> Here I am looking from western Europe at 100% self-inflicted US obesity epidemics and shaking my head in disbelief, what kind of garbage and in what massive quantities you guys consume daily.

26% and climbing in the UK. 19% and climbing in Germany. 17% in France. 11% in Switzerland - and another 30% overweight. 20 years ago America was 32% obese. Do you want to bet that this is a uniquely American thing? That these numbers won't continue to climb in Europe? Hell, we're seeing them climb in Asia - South Korea's obesity rate among men went from 3.26% to 7.3% from 2009 to 2019, though women increased at a much slower rate.

> Sure, you can just literally throw money at the problem that is too scary for you to tackle it headfirst, or you can have a wake up call and make your life significantly better from now on and live longer. All is connected - it leads to higher confidence, happier healthier life. The key is to walk the hard path - overcome such a challenge will redefine who you are for the better. Taking pills every day because you can't avoid eating a cookie under stress won't, in contrary.

And plenty of people can keep moralizing about how everyone should do it The Proper Way and refusing to understand that while, yes, it is within the power of humans to overcome things with willpower, that there are situations that cause it to require significantly more willpower for some.

> Kids don't eat garbage because parents don't give them garbage, because parents don't eat and overeat on garbage.

This is a great example. A significant number of people end up obese because they're poor. This seems silly at first, right? Go to the grocery store, buy good whole food, cook, save money! There's problems with this: Many poor people work long hours and have difficulty finding the time or energy to cook. Even when they do, many of the cheapest food items are also the most calorie dense and worst calorie:satiety ratios. So this starts them on a cycle of eating the sort of food that makes you fat. And then the fatter you get, the more feedback cycles you have encouraging you to continue getting fatter - such as the well researched links between obesity and leptin. So they get fat, their kids get fat, and it becomes ever more difficult to stop being fat, all because that's the food they could afford to feed their families with.

It is easy to call taking the medication easy, but nothing about it actually is.

Eating right, lifting, trying to be active… all of that on top of the nausea created by the medication itself.

Obesity is such a massive epidemic, and shaming people into feeling bad about it has clearly not worked. And that’s before you consider the genetic factors, environmental factors, food deserts, and the other dozen reasons it’s so hard to stay fit for some people.

I am genetically gifted in some ways; an athlete’s metabolism was not one of them. I can be extremely disciplined, but the constant vigilance creates this “food noise” in your head that’s hard to explain, but extremely stressful, and causes you to constantly be seeking the next meal.

It used to be that every single food I put in my mouth tasted amazing (within reason). Apparently this is not true for everyone, and they have a greater and sharper distinction between “foods that are amazing” and “foods that are just fine”. That distinction exists for me now, and never really did before this medication.

There are so many ways it has helped me. My blood labs are perfect, and my liver was definitely not perfect before. My A1C was just on the cusp of prediabetic, at 5.7%. My triglycerides, ALT, AST… all were wayyyyy higher than they should have been.

A1C at last test a few months ago was 5.0%, and all the other numbers are well within low-mid range of where they should be.

Anyone that looks at someone using GLP-1 medications and thinks they’re “cheating” is a child. You still have to put in the work; you still have to eat right and work out and lift. It just makes it actually possible to do that for the first time in many people’s lives. I don’t know if you’ve ever put on a realistic “fat suit,” but trust me when I say that everything is harder when you’re heavier. A walk around the block is an insane workout if you are 450lbs and haven’t walked in years. It’s not where you should end, but it is a start, and if there is a medication that helps someone start… everyone else can fuck right off. You will never find me shaming someone else or judging them for getting healthy, which is the actual point more than just losing weight.

There is one way to get off the medication in the future (or get on the lowest dose, etc): build significant muscle mass. That’s why it’s so important to lift.

One common argument I’ve heard against GLP-1 meds is the idea that you’ll have to be on the meds forever. And for some people, maybe even most, that may be true. We don’t know yet.

But you know what’s worse than being on a GLP-1 med forever? Being obese forever. We know precisely just how that kills so many of us.

But you’re right, we should just go back to the way it was. That seemed to work just fine. :/

Even if you were completely right, you might as well start shaming Africans for "needing" malaria vaccines. Europe is not America. What you call a self inflicted epidemic is generally accepted as a disastrous food situation because of market forces with no government incentives to foster a culture of healthy eating. And I'm underweight FYI before your European high horse starts lobbing more uncalled for insults.