[bitmasher9]

Saying will power isn’t a solution is insulting to everyone that successfully made lifestyle and diet changes to become healthier without pharmaceutical intervention.

It may not work for everyone all the time, but I know a lot of people that have made these changes.

[hombre_fatal]

This is just an uncharitable / strawman interpretation of what they said. They are concerned with all the people left over once you remove the people that just had to muster up "willpower". And they are concerned for the people who weren't dealt the same hand of traits that us fit people have.

[toomuchtodo]

If one is insulted, they should revisit their mental model and emotional state. There is no gold star for will power because someone lucked out with genetics and brain chemistry/structure. “Be more lucky” is not actionable for the body you are issued.

We can patch bugs in the human, and we should whenever possible and desired by the person. This helps them make their own luck.

[jacobgkau]

You are transferring the problem from the foods industry to the pharmaceutical industry. I hope "one" knows that.

The "bugs" are not in "the human," they're in the food industry. Fixing our food supply would be far better for individuals and society than fighting fire with fire by leaving our food broken and using drugs to work around it.

In the meantime, doing what you can to unbreak your diet without using drugs is still far smarter than relying on an artificial "fix" for the "machine" that is literally you (and can't be tossed and replaced when you find out your "fix" caused other issues, which happens almost every time the pharma industry provides shortcuts for people). Doing it this way also moves your demand as a consumer to the unbroken parts of the food supply, which will help everyone else as food companies are incentivized to cater to that instead of continuing on with what they're doing.

[toomuchtodo]

If this is your belief, then you do not understand the mechanisms by which GLP-1 agonists work. They silence the signals in the brain craving the unhealthy foods in question. You will never win against your brain chemistry.

[SoftTalker]

Pharmaceutical companies would love for you to believe that. They salivate over the idea that they can convince you that you need their products for the rest of your life. They aren't any different from the common street dealer in many ways. They don't really care about your health, only that you keep coming back.

[jacobgkau]

"You will never win against your brain chemistry" is a defeatist way to dismiss taking basically any action, ever. People selling you artificial solutions will, of course, be incentivized to convince you that it's true.

Humans lived for thousands of years (without the widespread diet-related ailments we're seeing epidemics of today) without artificially "fixing" their own brain chemistry. This is not an internal medicine problem, it's an external food supply and societal lifestyle problem.

If you want to say it's too hard for you (you, only) to do what's required to not get sick and you'd rather rely on medicine, fine. But it is actually insulting to pretend like everyone needs a crutch just because you do. The main thing is that the crutch should be a last resort, and "willpower isn't a solution" should not be a common mantra to push the crutch as the first option.

[toomuchtodo]

Is this why GLP-1s are so effective at scale and your theory is not? We tried the silly will power way, that did not work. We tried GLP-1s, and they clearly work because industries are shifting because of it. If you want to ignore data out of a belief system, that’s a choice. You believe the intervention is inferior to will. But the evidence clearly shows the vast majority of humans are assisted by an intervention versus “will power” which does not work (gold stars to those who need to feel better about themselves they don’t need an intervention).

I don’t take GLP-1s, but I support getting them to everyone who wants them and ignoring anyone who tries to stop that, or says that is a lesser path for lesser people. I hope you learn to give grace, because lucky people are just lucky, not special.

[jacobgkau]

> We tried the silly will power way, that did not work.

They still work for plenty of people, just not you. They can work for more if we enable healthy diets and lifestyles as a society.

And no, that's not a "gold star" to the people who were able to literally have their "machine" work as designed. It's rather a gold star for you to not acknowledge if you needed artificial assistance to exist.

> Is this why GLP-1s are so effective at scale... We tried GLP-1s, and they clearly work because industries are shifting because of it.

None of the articles you cited in your earlier comment address "scale" at all, nor provide evidence of "shifting industries." Two of them address changes in the spending patterns of high-income consumers who are already using the drug (unrelated to the proportion of the total population using the drug), and the third is a blog post by a doctor literally selling GLP-1s as a miracle drug ("It's getting to the point of wondering what GLP-1 agonists aren't good for"-- yikes).

Your most recent KFF link (which it looks like you removed) claims 12% of adults have taken GLP-1 drugs (going off of a single poll taken by a health-tracking organization-- probably biased towards people actively working on their health). If that number was true, it would be alarming that over 10% of humans needed an artificial fix for a problem created by the food industry and socially sanctioned sedentary lifestyles, not something to parade around like you've actually fixed the underlying problem.

[lazyasciiart]

Their willpower doesn’t appear to have solved the issue on a societal level, and it is not an insult to say that.

[KittenInABox]

By this logic I, a person who has never been at risk of financial insolvency partially due to my lack of consumer addiction/upbringing with financial literacy, should be insulted by someone who says that budgeting isn't a solution to systemic poverty.

[jacobgkau]

No, by this logic, you should be insulted by someone saying paid professional accountants managing all of your money is the only way for society to avoid widespread debt because "most people" haven't managed to bring themselves to do the basic at-home budgeting that you're used to.

[Jtsummers]

> by this logic, you should be insulted by someone saying paid professional accountants managing all of your money is the only way for society

But toomuchtodo didn't write that GLP-1s were the only way to address the issue. So maybe there's no reason to be insulted. Perhaps you could exercise your willpower and not feel insulted by things that didn't happen.

[jacobgkau]

That user did, actually, specifically tell me that "You will never win against your brain chemistry," which is a direct statement that there is no other solution for me than GLP-1s. Do you want to continue defending that position, which is absolutist?