[brigandish]

> Most obese people find it extremely hard to stop being obese and often fail despite immense effort.

I used to help out at a slimming group. Like many self-improvement quests, the effort waxes and wanes. Much as I wished for people to achieve their dream of being slimmer, and even though their wishes and often their attempts were laudable, I wouldn't call them "immense". They're people, most wanted an easy fix and struggled to remain dedicated when faced with the harder bits.

[lambdaba]

This. It's not hard to make the necessary changes if sufficiently motivated. In fact, formulating the motivation is kind of the only step, everybody, and I mean *EVERYBODY* can achieve appropriate weight and even above-average fitness if following the right precepts.

[tsimionescu]

Why do you assume this is a matter of motivation, or that motivation is not itself a component of obesity as a disease?

Our urges to eat and be lazy are also a consequence of our health and diet. They are not coming out of some pure rational willpower plane.

[lambdaba]

Sorry, I'm not sure I expressed what I meant clearly so I'll try again: I mean that it's sufficient to be motivated WHEN armed with the proper knowledge; I think many people fail DESPITE being motivated because they are simply misinformed as to what works.

Yes, reading my comment again it doesn't seem I was saying that. Anyway, I don't think that much motivation is required, and if a diet / lifestyle change is hard to stick to, it's often because it's a misguided strategy. For illustration, counting calories while not making qualitative changes in the composition of the diet is just simply never going to work, long-term. Some foods are just too hyperpalatable, too prone to form emotional / addictive associations, but conversely that also implies those dietary changes will have to confront some emotional regulation issues as well. It sounds complicated, but I don't know, I think looking at how widespread the overweight issue is nowadays we have to conclude almost all of us are doing something wrong wrt to diet and lifestyle.

[stainforth]

I'd rather reshape the environment we all live in. And yes I mean soda bans and the like.

[lambdaba]

Oh I agree, I think we've been greatly underestimating how damaging all these are and so should be treated like cigarettes with very heavy taxation that should go towards subsidizing healthy food.