alt Hacker NewsGP isn't talking about self-control, they're talking about the fact we've created a system that requires obscene amounts of self-control if you wish to maintain physical health.
People in the 50s weren't slimmer because they had ironclad determination to stay such.
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Living in Japan has made it clear to me that cultural attitudes towards food make all the difference. It’s not like there’s a dearth of delicious things here, but obesity rates are more or less a rounding error.
> People in the 50s weren't slimmer because they had ironclad determination to stay such.
People in the 50s (in the US) had, among other things, fistfuls of benzedrine.
Edit: here is a link for the skeptical folks https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/speedy-history-americ...
In my experience fitness is less about self control or will power and more about creating routines that lead to fitness.
For example, I have a routine of going to a group fitness class at my gym in the morning. I don't need to summon willpower, I just have a morning routine that involves doing x thing at y time. No thought required.
Given the abundance of options for fitness classes and meal plan services, you really can just put this on auto-pilot and have a lifestyle that is healthier than 99% of your peers.
> People in the 50s weren't slimmer because they had ironclad determination to stay such.
Well, heights increased dramatically for a couple decades so what that meant was that many people in the 1950s were starving. In the 1930s, people died of starvation even in the US.
I don't really think that we want to go back to starving our population just to be thin, thanks.
> a system that requires obscene amounts of self-control if you wish to maintain physical health
That's million years of evolution with food scarcity and modern capitalist world which created unprecedented abundance of food (and other things). And before you compare it to Europe — europeans still smoke much more than americans. Tobacco is also just a chemical that decreases effects of obesity, just in a different form.
Your point is correct. But 50% of people in 50s also smoked cigarettes, a known appetite suppressant.
So yeah, culture driven lower portion sizes + meds driven lower appetite is a well-tested combination with known positive outcomes.
> People in the 50s weren't slimmer because they had ironclad determination to stay such.
No. They lived in an overall healthier environment. But they were also subject to much greater social pressure to stay slim and could endure fairly intense social judgment and stigmatization for weights that we consider normal (particularly women).
Yeah, they had nicotine!
Exactly, good systems do not rely on willpower. They rather make obvious habits effortless.
Deviating from the mean is hard. Bad food and sedentarism are the norm.