According to some sources, at least 1 in 8 of the world population is classified as ‘obese’. Since nobody in any government seems to have thought up a working solution, what do you believe can be done to solve the epidemic?
Why does it need solving in the first place?
give them all ozempic or GLP-1. almost every method, they want quick fixes, or dont want do dieting or exercising or they dont want to do it. glp-1 has a side benefit in helping with other addictions.
Pay people to lose weight and then pay an even better rate for maintaining a healthy weight
Depends on if you wanna do it in a more ethical manner or not. One way you could do it, at least for some places with the resources necessary, is basically forcing tech companies to subtly change your algorithm to slowly push you to believe that you being obese is bad… or that it’s bad in general. Subtly make fatphobic content more accepted by you until you decide to try and change your habits to not be fat. Though, that could just as easily backfire and lead to a spike in suicide for people unable to do it, which is obviously bad.
Though, I think the better option ( at least in my country of the States ) is actual proper education on healthy eating and exercise combined with working on fixing the economy so people have more free time while also having a living wage and access to affordable healthcare.
Global food infrastructure collapse would do it
Well it would require a multi step and branching plan. Obvious you’d have to communicate your plan to other people to get them on board.
But obesity probably genetic. Like every human has the capacity to get obese if they have the processed food. You could edit their genes with crisper
Switch to Scientific Socialism where people aren’t overworked and in deep debt over shitty capitalism.
Whats the link? Stress, obviously.
People were also severely stressed in the centuries past (remember, the 8 hour workday is a recent invention). Less stress helps for sure, but the availability of calorie-dense food engineered to be delicious is probably even worse.
We can start by not eating highly processed, industrially made food-like substances.
This will be unpopular, but: just stop caring. Let people be whatever size, treat them equally, and don’t sweat it. You may not like that but one way to solve an issue is to realize there is no issue.
Would people be healthier if they weren’t obese? Possibly. The evidence is a little mixed. I’m in the middle where I think not being obese is healthier but the effect is overblown by related factors. People would be healthier if no one drank alcohol but I don’t think banning alcohol is worth it.
(Revealing my biases: I’ve been extremely fit, I’ve also been technically obese, and I’m on a GLP-1 inhibitor because I want to lose weight. But I’m not interested in telling other people how heavy they should be)
Bring on the downvotes, my body is ready.
As you’ve been both fit and technically obese, I suspect you also realize exercise is much harder to do when you’re obese. Not just because moving your body is harder, but because you have less energy and thus it might be much harder to motivate yourself. It’s a vicious cycle where gaining weight is even easier when sedentary and being obese makes it harder to not be sedentary.
And with socialized healthcare in most countries, everyone’s paying the price. I say this as someone currently technically obese as well.
Luckily most people don’t WANT to be obese, so GLP-1 inhibitors are a bit of a godsend. Forcing anyone to lose weight I can’t condone, but giving people the best possible chances to be healthy seems like a no-brainer.
Get rid of BMI.
Is BMI perfect? No. But most people who cite its shortcomings pretend that the edge cases like extremely muscular athletes have any relevance to most of the population.
Glp-1 drugs
I stopped eating animal products and lost 50 lbs, so that’s a start
Then meat being made largely unaffordable by the inflation crisis ought to bend the curve.
Theres a whole host of issues, many of which are already mentioned, but two other big ones are treating it more as a health issue rather than a moral one, and improving healthcare - especially mental health care.
People don’t realize, but a lot of obesity cases are tied into other health issues - especially mental health. This is doubly true for more extreme cases. For a very simple example, those who are neurodivergent often struggle with specific stimulations including food textures (limiting food options), especially in combination with food deserts or areas with little selection. On the other hand, this can often be improved or worked around with medication and/or therapy. Medication such as antidepressants or antipsychotics causing weight gain is another very common example, and while it isn’t as easy to avoid, better medical support can make it easier to manage, especially if you need to change diet as a result. For a more extreme example, trauma is very closely tied to weight gain and eating disorders. Watch any episode of My Six-Hundred Pound Life (or better yet, don’t), and you’ll notice that almost all of them have significant trauma. For example, childhood abuse can lead to difficulty self-regulating, or sexual abuse can cause someone to feel that being “”“ugly”“” will help prevent future assaults. These examples just scratch the surface too, and things only gen messier when you have comorbid conditions. Just imagine, for example, someone with OCD affecting how they eat, depression treated with a weight-gain causing medication, and PMOS (a hormonal issue common in women, which often makes it extremely difficult to lose weight). Doctors often ignore or struggle to treat any of these individually, nonetheless all three together, and thats before we open the conversation around affordability.
Given this, and just how sensitive and defensive humans are in general, that makes it all-the-more important that we treat people respectfully and kindly. Even ignoring basic decentcy, demonizing or mocking people for their weight delegitimises efforts to change systematic barriers, makes accessing care more difficult or unfriendly, often wastes time or confuses with “advice” that is unhelpful or outright destructive given the context of someone’s medical background (I.E. telling someone with an eating disorder to control their eating more), and increases stress, which in turn, makes medical issues worse and harder to cope with. Instead, if we treat it as a medical issue, we avoid all of this and stop moralising or hurting people already struggling.
Treating it like the multifaceted issue it is instead of a moral failing would be a start.
In the US that would mean labor laws which favor the human instead of the business. With hours that allow more daily personal time and pay that allows prosperity even at minimum wages. These things would take care of most people.
It would also mean medical treatment being available without burdensome cost, and with consideration to it being a mental hurdle like addiction and destigmatizing seeking aid for it in that manner. Universal healthcare removing the need/demand for private and employment tied insurance would help this as well.
There are many more facets, and facets within facets to all of this, but from a mile high view I think this would help a lot.
Teach children how to eat. In school. Countries that do this have much lower obesity rates.
I was taught how to eat in school, from a food pyriamid modified by producers of breads, dairy and sugar. :(
The US food pyramid was made by the USDA to sell grain and dairy.
