I do agree with the consensus here - it’s weirdly moralistic to say fat people should just do willpower harder, if there a drug that works for so many. It’s a lot like telling an anorexic to just eat more. Eating disorders are complicated. A drug that fixes the appetite and improves blood sugar handling is an enormous improvement compared to what we had before.
I’ve never been fat, but have been eating disordered in the other direction and there is no way I could have been convinced to eat more just because it would have been healthier. If there had been some drug to fix my relationship to food back then, I feel like nobody would have said “just use willpower and eat better.”
It’s interesting that this strikes at the heart of left vs right mindset, at least in America. Conservatives have a tendency to romanticize the notion of free will and individual freedom; that you alone are responsible for the choices you make absent of anything else like — will over systemic forces or regions of your own brain working against you. Whereas the left has a stronger tendency to recognize these other variables that apply pressure in such a way as to shape the path of least resistance in what you may choose to do.
It’s like a story I heard about the mindset of Americans vs. Germans when they have a vehicular accident. In America, blame is often quickly pointed to the person for skidding off the road while in Germany they may send a team of engineers to assess how to reduce the environment to prohibit this from being possible in the first place (e.g., putting up a guard-rail). This is surely exaggerated and America of course has civil engineers, but you get the idea of a default state of responsibility.
Maybe the reality of executive responsibility and external forces is somewhere in the middle. Nevertheless, a systemic problem tends to require a systematic solution. So I definitely don’t fault obese people for not being able to get skinny. I agree: definitely the wrong mindset!
My main concern is that if the cost of this weight loss is a masking of symptoms and warning-signs of other poor dietary habits, could that result in even more people suffering ailments kicked under the rug just because they perceive themselves to be healthy when looking in a mirror? (e.g., the smoker arguments of old).
I do agree with the consensus here - it’s weirdly moralistic to say fat people should just do willpower harder, if there a drug that works for so many. It’s a lot like telling an anorexic to just eat more. Eating disorders are complicated. A drug that fixes the appetite and improves blood sugar handling is an enormous improvement compared to what we had before.
I’ve never been fat, but have been eating disordered in the other direction and there is no way I could have been convinced to eat more just because it would have been healthier. If there had been some drug to fix my relationship to food back then, I feel like nobody would have said “just use willpower and eat better.”
It’s interesting that this strikes at the heart of left vs right mindset, at least in America. Conservatives have a tendency to romanticize the notion of free will and individual freedom; that you alone are responsible for the choices you make absent of anything else like — will over systemic forces or regions of your own brain working against you. Whereas the left has a stronger tendency to recognize these other variables that apply pressure in such a way as to shape the path of least resistance in what you may choose to do.
It’s like a story I heard about the mindset of Americans vs. Germans when they have a vehicular accident. In America, blame is often quickly pointed to the person for skidding off the road while in Germany they may send a team of engineers to assess how to reduce the environment to prohibit this from being possible in the first place (e.g., putting up a guard-rail). This is surely exaggerated and America of course has civil engineers, but you get the idea of a default state of responsibility.
Maybe the reality of executive responsibility and external forces is somewhere in the middle. Nevertheless, a systemic problem tends to require a systematic solution. So I definitely don’t fault obese people for not being able to get skinny. I agree: definitely the wrong mindset!
My main concern is that if the cost of this weight loss is a masking of symptoms and warning-signs of other poor dietary habits, could that result in even more people suffering ailments kicked under the rug just because they perceive themselves to be healthy when looking in a mirror? (e.g., the smoker arguments of old).