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by naner 5079 days ago
You can't say that people are fat because they're slobs with no self control, no, it's fructose, fast food ads, or whatever.

I'm going to accept your premise that people are fat because they are slobs with no self-control. So what now? They're doomed to have tough lives and die young? I think that if we can make healthy foods more attractive, tasty, and affordable, then we should do that.

My cousin is an Optometrist. I currently wear contacts but I do not sleep in them. I saw a commercial for contacts you could sleep in and thought that would be a nice feature to have. Turns out that's not the case. It is unhealthy to sleep in contacts, regardless the type. Those contacts were developed because some people will sleep in their contacts even when they know it is bad for their eyes. So Optometrists won't prescribe sleep-in contacts to people who wear their contacts according to the directions (it would be less healthy for the eye than what they currently do), they prescribe them to people routinely sleep in contacts which are explicitly not made for sleeping in. The sleep-in brand mitigates the damage.

In other words, if you can design around behavior it is often helpful to do so. It is difficult to get people to change, especially when it requires giving up a near-term convenience or pleasure for a long-term gain. Nagging doesn't work. If we can help people with bad habits by making it easier to make the right choices or by making the habits less bad, I think that is a good thing.

Also Optometrists will try to prescribe one-a-day contacts to overwearers people who sleep in their contacts before they try the sleep-in brand. That is another example of making the right choice (remove your contacts at night) easier (throw em in the trash, no upkeep) instead of making the wrong choice less harmful. One-a-days are relatively expensive, though, so the sleep-in contacts are another option.