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hiAndrewQuinn10/12/20242 repliesview on HN

But you already live in a system that promotes that, quite heavily. Healthy food and active behavior make you more physically attractive, which is in turn linked to better life outcomes along almost every metric you can care to think of.

There is, in fact, already an enormous, fully endogenous incentive to do those things. The fact many people are not keeping in shape (myself included) suggests the allure of food really is just that appealing.


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t-writescode10/12/2024

> But you already live in a system that promotes that

Correction. We live in a system that *rewards* that. The infrastructure and system itself expects us to drive everywhere (because it's either faster or literally at all possible), eat overprocessed food (because it's tastier (literally designed to be hyper-palpable) and faster), and to work for absurd hours.

If you somehow have spoons after all that, then you're expected to workout, etc, to gain the additional benefits; but the systems in play do not facilitate that, at all.

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biztos10/12/2024

I’m a standard-issue stress eater. I also like to work out.

When I’m really feeling the stress, even though I will tell myself at that time to just hang on and hit the gym later, the food is that much more of an instant fix that it wins out more often than not.

I’m sure that’s not just the actual food itself, but also the easy availability of it, and probably subliminal cultural factors such as advertising. But partly, yeah, it’s that my ancestors evolved to love eating when they had food, and their gift to me is that same desire in a world of endless plenty.