[bb88]

Hunger is caused by not enough glucagen-like peptides (GLP-1, etc) being distributed to the brain from the gut. Obesity is not so much a food "addiction" as it is the body's failure to properly regulate it's own fullness.

I've heard this called "food noise" by those who are obese. GLP-1 agonists reduce the so called food noise -- that's all it does.

In that light your argument is like trying to tell schizophrenics, "Hey, stop hearing those voices in your head!" I think we tried that for over a century.

[intothemild]

I can speak to the food noise.

I hit my 30's, and became a dad, I lost my ability to run as much as I did. Now a decade later that's changed. But in that time I gained a lot of weight. I started running again. I'm a distance type of runner so I'm talking 6-15km a day, 6-7 days a week.

With that out of the way. After doing that for 6 months I was wondering WHY am I not losing weight? Like basically nothing. I counted every calorie, kept myself in a caloric deficit, used a TDEE spreadsheet to keep readjusting my daily caloric needs. Nothing was working.

Went to the doctor, he did blood work, it was all pretty much normal for someone obese. He asked me how hungry I am. I said I'm constantly hungry and it's just willpower alone that keeps me from eating, unless I had a drink, so I usually refused to drink.

I was put on Ozempic/Wegovy.

Pretty much two weeks later, I stopped thinking about food. Gone. Just gone. Before I would wake, and I'd be planning every meal.. when, what. How much, etc. If anything got in the way of a meal, I would be super irate. I was counting down seconds... Every single thought in my head was food.

Now gone.

I sometimes forget to eat.

So yeah. Food noise is real, and it suuuucks.

Side note: the weight loss helped my running a lot! And the weight loss seems to have stalled... But I don't care. I'm just happy to have this extra energy from not thinking about food every second of every day. :)

[lifty]

Fully agree with you. I think the unknown that still remains is why that noise is created. It must be related to modern food processing, besides the abundance of food.

[bb88]

I don't necessarily agree with that premise it's modern food processing.

The evolutionary human condition was primarily hunger. Animals fought over food. Humans fought, went to war over it. Nature has been that way for millions of years.

So now only in the past 100 years food has become abundant. Do you expect our evolution to change with it to be that quick too? That's really only 4 or 5 generations.

One data point here. In the 1700's, 1800's the rich were the ones that were fat, because they were the ones that had the abundance.

[lifty]

That doesn’t explain the discrepancy between USA and other regions of the world where obesity rates are much lower but food is equally abundant.