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borski10/13/20241 replyview on HN

Fine. I was 265. Not morbidly obese, just obese.

The rest of my argument still holds if you change that.

Your contention of “most of them actually are very capable of just eating more healthy diets and exercising more” is a nonsensical assumption, based on no data, and a prejudiced assumption that they are lazy and haven’t tried, ever.

> What we actually need to do is un-fuck our food supply and encourage healthier lifestyles...

Great. We should do that. I completely agree. It will definitely help our kids.

That won’t help anyone get healthy in this lifetime. It takes too long. Obesity would kill you first.

But you’re right, that’s probably better than taking a medication that is clearly helping people change their habits and get healthy, because you feel it would be better if they didn’t have the problem in the first place.

Nicotine gum and patches help curb smoking and change people’s habits. Why? Why not just force everyone to quit cold turkey, like my dad did? Should we just change the way we talk about smoking and produce fewer cigarettes? Sure.

But nicotine patches and gums saved lives and helped people quit that had never been able to before them, and not for a lack of trying.

GLP-1 meds are an aid. The alternative isn’t fixing the food supply, but dying from obesity.


Replies

artursapek10/14/2024

Cool, I hope you are on your way to a healthier weight. I can see why medication could help in the short-term for someone who has dug a deep hole. My reaction of disgust is towards the premise of "how long until we're all on Ozempic?" and the current state of affairs, where far too many people in the US are being medicated for that and various other things.

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