied into the west. As it would be the end of someone's political career. What happens in Japan is that they fine businesses who employ obese people and said obese person does not lose weight at a decent rate. The Metabo law works reasonably well for Japan. But in the much more individualistic West. That would destroy any political party that attempted something similar.

As for the west. It is a discussion people simply don't want to have. Just look at how many ad hominem attacks and baseless accusations Eoten has thrown at me in this thread. Despite that not a single law being argued for that would limit what people can eat.

@Maroxad: your grocery store doesnt have healthy food?? Where do you live?? They don't have vegetables? Fish? Chicken? What do they sell?

That's the comical point of his thread. Pretty much every grocery store in every western country has an abundance of these things. What he really means by "no access to healthy food" is nobody is being forced to eat it.

Given "healthy" food and exercise IS available to pretty much everyone with access to food in general, yeah, this thread is simply a podium for you to piss and moan about non vegans as you've done earlier. I can't even see how anyone capable of independent thought could even read those links you posted and not snicker at how ridiculous they are. "Grocery stores in low income neighborhoods do not stock as much healthy food" well tell me, do they have a problem with stocking fruits and veggies? No. The people there CHOOSE not to eat those things, so stores stock less of it. Stores stock what their customers buy. People are CHOOSING a diet different from your own, how dare they!.

Man this study directly highlights the unintelligent far right posts in this thread,

The association between county political inclination and obesity: Results from the 2012 presidential election in the United States - PMC (nih.gov)

Our results suggest that county-level obesity risk may be positively associated with established, county-level, voter preferences for Republican candidates who are more likely to emphasize a personal responsibility approach to reducing obesity risk than their Democrat counterparts, and who may downplay the role that government policies could play, despite the scientific consensus that a multi-sectoral approach is effective (U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, 2010). Conversely, county-level obesity risk may be negatively associated with stable, county-level, voter preferences for Democratic candidates whose political philosophy are likely to support multi-sectoral approaches to reducing obesity risk similar to those recommended by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control, CDC, 2009). Future decisions, regulations and policies about how to address and control the obesity epidemic will necessarily involve government intervention (Crammond et al., 2013), because they involve workplace, school, marketing and agricultural policies, none of which individuals can control by themselves. While the politics around choosing strategies to combat obesity will continue to be debated in the US, the consequences and implications of such interventions and policies will be applicable internationally. The politics around obesity reduction, and more generally, the politics around food production and marketing will become more salient as the global food industry continues to consolidate, food preferences and demands change, and local food availability is altered.

@eoten do you have a counter study?

Yup two peer reviewed studies posted so far ITT blowing huge holes on his stance.

@zaryia It is funny, there are so many, many studies I can share, but given how blatantly anti-empirical Eoten is. I don't really see the need to share more.

The points he took such huge issues with do not differ much from WHO's recommendations,

• Reducing commercial pressure on people (particularly children) to consume high energy products

• Reducing fat, sugar, and salt in manufactured products

• Enabling easier and cheaper access to healthy food

• Introducing measures to improve food and increase physical activity in schools and the workplace

• Promoting cycling and walking by better urban design and transport policies

• Creating opportunities in local environments for people to be more physically active in their leisure time

• Encouraging health services to provide advice on diet and physical activity, and moving away from... formulas

With point 3 addressing what the a few people seem to be denying even is an issue in the first place. Interesting, isn't it?

There is one shelf for vegetables, and even those are not guaranteed to be fresh they are also massively overpriced, 80% of the store is processed junk. We have a bigger selection of hot dogs than we have vegetables. And Chicken isn't nearly as healthy as you think it is, especially the way it is often prepared. But enough on your argument rooted in personal anecdotes, just because your local grocery store has vegetables doesnt mean that food deserts dont exist, it means that you don't live in one.

You have been shown data that shows that roughly 38% of the world lives in food deserts. Your anecdotal argument (which fell flat immediately) carries no weight.

Of course, food deserts alone do not account for the sole reason for the massive disparity between obesity rates between countries or even between US states. But it is one of the easiest to solve factors out there that have shown recent success.

You cherry pick studies that lack valid context and call me anti empirical because I don't blindly believe what is being said in the op-eds you typically tie to them? Lmfao, okay. Says the person who thinks poor communities in the US lack access to healthy foods and internet access because he read it online.

We didn't cherry pick. And if we did, find the counter studies.

I read it online, on multiple peer reviewed studies. Got counter data?

Gas Lighting.

I did not link an op-ed. I linked a peer reviewed study, as did Max.

You could just man up and admit you were wrong... instead of pushing your own delusions to avoid doing so.