| > If enough people do it, you have a different culture This just straight up does not work. I will be blunt - you are not suggesting a solution, you're suggesting a delusion. This "do nothing and hope it works" approach is not novel. It has been our one singular approach to the obesity epidemic. Has it been working? We have many decades of evidence now. No, it hasn't. I could maybe see your perspective better if what you're suggesting is not already tried and tested. When you do something for decades at a time and the problem doesn't improve, but in fact gets worse, you have to face the reality that what you're doing just doesn't work. > Certainly possible given all the cultures that do prioritize these things They really don't. They just have less access to food. Some, like Japan, get around obesity by instead having some of the highest tobacco use in the world in combination with a stressed-out population. As fun as it sounds to reintroduce smoking culture to offset obesity, I think it might make more sense to give people access to safe drugs that help regulate their propensity for overconsumption. |
Exercise and diet do work. Next!
> They really don't. They just have less access to food.
I lived in a fit, rural area in a "third world country" (Colombia) for 4 years, still spend several months there out of the year. The people in my town are not starving for food. In fact it is abundant and everyone has a garden and everyone walks every day and everyone knows their neighbors. The food is entirely local and shipped in from the surrounding farms every morning.
Your perspective is informed by looking at people like numbers, statistics and robots. But the truth is that humans are dynamic, social, organisms that are very capable of changing their ways.