[mortallywounded]

How? You give an obese person a pill and they shrink. They will go back to obese when they stop taking the pill and resume the diet and lifestyle that got them obese to begin with.

What we need is a radical change in the food we eat and how we live our lives. It's easier than ever to not move all day. Sugar in one form or another is our primary diet. These problems won't go away.

[intothemild]

What I do hope these drugs do, is offer people ways to get themselves into healthier lives. One of the things I hear/read all the time is how "people just need to stop eating bad" or some such.. it's practically your comment here.

The issue with that thinking is it's super black and white, that willpower alone is the cure to weight loss.

So let's do a little thought experiment , what about all those naturally thin people, like really thin.. they can eat what they want and remain thin, find it hard to put on muscle. If it's really really hard for them to gain weight... Then isn't the inverse also true? Aren't there also people who are trying to do everything they can but for similar get inverted reasons just cannot lose weight?

The problem with relying on willpower alone is there's a finite amount of it.

Yes, for some people they have terrible willpower, they have terrible diets, and they do not work out. But they aren't the only ones. There's definitely others who are trying but failing... And you can only fail for so long before you give up.

So going back to my first point. I hope these drugs enable a new option, to get them past a certain point where they can lose weight without the failure... Begin to make better choices... Gain more confidence and willpower.

[mortallywounded]

Options are good.

My own mother struggled with her weight and opted for surgery at one point while I was in college. It did help her lose weight and keep it off. However, I honestly believe that surgery was a large factor in her death many years later. She was never the same after it. She lost the weight, but I would say she never obtained a healthy body and mind.

I don't say those things lightly. Surgery and other interventions are fine, but they shouldn't become our goto solution for these problems. There are absolutely other problems at play here. Willpower may be one of them, but the way food is mass produced and our usage of sugar additives seems to be a huge factor (we now have obese children...).

This lecture changed my mind on many arguments in this space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

[xnx]

> What we need is a radical change in the food we eat and how we live our lives.

That for sure would obviate the need for such pharmaceutical countermeasures, but achieving such radical change would be very difficult and time consuming. I'm glad we have some options to improve the quality and quantity of peoples lives while we work on that.