[jajko]

I am going to be brutally honest here - I see it as some form of personal 'character' weakness, very common these days, haven't lived for that long to judge previous generations so harshly.

To the gist - its supremely easier to be or move into position of weakness and victim, look for external blame, while staying very deep in comfort zone, aka fix my shit as long as I don't have to change anything in my life, I'll even throw a lot of money on it. Massive resistance to change that's not convenient nor pleasant at first sight. People throwing tons of money on diet fads, experiencing jojo effects, depressed about their self-image and feeling helpless, binging in anxiety attacks. Yet nobody taking gym ownership, personal trainer, throwing out all that chocolate and other junky food, amking any self-improvement plan that 5 year old can put together and sticking with it. And of course almost everybody moves much less, but gist of the issue is food, quantity and quality.

It doesn't have to be about junk food per se, same is with parents basically giving up on raising kids and leaving screens and ad companies to do the work. Then complaining how young suck and are horrible and have no respect etc. While they themselves are glued to phones every day, addicted to the core, half laughing about it while scrolling further. Telling them to put it down for a day, spend time with them and kids (if they are still little, not much point pushing teenagers suddenly against their well-trodden addictive habits).

Comfort zone is death of one's 'fighting' spirit, I mean in fighting-as-hard-as-possible-for-best-life-possible. No good stuff comes without some form of a fight, at least it didn't in my life. It just doesn't happen in that damned zone, not with social media showing folks what they could have been if they tried. I don't mean some artificial celebrities faking / pretending how everything is glorious, I mean your schoolmates or childhood friends who were not spectacular in any way, yet rewind 10-20 years and there is abyss in how their vs yours life looks like.

I've 'lost' quite a few close people to such envy exactly because I was nobody special in any way yet somehow made it way further than most, from environment which expected very little from me. One way would be 100% quiet about everything good in my life or fake complain about everything, thats how many successful or rich folks live. I refuse to go over the board with that just to keep such, at the end subpar relationships. Rather accept people change, and one of benefits of non-family relationships is that you can finish them and create better ones as you change if it feels like the opposite is a mistake. I am currently in the process of losing my best childhood friend in same way too, not the greatest experience but unfortunately at this point unavoidable one.

/end a bit off topic rant

[vintermann]

How can personal character weakness be a thing that varies by century? That doesn't make sense. If we have less willpower than our great-grandparents, whatever that means, it has a cause outside ourselves.

You can maybe blame individual differences in outcomes on personal character weakness, if you really want to, but when millions on millions of people fall to the same character weaknesses that very similar people didn't fall for before, then "personal" is exactly what it isn't.

[Kirby64]

It’s a combination of societal weakness/acceptance, marketing, and access to easier alternatives (eg, stuff that will make you fat) in my view. There’s not one thing that does it, but years and years of… conditioning that’s led us to this point.

[amanaplanacanal]

That's certainly one theory. Among many. Science is about designing experiments to show which theories are wrong, and which are correct.

[Kirby64]

Right, and science shows that in calorie controlled diets (where people have their diets carefully controlled), they have no issue with weight loss/gain/whatever.

This leads to the obvious conclusion it's peoples inability to manage how much they eat that leads to their obesity. What else could it be?

Granted, this isn't necessarily their own moral failing... but the environment they're put in does not set them up for success.

[amanaplanacanal]

Sure, it has to be environmental, since it has affected millions of people (and animals). The question is: which environmental change? Ultra palatable food? Ultra processed food? The demonization of fat and subsequent additional sugar? Plasticisors in the environment? Lithium in the water supply? Something else?

[BobaFloutist]

One person's problem can be a moral failing. Thousands of people are a systemic failing.

Unless you think they literally just don't make people like they used to, if you swapped the babies in the cradle of the current generation with previous generations, we'd be thinner and they'd be fatter.

So saying the problem is people is kind of meaningless.

[jampekka]

People do what's made easy and what makes them feel good. And what is advertised.

While it's rather obvious that obesity is caused by excess energy intake, it is not obvious how to change this. I'm getting weight (luckily not at an alarming speed) and I know exactly why I am and how I could stop it, but I don't. Knowledge that it's a "character flaw" doesn't change that.

I smoked for decades, knowing full well it's waste of health and money, and stopped only when smoking was made more difficult than not smoking (smoking bans, introduction of nicotine replacement products). I occasionally eat animal based products knowing they are destroying our environment, but eat them less now because of better plant based options.

Humans are not rational agents and our free will is at most limited.