[HN Gopher] Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy
___________________________________________________________________
Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 446 points
Date : 2026-01-12 12:29 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (news.cornell.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.cornell.edu)
| nemomarx wrote:
| > "The data show clear changes in food spending following
| adoption," Hristakeva said. "After discontinuation, the effects
| become smaller and harder to distinguish from pre-adoption
| spending patterns."
|
| It's interesting that overall spending doesn't decrease that much
| in the end, although shifting from snacks to fruit is the kind of
| change health advocates have always wanted?
| giuliomagnifico wrote:
| After discontinuation of Ozempic, people start to gain the
| weight again (and buy again more food), that's why the spending
| changes again.
| jacobthesnakob wrote:
| Which is no surprise to anybody with common sense, the data
| for discontinuing GLP-1s show exactly the intuitive outcome.
| Zero diet change, zero habit change for the vast majority of
| users. Weight loss is accomplished via biochemical tricks to
| eat less volume of calorie dense junk food, rather than diet
| substitution. When the artificial appetite suppression ends,
| volume of the same food increases again leading to weight yo-
| yo. Plus why start to exercise when you've got a magic weight
| loss drug?
|
| Don't get me wrong, there are _some_ people using these drugs
| to get out of a pit of inertia with weight and sedentary
| lifestyles. But it's small. GLP-1 drugs will have most users
| hooked for life because they don't have the discipline and
| motivation to maintain the weight loss without it. Cha-Ching!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > they don't have the discipline and motivation to maintain
| the weight loss
|
| That argument has been tried for years and yet it fails
| nearly 100% of the time. Should we be trying something
| different than claiming it's a moral issue? Or is that too
| scientific?
| jacobthesnakob wrote:
| Why do _we_ need to try anything? This comes down to
| individualism versus collectivism.
|
| Besides, the logical consequence of the portion of my
| comment you highlighted is that the majority of GLP-1
| patients will need to be on these drugs _forever_ to
| maintain these benefits long-term. We have precisely
| _one_ trial of 5+ years of patients taking liraglutide,
| and ~2 years for semaglutide. Some side effects and long-
| term consequences could be entirely unknown.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| It's possible that there could be long term side effects
| that we don't know about, but given the number of people
| taking these drugs we would likely already have seen some
| indication of them. I guess we will find out!
| astrange wrote:
| All the side effects I've seen of GLP-1s are positive,
| and we've had diabetes patients taking them for much
| longer than that.
|
| Anyway, it's fairly obvious that discipline is not a
| solution to weight loss, because weight gains a) happened
| in lab and pet animals on the same timescales they
| happened to humans and b) are reversed by moving to
| higher altitudes.
|
| So to be productive, you should be telling people to move
| to Colorado.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >This comes down to individualism versus collectivism.
|
| All fun and games until it costs every individual a
| massive amount.
| zahlman wrote:
| > That argument has been tried for years and yet it fails
| nearly 100% of the time.
|
| No, it doesn't. Saying that people lack an ability is not
| the same as claiming that the problem is a simple matter
| of instilling that ability.
|
| > Should we be trying something different than claiming
| it's a moral issue?
|
| It also isn't the same as shaming people or making a
| moral issue out of it.
|
| > Or is that too scientific?
|
| The snark is uncalled for. "Science" doesn't require
| ignoring obviously true proximate causes in search of
| ultimate causes.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >No, it doesn't
|
| If you owe the bank $100,000 that's your problem.
|
| If you owe the bank $10,000,000,000 that's the banks
| problem.
|
| Obesity is a 'bank problem' issue. When everyone around
| the globe is massively gaining weight, in every country
| on this planet that's not in a war or famine, this isn't
| a human willpower issue. Something has changed, and to
| ignore that is unscientific.
| phil21 wrote:
| All that has changed is the environment and lifestyle
| humans live in, and it's quite obvious discipline and
| willpower cannot overpower that environment on average.
|
| The change was far too rapid for anything else to be
| remotely the primary cause.
|
| If you put a past heroin addict locked in a room with
| unlimited heroin readily available, chances are likely 9
| times out of 10 that person is going to partake
| eventually. Same goes for our food environment and way of
| life.
| padjo wrote:
| We could stop companies spending billions shoving the
| heroin down people's throats with advertising. But I
| guess selling them more drugs is a better solution.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >We could stop companies spending billions
|
| You see, companies have a way of stopping that and it
| only costs millions. They pay off the politicians and the
| politicians say that companies have more freedoms than
| individuals.
| samiv wrote:
| Health is unfortunately a very poor business.
|
| Sickness and obesity is much better business. Fitness,
| medical and fast food industry combined are trillions of
| dollars.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| That doesn't suggest it isn't a human willpower issue. If
| anything it suggests there is a fundamental flaw in human
| willpower in general. That when we get fat, happy,
| sedentary, peaceful, that most humans are susceptible to
| taking it easy, becoming lethargic, chasing easy quick
| neurotransmitters.
|
| I think the reason I am not obese myself is that I am
| aware of all this. The hedonic treadmills. Calories in
| calories out. What processed food actually means.
| Understanding what the ingredients actually do.
| Maintaining an active lifestyle.
|
| For me, the way forward was simply education. Once aware
| of all this, it becomes impossible to live another way.
| Maybe that is what we should market to people: knowledge
| that empowers lasting changes to behavior instead of
| quick fix shots/pills/diets.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| Weight gain/loss is not a matter of motivation and
| discipline.
| phil21 wrote:
| It absolutely can be. It was for me.
|
| Is it for everyone? Perhaps not. But to outright
| unequivocally say it's not is simply outright incorrect.
|
| It was absolutely motivation and discipline for me. One
| day I just decided enough was enough and I threw the
| proverbial kitchen sink at it.
|
| I am perhaps an outlier in that I'm not ashamed to say I
| was obese in the past because I simply lacked the
| motivation and desire to do the work to change it. It was
| easier and more comfortable being fat than in shape.
|
| I definitely agree telling an obese person to eat less
| and move more is about as useful as telling a depressed
| person to just stop being depressed. But lets not make
| outlandish claims either.
| oarfish wrote:
| Great, your one of the few. Statistics are pretty clear
| that most people cannot willpower their way out of their
| food seeking behaviours. They are to a large extent not
| under your concious control.
|
| correcting satiety signaling on a chemical level more
| directly addresses the problem in those folks.
|
| yes, the food environment is the main problem, in a way,
| but only because it punishes having a certain set of
| chemical and lifestyle parameters and rewards others.
| FatherOfCurses wrote:
| People must be getting prescribed this medication in a vacuum
| without any corresponding nutritional guidance. I can't see
| any way of going back to my previous eating habits, mainly
| because I've really had my eyes opened to how mindless some
| of my eating was before.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Just like any weight loss and gain, this is the sort of
| things that happens over years. You lose the weight, then
| five years later realize your weight has started creeping
| back up. Once you're heavy the battle never really ends.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| It is no surprise given the issue at hand. I mean it is
| people who failed at dieting and managing weight using the
| methods shouted from rooftops for a century or more now.
| Doctor could say whatever and its clearly in one ear out
| the other. A lot of these patients are taking it as a
| silver bullet, a quick fix. If you have to actively manage
| your diet anyhow while on the drug, the whole issue around
| diets and exercise the drug attempts to surmount, one
| wonders at the purpose of the drug.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Processed foods are much cheaper per calorie than "healthy"
| options.
|
| GLP-1 helped me kick my cravings for junk food, but that just
| meant I was eating more of the "expensive" stuff. Instead of
| $0.50 worth of Doritos as a snack, I'm eating $1.50 worth of
| Greek yogurt and $1.50 worth of fruit.
| zahlman wrote:
| > Processed foods are much cheaper per calorie than
| "healthy" options.
|
| > Instead of $0.50 worth of Doritos as a snack, I'm eating
| $1.50 worth of Greek yogurt and $1.50 worth of fruit.
|
| I won't bother with currency conversion because we're
| comparing ratios.
|
| 50 cents here gets a third of a 200g bag of generic brand
| potato chips, so 360 calories. Doritos are probably at
| least twice that expensive but whatever. (The generic-brand
| sandwich cookies that are my personal vice, are cheaper
| yet. There's so much variation within these vaguely-defined
| food categories that I can't take the comparison across
| categories seriously.)
|
| $1.50 gets probably a half dozen bananas here, at around a
| hundred calories per. Never mind the yogurt. (If you're
| buying fresh cut fruit you're simply doing it wrong.)
|
| So if you're purely comparing calorie counts and finding
| yourself on less-calorie-dense options then yeah there's a
| ratio but it's still not as bad as people think. But this
| is still fundamentally committing a fallacy equating "less
| calorie-dense" with "healthy".
|
| The same 360 calories from white rice cost me perhaps 15 or
| 20 cents (plus the time and energy to cook). I'm not big on
| brown rice but I'm sure I don't have to pay several times
| as much for it unless it's some fancy boutique thing. 360
| calories from dried split legumes (packed with protein and
| fibre), similarly, are in the ballpark of 30 cents. Perhaps
| you don't "snack" on those things, but you get the point.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| And this is the issue with these "healthy"/"processed"
| discussions.
|
| If you live off bananas and rice, you are not going to be
| healthy. You can get just as fat off plantains as you can
| doritos.
|
| Peanut butter (which is at least partially processed) can
| be a healthy part of your diet. It can also absolutely
| wreck it.
| derekperkins wrote:
| "let me meet your fat fruit friends"
| https://youtube.com/shorts/Cp4093Dzt4E
| vorpalhex wrote:
| There are millions of people who are obese - not just fat
| - primarily from fruits. Those people have a history of
| obesity preceeding modern processed foods, and it's
| because they have very dense fruits (and starches)
| available to them in plenty.
|
| My mentioning plantains wasn't random.
| pixl97 wrote:
| One particular thing on items like bananas and yogurt is
| they are very quickly perishable. You better be around
| and have a plan to eat them.
|
| Same with rice and beans, unless you're buying instant
| packs you have to plan and cook them, and be around to
| eat the leftovers.
|
| This is the thing about most crap foods. They require no
| commitment. Keep them around for months. Even after
| opening them they last for days or weeks.
|
| Processed foods don't require the further processing
| you're leaving out of the equation.
| tzs wrote:
| > Same with rice and beans, unless you're buying instant
| packs you have to plan and cook them, and be around to
| eat the leftovers.
|
| You can freeze cooked rice for months with very little
| loss of quality, and reheating frozen rice is quick and
| easy. Just put the frozen rice in a bowl, add a little
| bit of water, cover, and microwave for 3 minutes.
|
| I make 12 servings in my rice cooker, then fill 12 one
| serving containers and freeze them.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| I pressure cook beans. On induction or gas it takes about
| an hour to make a gallon beans from dry, and then I eat
| that for one meal a day for a week. You can get a 3 quart
| pressure cooker and just make less. I've also seen people
| use stainless steel bowls to cook multiple things in the
| same pressure cooker.
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| No this is the most repeated and most incorrect thing in
| the whole debate about food.
|
| More than a billion asians eat nutritious, cheap and
| calorie-balanced meals every day, unprocessed.
|
| Staples like legumes and rice don't cost much and are very
| nutritious. And supplementing with moderate amounts of
| _seasonal_ fruits and vegetables and moderate animal
| protein is still very affordable and healthy.
|
| A kilo of (dry) legumes is about $3.50, about 3500 calories
| (50% more than an average human needs per day), delivers
| >200 grams of protein, > 100 grams of fiber, some healthy
| fats and enough carbs to power you and a good set of
| vitamins.
|
| Hell if you get down to it, vitamin pills to supplement any
| deficiencies is a budgetary rounding error.
|
| Compare that to either Doritos and you don't get anywhere
| close. Doritos cost >$10 per kilo, and cost >$100 per kilo
| of protein, has low fiber, high fat, high salt. It's not
| nutritious, actively harmful and actually extremely
| expensive to fuel the body this way.
|
| And it makes sense: processing ingredients leads to a more
| expensive product than the base ingredients. This is true
| in every economic sector. Only uniquely, in the food sector
| ultra-processing doesn't only lead to higher prices for the
| customer (the reason companies do it in the first place)
| but also less healthy outcomes.
|
| Doritos are made of corn and vegetable oil. The prices of
| these ingredients are orders of magnitude lower than the
| end-product. Corn is like 30 cents per kilo, oil about
| $1.50. If you want the same nutrients without processing
| like frying etc, you can eat literal orders of magnitude
| cheaper.
| cthalupa wrote:
| > More than a billion asians eat nutritious, cheap and
| calorie-balanced meals every day, unprocessed. [...] rice
|
| This is one of those reasons that the term 'processed'
| food is stupid. White rice is a very processed food -
| what is the removal of the bran and germ but processing?
| And many other 'processed' foods undergo processing with
| the same sort of ramifications for health.
|
| Legumes are also not complete proteins in the majority of
| cases - soy is a significant exception here. Soy has a
| PDCAAS of 1, the same as whey, but lentils range from .5
| to .7, many beans are around .6, etc., and this can end
| up meaning your 200g of protein ends up being quite
| different in impact to many of your body's uses for
| protein than someone else's 200g of protein.
| themk wrote:
| PDCAAS is dumb when looking at multiple foods. E.g.,
| beans and rice, when consumed together, are like, 0.99,
| depending on the ratio. That is, the sum is greater than
| the parts.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Adding rice might get you close to that for the amount of
| rice you eat, but 1 cup of beans will get you 16g of
| protein and 1 cup of rice will get you 4g of protein.
|
| So a chunk of your protein intake would still be
| incomplete. It's not like the ratios are perfect so that
| a cup of each gets you 20g of PDCAAS 1.0 protein. Doing
| some quick napkin math looking at the AA makeup and
| protein digestibility of the two, it's like 14g
| equivalent of PDCAAS 1.0 protein.
|
| ~25% is a pretty significant gap if you're trying to hit
| optimal levels for things like muscle growth, etc.
| blell wrote:
| This is the kind of thing that looks good on paper but
| then breaks down when you try it.
|
| If you are seriously comparing the attractiveness of
| "legumes" (what legume and recipe is that?) with the
| attractiveness of Doritos I don't know what to tell you.
|
| If you cook something that is nearly as attractive as
| ultra processed foods, the price skyrockets.
| lan321 wrote:
| Grandparent:
|
| > Processed foods are much cheaper per calorie than
| "healthy" options.
|
| Attractive is a separate topic. Regardless of budget, for
| many people a chocolate cake will always be the most
| attractive food, regardless of cost. Doesn't mean we
| should have people living on chocolate cake diets.
| nottorp wrote:
| Indians and Chinese would like a word with you...
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| You are SO SO wrong if you think ASIANS are not eating
| processed garbage slop food too.
|
| Please actually go to east asia, go into their markets,
| and look on their shelves. They have SO much processed
| crap. Most Asians will gleefully tell you their love of
| the worst possible instant noodle (i.e. Mama brand) along
| with American cheese or other slop on top. Asians have
| the highest food standards when they want to, but their
| lows are as low as ours are. They love love LOVE spam for
| gosh sakes!
|
| Also white rice has terrible macros and is why they have
| crazy rates of Diabetes despite low obesity rates.
| firstplacelast wrote:
| From a US perspective at least, you are right but also
| wrong. Like yes, it's cheaper to buy raw potatoes and
| dried beans and cook healthy food vs. ultra-processed
| "junk food." However, when most people attempt to eat
| healthy they do not opt for dried beans and potatoes
| every day. There is a huge time cost to preparing those
| ingredients.
|
| And anecdotally, when I am eating healthier I am opting
| for a larger range of ingredients. Probably to keep my
| mouth interested as I am not getting the food that's been
| engineered to be perfect to my palate. While potatoes and
| beans are in my diet, I am also opting for a lot of
| vegetables that are more expensive, paying more for fresh
| herbs and interesting spices. I am almost always buying
| canned beans, sauces, and other foods with some
| processing to speed up prep time.
|
| I think your analysis suffers from comparing processed
| food engineered to taste great to the blandest, driest
| raw ingredients. Factoring in the time and secondary
| ingredients to make those raw ingredients taste great
| adds a lot of cost. Add in the cost of more varied
| ingredients bc very few people want to eat beans,
| potatoes, rice, and bland chicken every day. And further,
| you're missing the savings processed foods add by being
| shelf stable. They can sit on a shelf or in a freezer for
| months or years vs. fresh produce with a much shorter
| lifespan.
|
| So yes you can eat very cheap and very healthy, the vast
| majority of people will loathe that life over time. You
| can eat kind of cheap, very healthy, with a limited
| number of ingredients and have things taste great if you
| have a LOT of time to devote to cooking, this will still
| not satisfy many.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Greek yogurt is super easy (and cheap) to make yourself if
| you have an instant pot:
|
| Put 3L of milk and some starter from your last yogurt batch
| in the instant pot and press the "yogurt" button. Set an
| alarm for 10h.
|
| Pour the yogurt into a strainer lined with a cheese cloth,
| and a capture vessel underneath for the whey, then put it
| in the fridge overnight.
|
| You now have 1.5L of Greek yogurt that tastes head and
| shoulders better than anything you'd get at the
| supermarket. Takes me about a week to eat it all.
|
| If you're worried about a spoiled batch ruining your next
| starter, you can take the whey from the straining step,
| pour it into an ice cube tray, and keep it in the freezer.
| 2 cubes is plenty for 3L of milk and can keep for 6 months.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Even easier is to do it in quart mason jars imo after
| heating the milk to 190f for 30 mins in a pot and
| allowing to cool to 110f before seeding with bacteria. No
| need to strain with cheesecloth after incubation, just
| pour out off the top if desired. 12hrs incubation seems
| to work best for me. Going from frozen definitely needs
| 12hr as the bacteria will be slower starting than
| unfrozen source. You can get away with merely some
| scrapings off a yogurt ice cube as sufficient for
| seeding. Seems it can keep for a lot longer than 6 months
| in freezer fwiw; my freezeback is probably over two years
| old and still just as viable.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Are you really only eating $0.50 worth of doritos? Large
| bags of chips are like $8 now. Imagine 1/16th of that bag
| which isn't all that large of course. It would be like four
| chips.
| spockz wrote:
| Around here fruit is significantly more expensive than snacks.
| In fact, replacing the snacks with healthy food in our case
| increased spending. So it is awesome that these households
| managed to cut spendings.
| vidarh wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not on ozempic (though considering it, to get the
| last bit of the way to where I want to be and ensure I don't
| bounce back, which is frankly a lot harder than "just" the
| initial loss) but lost 20kg+ on diet changes, and the price
| of fruit and berries is shockingly high. But my dietary
| change still saved us a lot more from cutting takeaways
| alone...
| calpaterson wrote:
| > fruit is significantly more expensive than snacks
|
| This is a commonly repeated claim but it's usually not true.
| Fruit is, in fact, pretty cheap:
|
| In the US, bananas average $1.68/kilo:
| https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
| living/country_price_rankings...
|
| A kilo is usually ~6 bananas. So a banana costs maybe 28c on
| average. Find a cost-competitive ultra-processed snack for
| the calories and satiety that a banana provides. Healthy
| eating might not is cheap but junk food, specifically, is not
| usually a cost optimisation.
| eru wrote:
| Well, some fruits are cheap. But there's plenty of
| expensive fruits that people might want to eat, too.
| mrits wrote:
| There are plenty of expensive snacks.
| zahlman wrote:
| > In the US, bananas average $1.68/kilo:
|
| That's definitely not something I expected to be cheaper in
| Canada than the US.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| Where I am in California it's .99 cents per pound or 2.18
| per kilogram at Safeway/Albertsons and slightly less at
| Trader Joe's and Target, depending upon size.
| astrange wrote:
| Why is fruit the example of a healthy snack? Fruits are
| full of fructose, which is enemy #1 for weight loss.
| julianz wrote:
| Not so much when you consume it along with the fibre
| which is typically also included in the fruit.
| potamic wrote:
| Everything in moderation. An understated benefit of fruit
| is their prebiotic nature which promotes a healthy gut. A
| lot of healthy eating advice is settling down towards one
| idea. Eat a wide range of raw and fermented plant food.
| pixl97 wrote:
| This leaves out spoilage. Fruit is a pain in the ass to get
| enough of without running out before the next shopping trip
| or having it rot.
|
| I think a lot of people that say quickly perishable items
| are cheap shop every few days and buy in small quantities.
| amrocha wrote:
| Yes, that's how you should live if you want to be
| healthy. If the place where you live doesn't allow that,
| then you're sacrificing your health to live there.
|
| That's your choice at the end of the day, but don't make
| excuses for why you choose to eat garbage all day.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Being able to just up and move to a place that makes it
| more viable to grocery shop multiple times a week
| involves a certain level of affluence that a lot of
| people don't have.
|
| It is not a generalizable answer to this problem.
| amrocha wrote:
| Reality doesn't care about whether it's generalizable or
| not, it only cares about the truth. And the truth is that
| your suburbs are killing you.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Reality also doesn't care about an answer if it is
| impractical for a huge number of people. There are a
| variety of different answers to the problem and you pick
| the ones that are applicable to you and work from there
|
| Telling someone who can't afford to move to the city that
| they just need to move the city to solve their health
| problem is a waste of time for you and them.
| spockz wrote:
| I'm not in the US but in the Netherlands. Bananas are
| indeed pretty cheap kilo wise, currently about EUR2,50.
| Apples and pears are next at about EUR3,50. Strawberries in
| season are about EUR10/kg. Green kiwi is EUR5/kg, gold kiwi
| is EUR10/kg. Mangos are extremely cheap now at
| EUR1,39/piece.
|
| Having enough fruit for a family for a week, indeed as a
| sibling posted, accounting for spoilage or just bad items
| in the delivery, takes a substantial amount. In volume and
| in cost.
|
| On the other hand, crappy snacks are typically <EUR1 or
| <EUR2 per kg.
|
| We make the choice to buy fruit. But also we are well off
| enough to be able to do so consistently. There are also
| other costs of having to spend more time getting the fruit,
| preparing it for the kids to take to school. Not everyone
| has the time or sees the opportunity to do so. I'm very
| reluctant to just blame those people and say it is their
| choice to eat crappy food.
| bluedino wrote:
| I can buy a bag of apples for less than what a pack of Little
| Debbie snacks cost.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| I decided to check one of my local grocery stores because I
| honestly wasn't sure where they stood relative to each
| other.
|
| Most Little Debbie varieties, for a standard package
| containing 6 or 12 items depending on the size of the
| items, are listed at $3.19.
|
| Apples are commonly sold in 3 pound bags, which the
| internet suggests would contain 6-12 apples depending on
| the variety of apple and individual sizing. The 3 pound bag
| seems like a reasonable comparison to the standard Little
| Debbie packages, as it's 6-12 "snacks" in either case.
|
| The cheapest option is Red Delicious at $3.99. You can
| spend up to $6.99 for 3 pounds of a more premium variety.
|
| Little Debbies cost $0.26 to $0.53 per snack. Cheap apples
| are $0.33 to $0.66 per.
|
| The advantage is also present with larger quantities. A
| large package of Little Debbie snacks costs $5.49, and a
| 5lb bag of Red Delicious apples costs $5.99. You're getting
| 2x the Little Debbie snacks in the larger package, but
| you're only getting 66% more apples in a 5lb bag.
|
| At the larger quantity, LD's per snack price range is $0.23
| to $0.45. Red Delicious apples are $0.30 to $0.60.
| threetonesun wrote:
| Calorie wise you'd need to 2-3 apples to equal most
| Little Debbie snacks, but in terms of satiation the
| opposite is true.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| I don't disagree. I was responding to the specific claim
| in the post I replied to:
|
| > I can buy a bag of apples for less than what a pack of
| Little Debbie snacks cost.
|
| Satiety was not part of the post I replied to.
| bluedino wrote:
| Maybe I should have compared individuals then. One apple
| can be had for less than dollar and one snack cake is
| over a dollar
|
| Either way people should be eating apples, bananas, pears
| (as well as cheese, nuts...), instead of snack cakes.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| When you think of it in the context of a person with not
| much cash or time to work with, there's other advantages
| Little Debbie brings...
|
| - It's extremely unlikely that any of the snack cakes in
| a particular box on the shelf have gone bad or have
| rotten areas. They must carefully inspect a bag of apples
| for brown spots or risk getting less usable product than
| they paid for.
|
| - The snack cakes can sit at home for a really long time
| and still be usable. The apples have a much shorter shelf
| life. This makes bulk pricing more attractive for the
| snack cakes as there's a better chance all of the product
| can be used before it goes bad.
|
| - The apples require more preparation, dependent on
| preferences. Yes, you can grab an apple out of the bag
| and chow down. A lot of folks will want to wash it first.
| Some will want to cut it into pieces, or peel it, or do
| some other prep to it before eating. Snack cakes are
| pretty much always eaten as they are.
|
| Add it all up and it starts to become clearer why a lot
| of economically disadvantaged folks end up making "bad"
| choices around food. All of these points could be
| mitigated in various ways, but generally they would
| increase the financial and/or time costs.
| darkwater wrote:
| Yep, totally agree. Point 3 is probably a bit moot with
| apples but applies to almost every vegetable out there.
| But IMO the best selling point for unhealthy, sugar-rich
| snacks is easy of storage. You go to the supermarket and
| can buy 1 month of snacks easily, you cannot do it with
| fruits.
| zahlman wrote:
| I buy 3-pound bags of dried fruit all the time.
| darkwater wrote:
| Dried fruits are not as good as fresh fruit though (and
| can be less palatable)
| zahlman wrote:
| I don't think the evidence really supports the nutrition
| claim. The dehydration process might destroy certain
| vitamins at a chemical level, but those are
| extraordinarily cheap to replace (nobody in the developed
| world is at serious risk of deficiency disease) and the
| minerals aren't going anywhere as far as I'm aware. (Of
| course, our produce has lower mineral content than that
| of yesteryear, because of agriculture that prioritizes
| accumulating water and starch, and because of poor soil
| quality.) You just have to drink water along with them.
|
| As for the taste, chacun a son gout, but I quite like
| them.
| bluedino wrote:
| If you're going to use those excuses, don't forget to add
| that economically disadvantage folks can't buy in bulk
| because they don't have enough money, and live in food
| deserts where people can't buy in bulk, and they don't
| have anywhere to store those items.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| 1 box of snack cakes still has better shelf life than 1
| bag of apples.
| t-3 wrote:
| A pound of dry rice or beans keeps just as well, provides
| more food, and is cheaper unless you're buying basmati.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| And require preparation vs shoving the snack cake in
| their / their kid's mouth.
|
| It's good to keep time deficits in mind alongside
| financial deficits.
| t-3 wrote:
| Very little time or work is required to cook dry rice.
| Bring water to boil, add rice, set timer. Actually not
| having time is very rare, limited to people with multiple
| jobs who never go home except to sleep. Those people
| exist, but they aren't typical. Most of the extremely
| poor I've met have an abundance of time and a lack of
| resources. Cooking is rarely something they need to avoid
| due to time constraints.
| inkcapmushroom wrote:
| Now I'm picturing someone peeling their Zebra Cakes and
| cutting it into slices.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Modern apples have been bred to be larger and a lot
| sweeter than "natural" apples which are smaller and more
| sour. Not saying they are equivalent to a processed snack
| cake but they aren't especially healthy either.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| That's what I'm noticing about apples more and more these
| days: all of them are incredibly sweet like candy. The
| only variety I've found that seems suitable for regular
| eating ate the Granny Smith variety, but I hate their
| tough skins.
| addaon wrote:
| If you haven't tried Hidden Rose apples, give them a try.
| Besides being gorgeous, they have a tart:sweet ratio
| that's similar to Granny Smith, but with a texture that's
| further away from a baking apple and a thinner skin.
| Absolutely my favorite lately.
| pixl97 wrote:
| That snack cake can sit on the panty shelf for 6 months.
| The apple might have a week. Cheese and nuts can hang
| around a while, but they are super expensive and your ass
| will get just as fat if you over consume them.
| sageinventor wrote:
| Apples last much longer than 1 week, even if stored at
| room temperature.
| jjk166 wrote:
| You're probably not living off either.
|
| Deserts are visible - obviously a pack of Little Debbies
| has no nutritional value and is purely excess calories -
| but what fraction of your total calories are coming from
| deserts? The real issue is excess calories in your regular
| food consumption, such as large portions. Indeed, if your
| meals were filling you, you probably wouldn't even be
| snacking to begin with. When comparing things like bread
| and butter, the ultra processed versions are much cheaper.
| In absolute calorie terms they have lower sticker prices,
| but they also genuinely appear to be better value: you can
| get significantly more volume of food, and it will last
| substantially longer meaning you can buy in bulk, reduce
| the amount of time you spend grocery shopping, and spread
| purchases out to better align with when money is available.
| More often than not they also require less time and effort
| to prepare good tasting meals.
| zahlman wrote:
| > When comparing things like bread and butter, the ultra
| processed versions are much cheaper.
|
| I can't even fathom what you have in mind as "the ultra
| processed version of butter". Margarine is a completely
| different product from a different source.
|
| Bread is a relative luxury regardless. The sponge-foam
| "wonder" stuff isn't even the cheapest for sale here
| generally. But even then, typical bread is (adding up the
| macros) only about 60% actual grain by weight (the rest
| mostly water), going by the nutrition label; so a
| kilogram of whole grain whatever equates to nearly two
| and a half loaves. Even whole rolled oats are much less
| expensive, on this basis, than the cheapest bread I can
| find and it's not complicated to cook them.
|
| At any rate, bread and butter are two of the worst
| possible examples to make a claim about energy density in
| "healthy" versus "processed" options. Grain is grain
| (overwhelmingly carbohydrate and almost no water beside
| what is added in cooking or baking) and fat is fat.
| jjk166 wrote:
| I think you completely misunderstood what I wrote.
| zahlman wrote:
| I don't know how else to understand "When comparing
| things like bread and butter, the ultra processed
| versions are much cheaper.", other than as a claim that
| ultra-processed versions of things like bread and butter
| are much cheaper than non-ultra-processed versions of
| them.
| jjk166 wrote:
| How much does a loaf of white bread cost? How much does a
| load of whole grain cost?
|
| Whatever it is you are trying to argue in your comment,
| it has nothing to do with the cost comparison I am
| making.
| zahlman wrote:
| A loaf of white bread here costs a minimum of $1.99 (all
| prices CAD) and contains by my reckoning a bit over 400
| grams of wheat. So nearly $5 per kilogram.
|
| A kilogram of rolled oats can be easily found for about
| $3; white rice around $1.50 if you shop around; pasta
| from $1.33 to $2.22 depending (usually on the higher end
| of that); white flour $1 (in large bags).
| pixl97 wrote:
| These are not comparable items.
|
| A person can have a sandwich made of bread ate before
| your rolled oats are cooked. I think a huge portion of
| some people's confusion on why people eat what they eat
| need to look at time from picking the item from the panty
| to mouth to see that people spend a lot less time in the
| kitchen then they do.
| skirmish wrote:
| > before your rolled oats are cooked
|
| I enjoy rolled oats uncooked in a bowl with milk and
| various berries sprinkled on top. Try it, for me they are
| more delicious uncooked!
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > It's interesting that overall spending doesn't decrease that
| much in the end
|
| Only after discontinuation. GLP-1s should be considered chronic
| medication for most people.
| XorNot wrote:
| My brother was on it for a bit (and should go on it again)
| and the thing he noted was that it makes it easy to not eat
| but it gives you no useful habits to keep that up because
| it's so easy.
|
| Which makes sense. I still calorie count everything generally
| because I know I'll let myself creep portion sizes unchecked.
| nemomarx wrote:
| I think durable habits there are just hard honestly. I was
| losing weight when I was very strict about calorie counting
| and lived with a roommate who was on the same diet, but
| when I moved out and stayed with family my habits and
| intuition about safe foods didn't last long and temptation
| got me again.
|
| It does make me think we're applying bandaids over some
| other issue with the available foods - it's hard to imagine
| that everyone 50 years ago was just much better about
| dieting and counting calories?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > it's hard to imagine that everyone 50 years ago was
| just much better about dieting and counting calories?
|
| Do we just have a lot more food available now? Not just
| bad food, but calories of all kinds? Combined with
| steadily automating nearly all of the hard work, I'm not
| surprised people get fatter these days than 50 years ago.
| I bet the average person today is actually much more
| aware of what healthy eating looks like, it's just that
| there aren't that many really physical jobs anymore and
| food is extremely cheap and plentiful for most.
| buellerbueller wrote:
| Snacking (defined as between-meal eating) has had a
| massive uptrend (in the USA) since the 1970s:
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10097271/#:~:tex
| t=S...
| pixl97 wrote:
| It's really closer to 70 years ago to see the roots of
| the obesity epidemic in the US and had a lot to do with
| the post war world. To put it in another way, machines
| have taken over the vast majority of labor. Even people
| that do 'hard' jobs are still using a ton of tools that
| decrease the amount of physical effort they put in the
| job. Add in we converted the country from a human
| oriented place to one where cars rule, all while
| increasing the ease of consumption and we now have an
| epidemic.
| phil21 wrote:
| It also coincides with the rise of manufactured foods
| available for incredibly cheap prices. And the average
| percentage of a monthly budget spent on food going down.
|
| Basically incredibly tasty food became plentiful and
| cheap and convenient right when physical labor went away.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I don't think it's natural (in the sense of defining
| health) for adequate homeostasis to require special rituals
| and constant attention.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Agreed 100%. I think if your strategy for maintaining a
| good diet relies on weighing food and counting every last
| calorie, you are inevitably going to fail. Something more
| fundamental, natural, habit forming, whatever -- that
| will be the right answer. Naturally trim people don't
| count calories to stay that way, either.
| XorNot wrote:
| Look at the modern world and tell me where natural is
| supposed to fit in though?
|
| I work a desk job in a knowledge work based society with
| consistent, reliable caloric abundance.
|
| The body doesn't know it's not on the African plains and
| needing to bank the current bounty because who knows when
| it'll eat next.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >Naturally trim people don't count calories to stay that
| way, either.
|
| Wouldn't it be funny if we discovered that naturally trim
| people just produce more hormones like glp...
| Yodel0914 wrote:
| Of course naturally "trim" people don't count calories -
| they don't have to. Just like I don't have to monitor my
| blood glucose level, but my Type 1 diabetic friend does.
|
| You can't apply to habits of one physiologic group to a
| different group and expect the same results.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| So what do you suggest instead?
| overgard wrote:
| To be fair, 12 step programs would be a counter argument.
| The maintenance of homeostasis requires constant
| attention in those programs. You could say overeating is
| different from other addictions, and I would agree, but
| there are a lot of similarities too..
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| One might argue that homeostasis is, itself, a kind of
| attention that our bodies pay. Maybe by consciously
| changing our habits we can change our set points. In
| certainly way more aware of how full I actually am 3
| weeks into hitting a 2000 calorie a day diet.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >I don't think it's natural
|
| Natural is a fair part of your population starving every
| winter.
| bargainbin wrote:
| There was an interesting study recently that showed coming
| off actually caused weight re-gain an order of magnitude
| worse than yo-yo dieting.
|
| The media spun it as GLP-1's being evil and pointless, quelle
| surprise, but really it hints towards obesity being more than
| just "fixing your relationship with food" and acknowledging
| that there is more we don't understand about why some people
| are fatter than others despite similar lifestyles.
|
| Going to be an interesting decade as more data is gathered on
| these, that's for sure.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| Citation? Sounds dubious
| rootusrootus wrote:
| There are a couple recent stories that people put on
| weight something like 4x as fast if they go cold turkey
| after a GLP1 than if they quit a normal starvation diet.
| This intuitively makes sense, because an average GLP1
| weight loss is way higher than most people can attain
| with willpower alone. So when they stop, the body screams
| "feeeeeeed me!" at incredible volume.
| buellerbueller wrote:
| https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj-2025-085304
|
| "This review found that cessation of WMM [weight
| management medication] is followed by rapid weight regain
| and reversal of beneficial effects on cardiometabolic
| markers. Regain after WMM was faster than after BWMP
| [behavioral weight management programs]. These findings
| suggest caution in short term use of these drugs without
| a more comprehensive approach to weight management."
| zahlman wrote:
| > but really it hints towards obesity being more than just
| "fixing your relationship with food"
|
| No, it doesn't. It points towards that task being _too
| difficult_ to hand-wave at.
|
| > acknowledging that there is more we don't understand
| about why some people are fatter than others despite
| similar lifestyles.
|
| Such effects are greatly overstated, unless you're counting
| diet as a product of lifestyle rather than a component.
| reedf1 wrote:
| I do think this could only be temporary victory over the food
| industry by the pharmacology industry. It's only a matter of time
| until food additives or varieties are discovered that partially
| ameliorate the effects of ozempic.
| dizlexic wrote:
| ... do you have any evidence to back up this claim?
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| As meta as this comment is, I can't help but note that parent
| may simply be engaging in pattern recognition.
| Drakim wrote:
| I don't know about a full on conspiracy, but it's no secret
| that in the US they put a lot of additional sugar into
| products you wouldn't think had them.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| I was in the US for 4 weeks as a tourist, the amount of
| additional time and effort it takes in the US to eat
| healthy is mind boggling.
| nwienert wrote:
| Where did you visit? I don't think I've ever lived in a
| city where it wasn't trivially easy to find healthy food
| in abundance.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Every day another city or village in 4 different states.
| I won't go into everything I saw or noticed while staying
| there. HN doesn't like criticism of the US.
| rjdj377dhabsn wrote:
| Are you sure the difference didn't mostly come down to
| being a tourist in temporary accommodation vs having
| access to a familiar grocery store and your home kitchen?
| wtcactus wrote:
| I experienced the same, and no it isn't.
|
| In Europe you don't expect your bread to have added
| sugar, for instance. That tasted disgustingly.
|
| You also don't normally expect sweeteners in your meat.
| Those sauces are also disgusting. Good beef meat (and in
| the USA there's very good meat), needs only salt and
| maybe a bit of pepper. Not those weird sugary sauces they
| put in the USA.
|
| Seriously, for someone from Europe, some food in the USA
| is just disgusting (and it's not due the quality of the
| ingredients, as those are usually very good) but due to
| the stuff they add on top.
| wil421 wrote:
| What kind place were you eating at the puts sauce on
| steak? Are you complaining about a BBQ restaurant, they
| are notoriously unhealthy.
| wtcactus wrote:
| One of those places, was a very fancy restaurant in
| Washington DC, with photos of presidents dining there
| hung on its walls.
|
| So, let's not act like it's not something normal there.
| These sugary sauces are everywhere in the USA. From low
| level to high level eating places.
| t-3 wrote:
| Putting sauce on steak is blasphemy for a lot of people.
| It's not something normal unless it's the customer adding
| it to their own meat.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| This is true for A1 or ketchup.
|
| If you order a steak au poivre, it's gonna have sauce.
| t-3 wrote:
| French food having sugary sauces has nothing to do with
| American food having too much sugar though, and I'd wager
| 99% of the US has never heard of steak au poivre. We may
| know of pepper steak, but that doesn't always have sauce.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > What kind place were you eating at the puts sauce on
| steak?
|
| You've never had a steak au poivre or a red wine
| reduction?
|
| Sauce is good enough for Ruth's Chris.
| https://ruthschris.net/blog/choose-best-entree-
| complement-st...
| rjdj377dhabsn wrote:
| All of the things you described are available, that's
| true, but any major supermarket, even in rural areas,
| will have plenty of healthier options available as well.
|
| Take bread for example. Sure there will be some crappy
| sliced white bread on the shelf. But there will also be
| organic sprouted 7-grain high fiber next to it. In fact,
| there will probably be more healthy varieties available
| than just about any other country.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| The options are there, but it can be exhausting to
| actually find them.
|
| There are far too many products that try to position
| themselves as "healthy", but are closer to the rest of
| the crap on the shelves than actual "healthy" food. Even
| more frustrating is the insane amount of food now using
| sugar replacements to masquerade as a healthy option.
|
| I personally, find it exhausting to shop at new stores
| because it can take looking at 2 to 5 items to find one
| that's actually made healthy.
| rjdj377dhabsn wrote:
| That's fair. If one follows the path of least resistance,
| you'll end up eating crap.
| t-3 wrote:
| > In Europe you don't expect your bread to have added
| sugar, for instance.
|
| Were you eating sweet bread meant for coffee or desserts
| and thinking it was for making a sandwich? Most breads
| use just enough sugar to rise the yeast.
|
| > You also don't normally expect sweeteners in your meat.
|
| Were you eating barbecue, where the sauce is whole point?
| There is plenty of unsauced meat in the US. Any
| steakhouse will give you as much meat as you want without
| any sauce unless you pour it on yourself.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| America hides sugar in everything. Plain old white
| sandwich bread often has loads of added sugar.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/breads-high-in-
| sugar-2018-11
|
| Sugar isn't necessary for bread making. Yeast can break
| down the starch. That's what it evolved to do. Flour,
| water, yeast, salt, done.
| t-3 wrote:
| > America hides sugar in everything. Plain old white
| sandwich bread often has loads of added sugar.
|
| It's not hidden, it's on the label, and expected. I just
| don't buy garbage bread.
|
| > Sugar isn't necessary for bread making. Yeast can break
| down the starch. That's what it evolved to do. Flour,
| water, yeast, salt, done.
|
| That usually means that malt is added to the flour (most
| bread flour). You can get breads without added sugar or
| malt, but you're going to have to go to a bakery that
| makes their own dough and buys flour without additives,
| which is getting rarer and rarer.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It's not hidden, it's on the label
|
| Potato, potahtoe. It's not quite "beware of the leopard"
| territory, but folks here remain quite surprised at how
| much sugar is added to their bread.
| oklahomasports wrote:
| All the ingredients you get in Europe you can get in the
| US easily
| eru wrote:
| Most of them, sure. But I doubt all of them. Just like
| you can't get all the different American ingredients in
| Europe.
|
| Hell, you can't even get all the European ingredients in
| all of Europe. Good luck finding all the Danish
| ingredients in Italy.
| bmicraft wrote:
| Truly spoken like someone who's never been out of their
| region.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Name an ingredient and I guarantee I'll be able to find
| it in either walmart or walgreens.
| brador wrote:
| Additives already added to food exist to circumvent natural
| protections. Small leap to extend this to bypassing glp.
| XorNot wrote:
| What natural protections?
| brador wrote:
| Natural protection against overeating.
| XorNot wrote:
| Such as?
| array_key_first wrote:
| Fiber mostly, but that's not an addictive, I guess that's
| a subtractive.
|
| But think about, say, oranges. They naturally have fiber
| in them to make you feel more full and to slow the
| absorption of sugar. Then we remove all the fiber by
| juicing them, and now you can eat 6 oranges in 60
| seconds, which is typically impossible or, at least, very
| uncomfortable.
|
| It's the same story for the entire food industry. Whole
| foods are complex, we often zone in on some aspect of
| them and extract it, essentially concentrating it.
| fellowmartian wrote:
| it's actually true and they're trying to develop GLP-1
| resistant foods by using other sensory channels:
| https://archive.is/N0whF
| pjc50 wrote:
| This should be viewed like attempts to put the cocaine back
| in coca-cola. The industry may be able to get away with
| "our food is naturally delicious", but engineering it for
| superior addictiveness should be banned. Not going to get
| there under the current FDA, though.
| Flavius wrote:
| > Not going to get there under the current FDA, though.
|
| Not going to get there under any FDA. The FDA never cared
| about food engineering and never will.
| buellerbueller wrote:
| Capitalism creates these monstrous corpo-organisms, and
| while we have found one way to strangle "Big Processed
| Food" this article shows that BPF has a will to survive.
| vintermann wrote:
| It's a prediction. Not a terribly unreasonable one as far as
| I can see. If a drug can move 5% of the ~trillion dollars
| spent on groceries in the US, there's a lot of money
| available for clawing those 5% back.
|
| Demanding evidence for predictions like this is a bit... hm.
| Arrogant, maybe. A prediction is a commitment. We _want_
| people to make predictions. The evidence we get when those
| predictions come true or not. Would you be willing to make
| the opposite prediction?
| dominicq wrote:
| There are sometimes truly bizarre demands for evidence. I
| once posted a pure opinion piece -- essentially a moral
| judgment on what is good and what is bad (in the domain of
| technical writing) -- and got hit with "source?"
|
| Me.
|
| I am the source.
| delfinom wrote:
| They'll be hard pressed to find something that isn't
| running into medical regulation territory.
| vintermann wrote:
| But will medical regulation be an obstacle? All sorts of
| laws feel like they aren't the protection they used to
| be.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Wanting evidence for random claims is arrogant? I'd say
| magical thinking is whats arrogant.
| capitol_ wrote:
| A prediction is not a claim.
|
| Predictions operate on events that will happen in the
| future.
|
| Proofs typically operate on things that already exist.
| brokensegue wrote:
| Why wouldn't they have already been looking for a way to
| make their food more palatable? There was already a lot of
| money on the line
| vintermann wrote:
| I think _if_ there were certain foods which, for some
| reason, aren 't as affected by Ozempic-type drugs' (GLP-1
| agonists?) appetite suppression effect - and I'm not an
| expert, but I totally wouldn't be surprised if there was
| - then I think the food industry would be _very_
| interested in finding them.
| hyperpape wrote:
| I predict you'll retract this comment.
|
| I don't have any evidence that you will, but since you seem
| to think that's ok, here goes!
| Edman274 wrote:
| At what point does a demand for evidence come back around
| to making the requestor seem less like a prudent,
| rational truth seeker and more like someone with naive
| lack of personal, lived experience? Like, not a single
| soul will say "got evidence for that assertion?" when
| it's a news story about EA or Oracle or Adobe acquiring a
| company and people are predicting that the acquired
| product will be destroyed, and isolated demands for rigor
| will be laughed out of the comment section. Why is that -
| when does it flip over to "oh, so I guess it's okay to
| just nakedly assert that food companies will seek profit
| by reformulating their recipes, even though there isn't a
| _shred of evidence_ to support that, therefore, we 're
| now allowed to predict _anything_! "
|
| The complement of the claim is essentially "food
| manufacturers will never again attempt to modify their
| recipes to make them more hyperpalatable, now that GLP-1
| exists." Does that need evidence? It's the null
| hypothesis, but it certainly sounds a lot more
| unrealistic than the opposite.
| hyperpape wrote:
| Destroying a product is a well understood process, and
| we've witnessed many big companies do it. That's
| evidence!
|
| Designing a food to be more appealing is also a
| relatively well understood process that is already
| carried out, but Ozempic seems to blunt the effectiveness
| of it.
|
| Food companies will surely try to make food that is
| appealing for Ozempic users, and will do so if they can.
| But it is a massive assumption that they will be able to,
| given that they're already doing as much as possible to
| make food appealing to people.
|
| So there is significant uncertainty that the food
| companies can do what the parent suggested they would do.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It needs evidence that there's a general phenomenon of
| "hyperpalatable" food companies can search for, not just
| a latent property of how certain macronutrients balance
| in food. Otherwise, it's like proposing that public
| transit is pointless because car companies will somehow
| defeat it by making up more reasons to drive.
| vintermann wrote:
| It IS OK. You're on.
| semiquaver wrote:
| The figure isn't 5% of all grocery spending, it's a 5%
| household change after one member starts GLP-1.
| vintermann wrote:
| Fair enough. The ~trillion dollars also includes things
| which presumably wouldn't be affected by ozempic, like
| overpriced razors. But either way you look at it, it's
| probably going to move enough money to seriously hit the
| food industry.
| notdang wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-
| pharmaceuticals/...
|
| Here are some first steps:
|
| Earlier this year, Conagra started labeling some of its
| Healthy Choice frozen meals with high protein and fiber as
| "GLP-1 friendly." A spokesperson said those meals are selling
| faster than rival products making similar claims on their
| packaging. The company plans to introduce new Healthy Choice
| recipes with the same labeling in May and work with grocers
| like Walmart (WMT.O), and Kroger (KR.N), to market them, the
| spokesperson said.
|
| Nestle, the world's biggest food company, has also introduced
| new frozen meals that cater specifically to GLP-1 users,
| called Vital Pursuit.
|
| Fast-casual Mexican chain Chipotle (CMG.N),on Tuesday added a
| "High Protein Menu" that features, among other items, a
| single cup of chicken or steak.
| trillic wrote:
| bowl-slop is getting smaller and is now cup-slop
| cookiengineer wrote:
| How do citizens of the US tolerate this?
|
| I'm baffled how messed up the food industry in the US has
| gotten over the last decades. When I was in the US I
| remember ordering pancakes in the morning. Those pancakes
| for like 10 bucks lasted for the whole week because I
| couldn't stuff so much in my stomach.
|
| I also don't understand why everything, literally
| everything, is fried in oil. Good luck trying to get an
| actual healthy salad where the toppings aren't full of
| sugar or oil. When we cook something with oil here and fry
| it, it's too much if you use 5 spoons of oil. When people
| in the US fry something in oil, they pour at least a gallon
| in the pot, and call it "good food" afterwards.
|
| It's just such a reverse culture shock when you come back
| to the EU. I'm really glad I don't live in the US anymore.
| It was so exhausting having to buy whole foods and things
| without peanut, corn/maple, oil or sugar in it.
|
| It's like 99% of processed food is made out of waste of
| those industries, can't explain it otherwise because it
| doesn't make sense to me. You have really great vegetables
| and fruits there because of having enough sun to grow them
| locally, yet it seems like nobody wants to eat them.
| jacobthesnakob wrote:
| >How do citizens of the US tolerate this?
|
| Tolerate what, stupid misleading advertising on frozen
| junk food? Normal people just don't buy it.
|
| >I also don't understand why everything, literally
| everything, is fried in oil.
|
| Did you travel here and only go to fast food places or
| something?
|
| >It's just such a reverse culture shock when you come
| back to the EU.
|
| When I traveled to EU, I was surprised at the number of
| nasty people smoking cigarettes outside at cafes, walking
| down the street, everywhere. You'd sure think that a lot
| of younger people don't care about their health in EU
| based on all the smoking.
|
| >You have really great vegetables and fruits there
| because of having enough sun to grow them locally, yet it
| seems like nobody wants to eat them.
|
| That's a weird assumption because the produce section of
| my grocery store is pretty much the most crowded section.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Did you travel here and only go to fast food places or
| something
|
| I attribute much of the weird slop like that post to bots
| or paid trolls driving an agenda. They say things that
| only really make sense in the online fantasy world.
| foobarian wrote:
| That's funny, I feel I had the opposite experience going
| into EU. Maybe it's regional? Anyway we were eating out a
| bunch around Slovenia and menus had a lot of "mixed meat"
| "fried cheese" type foods and servers would look at you
| funny if you wanted just vegetables. I got the vibe that
| they felt like they were letting you down if they didn't
| offer you their best meat so maybe it's a cultural
| leftover from hungrier times
| zoidb wrote:
| It's more typical of that country and especially the
| balkans.
| u8080 wrote:
| This is Balkan stuff mainly, large portions with a lot of
| fatty meat. Puzzling to me how obesity rates are pretty
| moderate in those countries.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I've just learned to ignore everything that's not factual
| on a box. I'm basically flipping it over to read the
| ingredients.
|
| Nutrition labels are hit or miss. Portions are pretty
| much a useless, arbitrary measure so I'm really just look
| at them to understand the general ratios.
| 93po wrote:
| i dont think nearly anyone in the US considers anything
| fried to be healthy.
|
| i agree everything is very sugar-filled though, i think
| in part because of the misguided culture shift around
| everything needing to be fat free and manufacturers
| simply replaced fats with sugars
| t-3 wrote:
| > You have really great vegetables and fruits there
| because of having enough sun to grow them locally, yet it
| seems like nobody wants to eat them.
|
| Most of the fruit and vegetables in the supermarket
| aren't grown locally, those are usually imported (and
| rarely from other US states, most from South America).
| Farmers markets have the local stuff.
| elil17 wrote:
| I don't really understand how this is big food "winning
| against GLP-1 agonists."
|
| Aren't they just selling healthier meals with smaller
| portion sizes?
| gpt5 wrote:
| They are eating healthier, the above is not at all
| evidence for the original claim.
|
| All research on GLP-1 diet changes shows that people on
| GLP-1 naturally shift away from junk snacks, soda, and
| fast food. With a significant increase in high protein
| food, especially "mushy" one like yogurt and cottage.
| buellerbueller wrote:
| The evidence is the future event/state/action that proves or
| disproves the prediction.
| cjrp wrote:
| Why bother when the junk food industry can just lobby hard and
| make these drugs illegal
| carlmr wrote:
| >The share of U.S. households reporting at least one user rose
| from about 11% in late 2023 to more than 16% by mid-2024.
|
| I was wondering how you could get such a high impact overall. But
| it seems one in 6 households are on GLP-1 drugs in the US.
|
| In my friend circle in Germany I don't even know one single
| person on this stuff.
|
| It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off the
| processed foods killing them in the US.
| Raed667 wrote:
| in europe there is a social stigma around GLP-1 drugs, a lot of
| people considered it cheating and lazy, so a lot of people
| don't dare talk about their usage
| raverbashing wrote:
| Or, you know, just less obese people
| carlmr wrote:
| We have quite a few obese people. Not as many as the US,
| but not few either.
| Raed667 wrote:
| > France [...] 2020 [...] excess weight was 47.3%, with
| 17% of subjects being obese
|
| https://presse.inserm.fr/en/obesite-et-surpoids-pres-dun-
| fra...
| tiborsaas wrote:
| Many of my not obese friends started using it out of pure
| laziness. But in general I believe that obese factor too :)
| u_sama wrote:
| You also forget it is expensive and in many cases not taking
| charge by the respective healthcare autority of the country,
| so it leads to less consumption.
| sffddfsdsf wrote:
| And its for life. Unless you are doing it for Instagram
| only... "The Insta Diet" as it is called also.. When the
| diet finishes, you will gain the fat instantly also (just
| as with any diet obviously).
| Raed667 wrote:
| It is for sure expensive (~300EUR / month) but from my
| understanding nothing like the prices you see in the US
| (+2'000 $)
| devilbunny wrote:
| I've known several users of GLP1's. None ever paid more
| than $600/mo for them once the "patient assistance"
| programs started, and even in the very earliest days the
| prices I heard were never more than about $1100 if paid
| in cash.
|
| So, while they are very expensive, your understanding is
| not reflective of the situation on the ground.
| Raed667 wrote:
| that's good to hear, the sticker prices are insane
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah, Zepbound is $499 now. Out of reach of many, but an
| improvement from $549 last year.
|
| The terms and conditions are confusing. You can only use
| the half-off coupon they provide if you have prescription
| drug insurance. Even if insurance doesn't cover it, they
| still require the processing pharmacy to check that you
| have some sort of valid insurance and only process the
| coupon if so. If you fall into that bucket, it's $1200 or
| something. (Had to pay that amount one month because
| Amazon Pharmacy was very confused about my gender marker
| changing on my insurance. Many, many support tickets
| later, and it got fixed.)
|
| There is also some price difference between the
| autoinjector and the single-use vial + provide your own
| needle and syringe. I haven't looked into that because
| it's the same with the coupon, but if you can't get the
| coupon to work, it's an option to just inject it
| yourself. Honestly I prefer not using the autoinjectors
| (I inject other medications), but it's the path of least
| resistance.
|
| Finally, the coupon claims it only works for 7 fills, but
| I've been taking the medication for a couple years and
| all my fills have been covered. I don't really understand
| it. I have a feeling that I'm the only person in the
| world that read the fine print, including the pharmacies
| and manufacturer :/
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Wegovy tablets are $299 now.
| u8080 wrote:
| Wtf, is that just for original trademark GLP? Generics
| cost like <$30/mo in Russia.
| ChromaticPanic wrote:
| It's $66CAD including taxes where I am after insurance. I
| save 3-4x that on less groceries.
| carlmr wrote:
| There may be, but I haven't seen anyone lose significant
| weight either since this started.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| In Austria I have noticed a massive social stigma. I think
| that's embarrassing and backwards. As someone who is very
| athletic and takes nothing extraordinary besides creatine and
| whey protein I fully support anyone who wants to become
| healthier, with or without medication.
| m0llusk wrote:
| In my experience this is not healthy. People who had
| problems with weight are very quickly losing excess weight
| and displaying a range of symptoms related to that
| including sunken and starved looking faces and significant
| loss of lean muscle mass. Changes made to the face with
| rapid weight loss may become permanent and especially for
| older people the loss of lean muscle mass can become a
| major health problem. Sudden extreme changes in body
| composition are often neither healthy nor stable.
| benmmurphy wrote:
| There might be health problems associated with these
| drugs but they need to be compared to the next best
| option. I think for a lot of people on these drugs the
| next best option is continuing the status quo which has a
| lot of negative health outcomes as well.
| Foivos wrote:
| The social stigma in Europe exists, because these drugs are
| in limited supply. So, if a person who does not really need
| them is using them, the people who actually need them to stay
| alive might have difficulty accessing them.
| Raed667 wrote:
| that's actually not true, Mounjaro and Wegovy are pretty
| much meant for weight loss and there is no competition over
| them for people with diabetes
| derektank wrote:
| Mounjaro is the tirzepatide equivalent to Ozempic
| (semaglutide) in that it's prescribed for type 2
| diabetes. Wegovy (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide)
| are prescribed for obesity. Otherwise you're spot on.
| dboreham wrote:
| There is until they're packaged because they're the same
| drug. Only the label is different.
| laurentiurad wrote:
| you can just order them to your home on any of the websites
| selling GLP-1. Stop the propaganda inferring that the
| public healthcare is bad and doesn't allow people to get
| their medicine.
| blell wrote:
| In Spain you can't. You need to be authorised by a doctor
| to buy those drugs.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| This is also true in the US -- these are prescription
| drugs.
| elictronic wrote:
| This is not exactly correct. The fda approved named items
| require a prescription. However from the shortage years
| ago compounding pharmacies were allowed to sell
| alternative versions. Basically they add a B vitamin to
| the normal drug and boom non prescription GLP1.
|
| With this one simple trick Denmarks GDP goes down by
| multiple % points.
| cthalupa wrote:
| > non prescription GLP1.
|
| Compounding a drug doesn't suddenly make it non-
| prescription. You still need one for them.
|
| It just lets you buy stuff where the raw API is made in
| China by some random pharma lab instead of from Novo or
| Lilly.
| Mashimo wrote:
| > because these drugs are in limited supply
|
| That's the first time I hear about this. A close friend of
| mine uses it and she just goes to the pharmacy. Never heard
| about any problems with supply.
| Raed667 wrote:
| this is the remains of the moral outrage that was online
| and in the media a few years ago when ozympic was first
| mediatised
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Where is that? I'm pretty sure in France you can't just
| walk into a pharmacy and buy it, you need a prescription.
| Mashimo wrote:
| Yes, she has a prescription. I did not think it was
| relevant to the supply.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I think it's somewhat related. The French social security
| site has a page asking phamacists to make sure the
| prescriptions are correct, in order to guarantee
| availability to people who actually need this [0].
|
| This sounds pretty much like the supply is somewhat
| limited for whatever reason.
|
| ---
|
| [0] https://www.ameli.fr/pharmacien/actualites/antidiabet
| iques-a...
| daveoc64 wrote:
| That is nearly a year old now.
|
| There were previously supply issues with these drugs
| throughout Europe, but those were mostly resolved by the
| end of 2024.
|
| By mid-2025, it was (and still is) possible to easily get
| all of the medicines for any of the approved uses,
| including weight loss and diabetes.
| kube-system wrote:
| Here's a short history of the official shortage statuses
| for various GLP1s from the FDA:
|
| https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-
| availability/fda-c...
|
| Currently, only Liraglutide is officially in shortage.
| Although others have been in shortage in the last couple
| years.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Honestly it's just because people who use them are
| considered to be weak minded and lazy. That's all, the
| supply doesn't matter.
|
| We have been able to diet for millions of years, our body
| is pretty good at it, but some people NEED that to diet.
| Yeah, just like some people can't be put to work. Everyone
| know that kind of people who are a burden on society and
| themselves.
|
| It just happens that this drug is more available in the
| USA, but with the same availability in Europe, I bet there
| would be around the same percentage of user.
| blell wrote:
| I read this online, I don't know where it was, so I can't
| give a source, it probably was on twitter:
|
| "People really want these things - exercise, weight - to be
| important moral objectives for others, when they're not that
| important in the grand scheme of things. Now you'll just have
| to find another easy visual marker for ranking people by
| moral superiority."
| hare2eternity wrote:
| I would imagine we'll see a greater emphasis on
| muscularity. Already 'skinny fat' has long been a
| pejorative for slim people that hadn't 'earned' it
| (whatever 'it' is). Like just about everything, supply and
| demand will determine desirability. In a world where no-one
| is overweight being slim is no longer a desirable
| differentiator.
| u_sama wrote:
| For artificial problems, artificial solutions. I think the
| state of food in the US is really bad, and one cannot compare
| such products to the superior EU food quality standards and
| eating habits (and city designs) which render the incentives
| really perverse
| mistahenry wrote:
| I lived in Germany and Indonesia. It's easier for me now back
| in the US than ever to eat healthy.
|
| I can buy pre-chopped Cole slaw, diced peppers / onions, etc.
| Whole Foods is best in class (Alnatura doesn't come close)
|
| While to me, the layman, it seems health regulation in
| general in Europe is more conservative about what can be put
| on the body / be consumed, I think it's mostly Americans
| don't want to eat healthy. And the portion sizes here are
| insane (just look at the evolution dinner plate. 1960s plates
| at an antique sale only pass for salad plates)
| juujian wrote:
| Yes, whole foods is great, but if you look are they
| locations, name Americans don't have access to one and or
| cannot afford it.
| stinkbeetle wrote:
| Cause and effect is backward. The locations indicate
| where people are buying it. And cheap doesn't really add
| up either because if somebody wants the cheapest possible
| calories they would be buying rice, flour/pasta,
| potato...
|
| I don't know why the problem is shied away from. It is
| because people are addicted to fast food and to their
| sedentary lifestyles. It's not the price or availability
| of good food, not the first order effect anyway.
|
| You'll never be able to force "whole foods" sellers into
| unprofitable places and if you did by some miracle,
| you'll never be able to force people to buy it no matter
| how much money you gave them. Vegetables and grains and
| basics could be free and many obese food addicts will go
| buy a burger from a drive thru.
| bluGill wrote:
| Cooking good food takes time. I can slap some pre-made
| burgers in a pan, throw some buns in a toaster and have a
| "meal" in 10 minutes. I can stop by fast food on the way
| and have the same meal (at only slightly more cost) in 5
| minutes.
|
| I typically spend more than an hour in the kitchen
| cooking every day, and then there is half an hour clean
| up after my family is done eating. I eat much better and
| healthier food, but it takes time. (If I'm having noodles
| I'm making them from scratch myself - I could save some
| time buy less of things like that and the cost wouldn't
| be much different if any - but even then the whole meal
| takes time).
| stinkbeetle wrote:
| > Cooking good food takes time [...]
|
| This does not address what I wrote though because it is
| not what I was arguing against.
|
| I agree part of the reason people buy junk food and fast
| food rather than "whole food" is because the real or
| perceived effort required to turn it into something they
| will eat. Or they don't know how to make things that can
| compete on taste and satisfy their food addiction like
| those fast foods. It's not because they are time-poor
| either. They are just addicted to this sedentary "lazy"
| lifestyle. 30 minute drive to get fast food and eat it
| while watching TV or tiktok for the next hour or so beats
| making food and cleaning up for an hour.
| budsniffer95 wrote:
| People do not want to be accountable for what they put in
| their body. "Cooking is hard. Eating healthy is hard."
|
| It's shocking.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| The average American spends five hours a day watching
| television. They could find the time if they wanted.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Not poor people, they are too busy to watch TV.
| phil21 wrote:
| I grew up in a poor neighborhood. Busy doing what,
| exactly?
|
| This comment is so out of touch it must be a joke right?
| At least I hope so.
|
| Far more time was spent in front of the TV than any other
| activity by far by my peers and their families. Moving to
| a more middle class area opened my eyes in how many other
| options people had to do with their time, and how much
| time and effort was spent maintaining their lifestyles.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You are correct. I should have added /s
| array_key_first wrote:
| Well, uh, working. The less you make per hour of work
| means the more hours you need to maintain a normal
| standard of living. Obviously there's variance in
| standards of living, but wealthier people don't typically
| work two or three jobs. Poor people do, I've met people
| who do. The reality is that at 12 dollars an hour, 40
| hours is just not gonna cut it.
|
| And it's a little more complicated than even just that.
| Another reality is that, at 12 bucks an hour, nobody is
| going to be giving you a steady 40 hours. You need extra
| shifts for buffers, and your shifts will be shorter.
|
| Sure, working 50 hours a week across 7 days isn't
| technically more than 50 across 5 days. But it does
| certainly drain your will to live a lot more, from what
| I've seen.
| stinkbeetle wrote:
| Poor obese people aren't working so much they don't have
| time to cook.
|
| And using numbers to support that idea doesn't work, it
| actually goes against you. A small (much smaller than
| most obese people will eat in one sitting) fast food meal
| costs about an hour of minimum wage! Buying stable
| calories in cereals where the time to buy and cook them
| can be amortized into many more servings can be amortized
| is actually cheaper and also takes less time.
|
| In the US, obesity rates rise as income drops, but it
| continues to rise beyond the point at which income drops
| below a full time federal minimum wage income.
|
| It's over-eating and under-exercising. I know this is
| hard for certain ideologies to accept because it means
| obesity is not inflicted upon victims against their will
| and beyond their control. If you really need to minimize
| their agency and responsibility for their choices you can
| call it addiction to food and addiction to sedentary
| lifestyle if it helps.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this has reversed in recent decades.
| Wealthy people are far more likely to work long hours
| than the poor.
| cpursley wrote:
| Or you slap the burgers in a pan and serve it with some
| broccoli, and sliced fresh red peppers or other other
| quick healthy sides and have a balanced meal. The bun,
| fries and soda are the unhealthy part of a burger,
| anyways (assuming it's good quality meat).
| matwood wrote:
| Fast food almost always takes longer than that unless you
| can literally drive through while driving home from work.
|
| Also, you're comparing _making noodles from scratch_ to a
| typical meal. I can do an asian style chicken
| /veggie/rice meal in < 30 minutes and have the kitchen
| mostly cleaned by the time the rice is done.
| bluGill wrote:
| i said on the way for fast food. Since those places are
| eherywhere it is likely you can find one on the way when
| you were going and so the time cost to go is zero.
|
| i agree you canecook faster than I normally do - a lot of
| meals benefit from simmering while the flavors blend.
| budsniffer95 wrote:
| So you're buying premade burgers (which take 2 minutes to
| make from fresh ingredients) but are making noodles from
| scratch every time, are you?
|
| Protein + carb + veg is cheap and takes less than 30
| minutes to prepare, I have no idea what people are
| talking about in these threads.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Plenty of ways to automate the kitchen and also cook fast
| and easy meals. I can spend 20 minutes on the kitchen and
| have food for a week. 2-3 minutes of reheating per meal
| Aurornis wrote:
| Whole Foods isn't the only store providing vegetables or
| pre-cut vegetables.
|
| Even my local Walmart has pre-cut vegetables.
|
| It's not an affordability issue either. It's cheaper to
| buy the same number of calories from vegetables, fruits,
| and legumes than meat right now. Meat prices are
| unusually high and it doesn't seem to be slowing
| consumption.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Is it? Chicken breasts are 2.69/lb at my store. I guess
| it's been creeping up over the years, but doesn't seem
| unusually high to me.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Vegetables are pretty terrible for caloric sustenance.
| Low density and high price.
| fhdkweig wrote:
| It depends on what you call a vegetable. In the US, corn,
| potatoes, and ketchup are considered vegetables.
|
| You need to make a distinction between leafy greens and
| starch.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Well, corn and potatoes are indeed vegetables, so there's
| that. And I think the only person who ever said ketchup
| was a vegetable with a straight face was Ronald Reagan 40
| or 45 years ago.
| fhdkweig wrote:
| "Eat your vegetables. They're good for you." shouldn't
| mean dipping your fries in ketchup. But that is what
| happens if you call corn and potatoes as vegetables.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| My consumption of beef is way down because of the cost.
| I'm almost exclusively buying poultry and pork now for
| meat. Occasionally I'll get something like a top round or
| flank cut if it's on sale.
| nasmorn wrote:
| Also price. What percentile of income do you need to feed
| a family of 4 on Whole Foods?
| u_sama wrote:
| I think there is argument to be made that the path of least
| resistance is very different in the US, Europe and Asia. I
| think maybe by living abroad you have adapted by default to
| a path (shaped by the environment) to eat more healthy.
|
| In the US I heard there is now parity in terms of quality
| products, but maybe culture takes some time to adapt to
| such environments.
| mistahenry wrote:
| I agree that when it comes to portion size and whole
| foods, Europe makes it easy to follow by example. FWIW, I
| ate healthy in the US before because I rock climbed and
| needed to maintain a very lean mass. If I wanted to cut
| weight in Indonesia, it was easy: just eat their portion
| size, and I'd come in below maintenance.
|
| What I've seen consistently amongst the non-healthy
| eating Americans is that they argue:
|
| 1. Dieting requires them to be hard on themselves and
| they're focusing on self-love, which they struggle with
|
| 2. They deserve a daily treat. They look forward to it,
| it brings meaning, etc
|
| 3. The taste of their food is super important to them,
| such that they can't imagine repetitively eating (meal-
| prep) or eating cleanly (no added sugar, monitoring
| sodium)
| deaux wrote:
| > 3. The taste of their food is super important to them,
| such that they can't imagine repetitively eating (meal-
| prep) or eating cleanly (no added sugar, monitoring
| sodium)
|
| They're saying this without irony? Or by "important" do
| they mean "the way I like it"?
| s1mplicissimus wrote:
| Here's some advice on all 3, and I don't even ask you to
| buy my supplements :)
|
| 1. Practicing a healthy diet _is_ self-love
|
| 2. A daily treat is not what breaks your diet. Have _a
| piece_ of chocolate, sweets or snacks now and then. If
| you (still) lack the self-control to not eat the whole
| package, help yourself out by repackaging in daily-
| compatible portions. Meaning is not gained by consuming
| anyway.
|
| 3. Taste preferences are in big parts a matter of habit.
| Also prepping doesn't necessitate you eat the same thing
| for a week. You can freeze a lot of things for longer and
| thaw them in a mixed manner.
|
| Imo the issue is that people seem to lack a combination
| of knowledge, time to prep or motivation. Lack of
| knowledge could be solved with information campaigns,
| lack of time/motivation is a consequence of people having
| to spend so much of their time doing a dayjob just to get
| by, embedded in a culture that puts no value on thriving
| humans.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| As usual the difference is in distribution.
|
| In North America there are a lot of "food deserts"
| especially in poorer neighbourhoods. "Healthy" foods
| become a class marker. Distribution of higher quality
| food is through more upscale grocery stores.
|
| Same goes for walkability in neighbourhoods. To live in a
| place that has transit accessibility, green grocer and
| bakery you can walk to -- that's not possible for the
| vast majority of North Americans because it exists only
| in urban areas that have gentrified beyond the reach of
| most people.
|
| When I moved to Toronto in the mid-90s it was possible
| for a middle-income earner to rent or live in a home
| adjacent to some of the corridors in the city that offer
| this (e.g. Roncesvalles/High-Park, Spadina/Chinatown,
| College&Clinton, etc) and you could see a higher
| diversity of people living near the stores and in the
| neighbourhoods off them. As a person in my early 20s
| making not very much money, I could make it work. That is
| now no longer possible, the city has become a wealthy
| fortress. I imagine the same for parts of Brooklyn&NYC,
| Chicago, SF, Vancouver etc.
| phil21 wrote:
| The food deserts thing gets tired. It's a social media
| trope at this point. I lived in poorer neighborhoods
| growing up, and those who wanted to eat healthy made it
| happen. It just took more work, which is the point.
| Corner stores that stocked fresh fruits and veggies would
| just have them rot on the shelves due to no one
| purchasing them. It's consumer preference.
|
| Almost nowhere in the US walks to go to the grocery
| store. Exceedingly small portions of major cities. Where
| I live in Chicago is quite walkable, but the vast
| majority of my neighbors load up the car for the vast
| majority of their shopping trips. There are pockets of
| course, but they are rare.
|
| My neighborhood also happens to be much more fit than the
| national average - obesity is somewhat rare to see. The
| correlation is with wealth. Why there is such a
| correlation is much more interesting, and it likely is
| not as simple as people want to believe.
|
| Same goes for the poor inner ring suburbs where I lived
| in my 20's in a different state. Very high rates of
| obesity. In the rich outer suburbs obesity levels were
| visibly less.
|
| It's far cheaper to meal prep and make your own food from
| base ingredients. It doesn't need to be fancy. When I
| grew up poor (working class) this is how we made it work.
| By buying staples in bulk and buying other items
| opportunistically on sale. We didn't even own a car for
| most of that time - and the nearest grocery store was at
| least 3 miles away. It simply wasn't an option to exist
| off of junk food since it was too expensive.
|
| Eating junk is easier and more convenient. It feels good
| in the immediate moment and is low-effort. It's the
| default, and the environment around you encourages it.
| Add in lack of any peer pressure and it being normalized
| by those around you and I believe that explains nearly
| everything. Lack of walkability certainly hurts, but it's
| not a primary driver anywhere I've lived.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Another data point for here. Not from the USA, I find the
| ingredients pretty good and we cook a lot at home, and we
| avoid anything super packaged, so yes, you could claim
| Americans don't have a culture of eating appropriately
| ProblemFactory wrote:
| > the path of least resistance is very different in the
| US, Europe and Asia
|
| My theory is that in US compared to Europe, you are going
| to need the path of least resistance more often. If you
| are working two part-time jobs with variable hours and
| schedules to make ends meet, then you are going to reach
| for the easy & fast food options. Whereas if you have the
| stability of 40 hour work weeks, regular schedule and
| social safety nets - regardless of the total income -
| then you have the time and mental energy to eat
| healthier.
| jhanschoo wrote:
| > I can buy pre-chopped Cole slaw, diced peppers / onions,
| etc.
|
| These accessible food options come with a premium that I
| strongly suspect put them out of what a median income
| household can sustainably afford.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| The premium is surprisingly small (primarily because
| chopped goods ship better and need less protection than
| whole ones)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _These accessible food options come with a premium_
|
| On one hand, you a processing step. On the other hand,
| you can process 'ugly' produce into mince. (Mince also
| transports more compactly volume-wise.)
| wil421 wrote:
| Whole Foods fresh vegetables prices are comparable to
| elsewhere, same with some dairy. However, everything else
| carries a premium and for budget minded people you need
| to avoid it.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > These accessible food options come with a premium that
| I strongly suspect put them out of what a median income
| household can sustainably afford.
|
| No they don't. Even my local Walmart has cheap vegetable
| selections included pre cut versions.
|
| You know what is expensive, though? Meat. There's still
| plenty of meat consumption in the median household.
|
| It's not a price issue.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > You know what is expensive, though? Meat.
|
| This is no joke. I picked up a 3 pound package of garden
| variety 80/20 ground beef last week and it was over $20.
| Maybe I just don't buy it often enough to notice, but
| that seems far higher than even a few months ago. I would
| have expected to buy a modest cut of steak for that
| price.
| machomaster wrote:
| Meat is really not that expensive compared to even simple
| vegetables.
|
| Most simple salads are actually more expensive than
| chicken (boneless thighs, ground meat) per kg!
|
| If you compare the price per kcal, as one really should,
| the difference becomes absurd.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Most simple salads are actually more expensive than
| chicken (boneless thighs, ground meat) per kg!
|
| There are more food options than meat or salads.
|
| Citing salads and leafy greens as the alternative to meat
| is a common strawman, but there are more food options
| than those two extremes.
| jacobthesnakob wrote:
| The pre-chopped coleslaw mix is like 3 bucks for a huge
| bag. 1 pound of pre-sliced frozen peppers I think is $2.
| Some of it depends on where you're shopping, I'm sure
| this stuff would be 50-100% more at Whole Foods the next
| town over.
| astura wrote:
| >The pre-chopped coleslaw mix is like 3 bucks for a huge
| bag
|
| $2 at Aldi, and I'd happily pay double. Sure beats having
| to break down (and use) a whole head of cabbage, which
| are huge.
| wasabi991011 wrote:
| I'm not sure I believe that.
|
| Not to mention the median income (in PPP) is higher in
| the US all but 4 countries.
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/median-in...
| matwood wrote:
| > These accessible food options
|
| First, pre-cut isn't that much more expensive. Second,
| cutting is an accessibility thing now? A kitchen knife
| and 5 minute YouTube video should have anyone being to
| chop/dice without much trouble. And once they learn they
| will only get faster/better at it allowing them to use
| whole veggies adding more variety.
| jhanschoo wrote:
| > cutting is an accessibility thing now?
|
| Yes, it's a boon esp. for old people who live alone, have
| mobility or sight issues, and don't trust themselves to
| hold a knife. It's also a convenience thing, but as you
| said, the general population can cut things just fine and
| won't suffer much without it; which isn't the case for
| this growing demographic.
| stratocumulus0 wrote:
| My issue with organic stores in Germany is that they offer
| the exact same stuff you can get in a regular supermarket,
| just smaller, less flavorful and more expensive. My pet
| theory is that a lot of people here just don't really enjoy
| food, so when they have kids or simply some extra
| disposable income, their idea of "eating better" would be
| to have the same bland plate of spaghetti, just with
| organic pasta and organic sauce.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| Organic tends to have more variability in quality. So
| sometimes you get really good stuff, sometimes you get
| really bad stuff. I've read that pesticides penetrate a
| quarter inch into most foods so there's no way to wash
| them off. Given that, I try not to buy non-organic food
| to keep my son from getting a lot of pesticide exposure.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| It's a combination of a few things:
|
| There's a massive amount of junk food and ultra-processed
| food in grocery stores, even though (rough estimate) 50% of
| floorspace is "raw" food. (Fresh fruits and vegetables,
| meat, fish.)
|
| Processed food tends to have more sugar (high fructose corn
| syrup) than other countries. The same brand in the US vs
| another country will have more sugar.
|
| Cultural momentum: Everywhere you go there's unhealthy
| food.
|
| ---
|
| Speaking from personal experience, junk food is just plan
| addictive and satisfying. It's not like alcohol or other
| drugs where you can just abstain; you gotta eat and we all
| get hungry.
| FatherOfCurses wrote:
| Tons of Americans want to eat healthy but don't have the
| energy/time/access. It's easy to cook healthy for yourself
| if you're single, have a good work/life balance, and have a
| grocery store nearby. There are a lot of Americans who eat
| fast food on the go because it's their only option (or they
| haven't been educated on how to get healthy food quickly).
| Others have lives where job and family responsibilities sap
| so much energy that by dinner time ordering a pizza is
| pretty tempting.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| This is narrative ignores consumer preference. A salad
| can be delivered as easily as a pizza.
| phil21 wrote:
| If you start looking around at the world you will likely
| start to notice an inverse correlation between those with
| "little free time due to working three jobs" and the
| amount of junk they feed their families.
|
| Turns out that if you care enough and have the work ethic
| to grind out that sort of living to better your family,
| you also tend to care what kind of foods they eat.
|
| There are of course seasons in everyone's lives - but
| this observation has held generally true no matter the
| demographic or geographic location I've lived around.
|
| I was obese - there is no intended judgement here for
| folks who struggle with it. I did for the better part of
| my adult life. The social tropes are simply unhelpful.
| malfist wrote:
| Goodluck getting a healthy salad delivered outside of a
| major metropolitan area. In my city of a quarter million
| (not huge, not small) the options are pretty much limited
| to two or three places that only offer high caloric
| salads
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yes, and the reason is that few people want them. There
| isn't a cabal conspiracy to forgo the profits from
| offering healthy options. They just dont sell.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Consumer preference is a scapegoat. You can also make
| nicotine-free cigarettes, and people have tried, but they
| just don't sell. Of course consumers prefer the stuff
| that feels better. They have to.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Sugar free soda?
| array_key_first wrote:
| ... is an exception, and not the rule.
| machomaster wrote:
| The abundance of "fat free" and "low fat" products. A
| huge increase of "protein heavy" and "low calory/sugar"
| products.
|
| All these tell that people do have a preference towards
| buying healthy stuff, given the choice. It's not their
| fault that they have been misled by the media/scientists
| in some of those cases.
| nkmnz wrote:
| lol, Alnatura is the worst. I'd prefer any Netto, Spati, or
| even the small shops in a gas station, anytime. Alnatura is
| a para-religious "anthroposophical" shop and everything you
| buy has low quality due to adverse selection and is
| overpriced by 3x
| array_key_first wrote:
| When it seems like a lot of people don't want to do
| something that is obviously good for them but, instead, opt
| for things they know kill them slowly, that probably means
| addiction is somewhere in the mix.
| mschwaig wrote:
| A consequence of universal healthcare that people don't talk
| about much is that it turns unhealthy citizens from an
| individual cost into more of a collective one. So it makes
| sense that countries with universal healthcare regulate in
| favor of their citizens as opposed to their food industry,
| because they're paying for the consequences more directly.
| u_sama wrote:
| This is both an argument in favor of universal healthcare,
| and my favorite argument for why the US should not
| implement it without first changing a whole array of
| perverse incentives.
| cthor wrote:
| Not that this affects the political calculus (where
| perception may as well be reality), but the cost burden
| specific to universal healthcare is actually opposite this
| intuition.
|
| Things like obesity, smoking, and alcoholism all kill you
| before you can get too old. Healthy citizens end up using
| far more of the far more expensive end-of-life care, to the
| point where it outweighs the extra healthcare the unhealthy
| citizens use in their youth.
| s1mplicissimus wrote:
| This sounds like an interesting proposition, do you
| happen to have the numbers to back it up?
| samzub wrote:
| This (French) study [0] published in 2023 on data from
| 2019 calculates that the costs from legal drugs such as
| tobacco and alcohol, including higher helthcare spend
| during the life of smokers/drinkers, are still higher
| than revenue from unspent money on pensions and taxes,
| and cost of healthy person living years.
|
| [0] https://www.ofdt.fr/sites/ofdt/files/2023-08/field_me
| dia_doc...
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| That doesn't seem to be working in the UK. We are nearly as
| bad as the US for obesity.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Indeed, I would caution pretty much everyone else in the
| world (except maybe Asians, but even then) to be
| circumspect when taunting Americans for their obesity
| rates. Germany, to use an example from this discussion,
| has been going up steadily for decades. Doesn't seem like
| this is a US-specfic problem or something that Europe has
| a good answer for.
| Thlom wrote:
| Europe is just lagging behind. There's not that much
| difference between the US and Europe. Europe just has
| more history and culture which makes the changes less
| extreme.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Nonsense. This is essentially a bottom-up process, not the
| result of government regulation.
|
| It has to do with culture and wealth. Europe is getting
| fatter and richer.
|
| This is like thinking medieval peasants or sub-saharan
| Africa are skinnier because of their robust paternalistic
| governments
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| These drugs are expensive and, at least in France, they're
| discussing offering them. I think this is the main reason
| explaining the difference in prevalence between the US and
| the EU.
|
| Despite access to "superior food quality", weight issues are
| absolutely a problem in the EU, too. Maybe it's not at the
| same point as in the US, but 51% of the population of the EU
| (outside Ireland and Germany for some reason) are "overweight
| or obese" [0].
|
| ---
|
| [0] https://drees.solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/publications-
| communi... In French, from the ministry of health, but
| there's a chart which should be clear enough for everybody.
| u_sama wrote:
| There are valid counterarguments to the overweight values,
| a lot of women who might be overweight are healthy because
| different % of fat are acceptable depending on the
| structure of the body. I agree, that has to do with
| "malbouffe" and other lifestyle choices. As for offering
| them that is a nice thing, but I am curious about the
| mechanics (mutuelles) and such of the medicine.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > a lot of women who might be overweight are healthy
| because different % of fat are acceptable depending on
| the structure of the body
|
| This is a tired argument. Most people who have BMI in the
| obese range do not have one of oft-cited exceptions that
| make BMI an imperfect measure.
|
| Everyone knows BMI is imperfect at this point, but the
| number of people who have BMI in the obesity range yet
| have healthy body composition is very small.
| u_sama wrote:
| Let it be noted that I have said overweight and not
| obese, if you are in the obese category you are 100%
| unhealthy (even the bodybuilders who inject stereoirs in
| this category are unhealthy).
| Aurornis wrote:
| It doesn't change the argument. Most people who have BMI
| in the overweight range do not have healthy weights.
|
| I say this as someone who did enough weightlifting to be
| in the overweight BMI range with a low percent of body
| fat (no steroids involved). Trust me when I say it's a
| lot of work to get there. It's not a category that
| includes a lot of people or invalidates the measure.
| u_sama wrote:
| Fair points
| carlmr wrote:
| Thank you, this is what I constantly say. For population
| statistics, BMI is nigh perfect, since it's much easier
| to gather than more accurate data points, and the number
| of exceptions are super small.
|
| I know very fit people that still fall well in the BMI
| 20-25 range. Most around 23. You have to be very focused
| on natural bodybuilding for years if you want to become
| an outlier on BMI.
|
| Or some combination with being super short or super tall.
| But this again affects a tiny minority.
| alexfoo wrote:
| > Everyone knows BMI is imperfect at this point, ...
|
| Indeed.
|
| BMI is the best thing that people can readily calculate
| with easily available equipment (a tape measure and
| scales either at home, gym, pharmacy, etc) plus some
| relatively basic maths or sticking the numbers into a
| website.
|
| Measuring body fat using calipers is better but hugely
| error prone. Similar for waist/height ratios. Body fat
| scales can be wildly inaccurate.
|
| BVI is far superior but very few people have access to
| the equipment needed to measure that.
|
| So we're kind of stuck with BMI as the best "simple"
| measure.
| array_key_first wrote:
| It's important to note that overweight and obesity are
| not the same thing. Most people are overweight, and from
| what I've seen of modern studies, the health risk of
| being overweight is almost negligible.
|
| But being obese is a higher BMI than overweight, and the
| bar is actually quite low. Lower than most people think.
| A lot of people think they're overweight, but they're
| not, they're obese.
| lII1lIlI11ll wrote:
| > Most people are overweight, and from what I've seen of
| modern studies, the health risk of being overweight is
| almost negligible.
|
| Health risks of being overweight are very well researched
| and are significant (cancer risk, type 2 diabetes,
| cardiovascular health). If you meant the mortality, then
| it is also worse for overweight people when confounding
| for smoking and reverse causality.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > There are valid counterarguments to the overweight
| values, a lot of women who might be overweight are
| healthy because different % of fat are acceptable
| depending on the structure of the body
|
| But the BMI takes into account the mass, not the size.
| Usually women have less lean muscle mass than men, which
| would mean that for a given size and weight, they'd have
| more fat, without influencing the BMI. I also think
| there's quite some leeway. My BMI is "normal" at 24, and
| I have a fair bit of belly fat.
|
| _Very_ athletic people also don 't fit in the BMI
| tables, a dude like Schwarzenegger is probably well in
| the overweight category if not above because of all that
| lean muscle, but is also probably healthier than average.
| These people are extreme outliers, though. I don't think
| they're anywhere near 1% of the population, so you can't
| really argue they skew the numbers.
|
| > As for offering them that is a nice thing, but I am
| curious about the mechanics (mutuelles) and such of the
| medicine.
|
| It's apparently paid by the social security, but doctors
| are only to prescribe this when other means of
| controlling the weight have failed, such as adjusting
| nutrition.
| roel_v wrote:
| "a dude like Schwarzenegger is probably well in the
| overweight category"
|
| For illustration, Arnold was 107 kg at 1m88 at his prime,
| giving him a BMI of 30.3, which is clinically obese. But
| yeah, LOL at all these people with 130 cm waists going
| 'BMI is useless'.
| cthalupa wrote:
| BMI still isn't great for fat people. An active fat
| person is going to have a significant amount of muscle
| compared to a sedentary fat person at the same body
| weight - just doing things carrying around that weight
| will build muscle. Some health markers, this won't matter
| for - your heart doesn't like pumping blood to a 300lb
| body, whether that's at 50% BF or 8% - but for a lot it
| does. Lipids, insulin resistance, etc. are going to be
| quite different in someone at 40% BF vs. 20% BF at
| similar weights with similar genetics.
|
| Unfortunately it's not so easy to get a good BF%. BIA
| scales are probably what most people have access to,
| either at home or at their local gym, or calipers, but
| both are very inaccurate at getting totals and at best
| can help you understand trend directions. There are
| places to get cheap DEXAs in a lot of cities these days,
| but not everywhere, and $30 each time you go is still
| expensive for some people.
|
| BF% and FFMI are both a lot more useful for everyone than
| BMI.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I can't get a solid statistic on this, but didn't the
| obesity rate basically plateau last decade in countries
| like Italy, France and Germany?
|
| https://data.worldobesity.org/country/france-71/#data_trend
| s
|
| My country (Poland) is an unfortunate leader in childhood
| obesity (and close to the top in terms of obesity in
| general), but it's very easy to see why: people live very
| different lives than they did just 20 years ago.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| According to [0] the _overweight_ rate looks stable, but
| _obesity_ went up.
|
| [0] https://www.obesitefrance.fr/lobesite-cest-quoi/les-
| chiffres...
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Meanwhile, YUM foods is probably working overtime trying to
| find a way to work around the effects of GLP-1.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| I saw a Taco Bell ad for new "luxury" meal boxes. So
| perhaps their solution is to move up-market and high-margin
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Demolition Man said Taco Bell would be fine dining by
| 2032, they might be on schedule. (It also said they'd be
| just about the last restaurant left, though.)
| staticassertion wrote:
| > I think the state of food in the US is really bad, and one
| cannot compare such products to the superior EU food quality
| standards
|
| What quality standards are you referring to?
| gedy wrote:
| Most out of shape guy I know is German fellow who likes
| "healthy food".
| acuozzo wrote:
| > I think the state of food in the US is really bad
|
| Or, perhaps, the state of mental health in the US is really
| bad.
| blitzar wrote:
| Your friend circle in Germany probably doesn't have many
| members who were a proud big boned 5"7' 300lbs (~140kg).
| wongarsu wrote:
| For good reason.
|
| That'd be a BMI of 47. There isn't a lot of statistical data
| for such high BMIs, but [1] lists prevalence of BMI>40. In
| Germany 1.2% of men and 2.8% of women had a BMI over 40 in
| 2011, in the US it was 5.6% and 9.7% respectively in 2016.
| That's nearly four times as many as in Germany.
|
| 1: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7078951/
| tom_ wrote:
| The US population (~350m) is about 4 times that of Germany
| (~85m)...
| wongarsu wrote:
| Which has to be a pure coincidence, since the reported
| numbers are relative to population size. We could
| conclude that there are 4x4=16 times as many people with
| such high BMIs in the US, but that is not that useful
| blitzar wrote:
| Several studies conducted during the last 50 years have
| shown that lower intelligence is associated with a higher
| body mass index.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| So this is why SE Asia is kicking the crap out of the US
| and Europe?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > In Germany 1.2% of men and 2.8% of women had a BMI over
| 40 in 2011
|
| How does that compare to, say, Japan? Why is Germany so
| much fatter?
| danielscrubs wrote:
| Worse food and less fat shaming.
| cthalupa wrote:
| But prior to GLP-1s, obesity rates were growing rapidly in
| Germany. Doubled over 3 decades - https://www.sciencedirect
| .com/science/article/abs/pii/S15706...
|
| Most of the industrialized west is following very similar
| growth curves here to the US. America just got their first.
| Even Asia isn't immune - Korea has been following similar
| trends, as have parts of southeast asia, etc.
|
| I suspect the prevalence of GLP-1 class drugs will halt
| this trend before the rest of the world catches up, but
| without them or similar drugs, I would have bet that 50
| years form now much of the rest of the world would look
| just like America
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| In my (obviously anecdotal) experience, that's not who the
| primary GLP1 user is.
|
| It's the suburban mom (or dad sometimes) who wants help
| losing a little weight. Instead of being 300lbs like your
| example, she's 160lbs and wants to be 140lbs.
| elictronic wrote:
| 6'1" 230 wanting 210 without having a third bike injury for
| it. 40 doesn't heal like 20, turn your head wrong and you
| are in pain for a month. It sucks.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| I hear ya. Someone once told me there are 2 things no one
| can ever prepare you for: having kids and getting older.
|
| I do want to get back into biking though. Haven't ridden
| in a long time.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I really feel like this is just about the circle you are
| in. How many 300lb people do you know? 16% of the country
| is on GLP-1's as of mid 2024, Im sure its higher now. Every
| single massively overweight person I know has at least
| tried GLP-1s
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| Yeah that could be - I don't know many 300lb people well
| enough to talk about that.
| cthalupa wrote:
| The morbidly obese people I know fall into two camps:
|
| Those that still want to reduce their weight: All of them
| are on GLP-1s now (and losing weight!)
|
| Those that had totally given up: They had long since
| stopped attempting anything to reduce their weight
|
| I suspect that the larger you are, the more likely you are
| to fall into that second category - getting to 300+ lb
| involves a certain level of accepting defeat to begin with.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| Makes sense, I can see that. I guess in all transparency
| I don't know many morbidly obese people well enough to
| know whether they're on GLPs
| seedless-sensat wrote:
| I am not American, but I think you are unfairly dismissing the
| massive benefits GLP-1s have for people who struggle to
| maintain a healthy diet. It really feels like a miracle drug.
|
| > It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off
| the processed foods killing them in the US.
|
| Your comparison of your friends in Germany vs "insanity" in the
| US doesn't feel relevant
| carlmr wrote:
| I didn't dismiss any benefits. But so many people needing an
| anti-addiction drug to get off addictive foods IMO should
| raise alarm bells.
|
| The food producers need to be sanctioned. It's unsustainable
| for a whole nation to be on these expensive drugs.
|
| If you think an outside perspective is irrelevant I'm also
| not sure why you don't just move on and not comment.
| wjnc wrote:
| True, but what would sanctioning producers do? I think it's
| not even the availability of fresh products in the
| supermarket, but the willingness of customers to prepare
| food themselves? I agree it's postmodern funny that you
| need to continually buy something (a medicine) to not buy
| somethings (fast food) that are bad for you. I've got co-
| workers who only eat out. Guess what? What I think are salt
| and fat related health issues. Sugar, salt and fat are too
| easy and too nice not to be everywhere.
|
| We used to make baby food ourselves. That was like twenty
| portions of baby food in ten minutes, for pretty much no
| cost (all basis fresh staples are pretty much free: fresh
| carrots, potatoes, rice, onions, pumpkin). Chop some
| vegetables and perhaps add little leftover meat, steam it,
| blend it, freeze it. Philips had a great machine for that.
| But we were somewhat 'out there' here too. Most people give
| babies food from glass pots. Then I see [1]. Got healthy
| teens now who eat pretty much everything. We still cook
| most of the stuff ourselves, although time constraints are
| a bit harder now than a decade ago.
|
| Same as for walking. That is the most basic instrument for
| health. But if you cannot go out for a good walk because
| your environment is car only, what can you do? You can
| sanction the car makers for not making us walk. But that's
| a bit silly? (You are not saying that, trying to make an
| analogy with the food producers.) I'm blessed with lots of
| forests nearby, with separate paths for walking, cycling,
| MTB-ing and horseriding. Going outdoors is trivial here.
|
| Point I'm trying to make is that an unhealthy and sedentary
| lifestyle is a lot of factors working combined. That's why
| international comparisons are so hard (or impossible). I
| think the 'Boulder, Colorado'-lifestyle is comparable with
| my local EU-lifestyle. But all environments are different
| on many vectors.
|
| [1] Nearly two-thirds of baby foods in US supermarkets are
| unhealthy, study finds -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXyVJpTe8NQ
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Food is addictive because all animals including humans are
| by our very genes instructed to be addicted to it. Even the
| most healthy food is addictive. Just like water and air is
| addictive.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| No you can't say that. Fat people don't get fat on eating
| vegetables and water.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| French fries are vegetables ;)
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I don't think "addictive" is the right term, but we have
| an evolutionary imperative towards eating to excess when
| there is food in excess, which wasn't maladaptive until
| recently.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > It's unsustainable for a whole nation
|
| Unless I've been horribly misled, it is the whole world
| that has very steadily increasing obesity rates. Framing
| this as a US problem is deluding yourself.
| thunfischbrot wrote:
| It does not read dismissive to me. They are surprised, yet
| not necessarily judging those who use it.
|
| There can be a discussion about the perverse incentives of
| systems without judging the individuals.
| Mashimo wrote:
| > not necessarily judging those who use it.
|
| He implies that people who are using Ozempic are eating too
| much processed food. And more or less also that mostly
| Americans eat processed food?
| Ensorceled wrote:
| It's actually true that American's eat mostly processed
| food ... (Canadian's are not much better at just under
| 50%)
|
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ultra-processed-food-
| consum...
|
| https://nutri.it.com/who-eats-the-most-processed-food-a-
| glob...
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I think you are misreading the comment you are replying to:
|
| > Your comparison of your friends in Germany vs "insanity" in
| the US doesn't feel relevant
|
| It's incredibly relevant, why are GLP-1s less needed in
| Germany vs. US (and other countries like Canada)? This is the
| insanity they are talking about, not the users of the
| medication.
| westpfelia wrote:
| American here who lived in Germany for 3 years and now
| Scandinavia. Its what makes up the food. Most of the food
| served in America cant be served in the EU. Its straight up
| poison designed to make you addicted to it.
|
| Couple that with a very car centric lifestyle and yea. Its
| not great.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Most of the food served in America cant be served in
| the EU.
|
| I'd love to hear any sort of actual facts backing that
| claim. It sounds truthy.
| sarchertech wrote:
| If you look at the increase in overweight and obesity rates
| in Germany over the last 50 years, it's clear that far more
| of the population "needs" GLP-1 than is using it. The rate
| of use will almost certainly increase dramatically.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > It's incredibly relevant, why are GLP-1s less needed in
| Germany vs. US
|
| Aside from whether the local healthcare coverage will pay
| for it, and the rate of GLP1 usage probably being
| proportional to the obesity rate, what is the basis for
| assuming there is disproportionately fewer people in
| Germany using these medications? Most people don't announce
| it.
| roel_v wrote:
| You seem to be misreading his comment. Some guy making some
| observation biased comment _is_ irrelevant. It 's flat out
| wrong that Germans 'need' it less. The obesity curve in
| Europe trails that of the US a generation or two, yes (and
| several Asian ones trail it more). But the numbers and
| trends don't lie.
| only-one1701 wrote:
| I'd advise folks to consider a) the relationship between
| poverty, stress, and obesity Nd b) the income inequality of the
| United States relative to Germany
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| ... and that "bad" food in the US is frequently cheaper and
| easier to find than "good" food.
| temp8830 wrote:
| Absolutely. The American way of life traps people in a zoo.
| There is nothing to do other than work (if you are lucky),
| eat, and consume junk media. For ones who are poor the only
| difference is the degree to which the food is also junk.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| This is patently false -- there is plenty to do besides
| consume junk media; the fact that our population is
| addicted to the dopamine associated with short-form video
| doesn't mean that there aren't other options.
|
| I've made a concerted effort to consume less "junk media"
| in the last couple of years. In that time I've gotten an
| Amateur radio licence, I've built a couple of keyboards and
| speakers, I've started golfing (after a 20 year hiatus),
| I've learned to bake bread (from scratch, including
| grinding wheat!), I've read a lot of novels, and I'm
| happier for all of it.
|
| Everyone has to work -- this is not unique to the United
| States. But outside of that, eating and living healthier is
| absolutely possible, it just takes some effort.
|
| Get a hobby (or several!)
| napkinartist wrote:
| I don't think you understand the situation the parent is
| describing. Golf is a luxury. Baking one's own bread is a
| huge luxury.
|
| For a lot of people, finding the time to do either (let
| alone the financial outlay) is impossible.
|
| You want to tell single parent working two jobs in an
| apartment that's moldy to "try playing golf. Read more!"?
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| No, I want to tell that parent to spend the hour they use
| scrolling TikTok to do literally anything else, it'll
| improve their life. I understand my experience is not
| typical, but there are many things besides "junk media"
| that are not cost prohibitive.
| zobzu wrote:
| it really doesnt have to be golf though lol. its all just
| excuses. i worked minimum wage (actual minimum mind you,
| no tips, nothing) for about 7 years and i didn't get
| obese, must be magic.
|
| my hobbies included waking and running around, making
| stuff on an old laptop (I kept that one!), reading,
| making planes out of whatever material i could get my
| hands on that sort of stuff. i ate pasta, eggs, rice,
| water, tomatos. i never cared about eating the same thing
| everyday (i still don't but ive learned to eat a little
| better).
|
| theres plenty more hobbies, obviously none of these being
| forbidden in the USA lol. and most make more money than I
| did, not to mention have food stamps and the like.
| FatherOfCurses wrote:
| JFC you do understand that not everyone in America is a
| software engineer like you who is well compensated and
| has a proper work/life balance? There are tons of people
| in America that are just ground into the dirt day in day
| out with no end in sight. Have some empathy.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| Sure, i'm not arguing against that. What I'm arguing
| against is the statement "there's nothing to do but eat
| and consume junk media"; That's simply not true, there is
| plenty to do, and a lot of it is not cost prohibitive.
| acuozzo wrote:
| I wish I could see you try to tell this to my father when
| he was working manual labor. I'd pay money.
|
| Manual labor which was so grueling that he had sue his
| company in order to retire early because he could
| literally no longer walk and required surgery to remove
| the extreme bowing in his legs.
|
| You could come in, look at the latest Creosote burns on
| his skin, and tell him that something-- anything! --would
| be better than watching an hour of Football.
|
| And, while you're at it, you could try to convince him
| that smoking's bad too.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| Another commenter twisting my words -- I'm not saying
| your father shouldn't be allowed to watch football. I'm
| saying he has other options, and he's not railroaded into
| only watching football.
|
| Also, he should probably quit smoking (unclear if it's
| too late for that, if so I'm sorry)
| acuozzo wrote:
| > Another commenter twisting my words
|
| Sorry! I wasn't in a great place when I wrote my reply
| last night. I'd delete it if I could.
| Aurornis wrote:
| You cited poverty as a reason but then switched to income
| inequality as the statistic.
|
| When citing poverty, simply look at poverty rates, not a
| different statistic. Income inequality is higher in countries
| with higher incomes, like the United States.
|
| Regardless, obesity is not limited to people in poverty.
| conception wrote:
| An astonishing number of people are type two diabetic in this
| country due to poor health and poor access to healthcare. But
| glp1 is covered as a diabetic treatment so a tremendous number
| of folks can get it at a reasonable cost.
| kristopolous wrote:
| The supermarket "super user" category of people who bought a
| lot of food and people who are using it is likely not a small
| crossover
| vovavili wrote:
| Nothing surprising for me. Unless you're in the top percentiles
| in terms of self-discipline, becoming obese is usually a one-
| way road. GLP-1 is a lazy solution for a problem that primarily
| stems from laziness.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| "Lazy" is a pejorative term, which makes your comment sound
| denigrating to users of GLP-1s. If that is your intent, then
| your issue with people using medicine to help them avoid
| diabetes and heart disease is that....it's too easy?
| vovavili wrote:
| There is no way approximately one-sixth of a population are
| taking GLP-1 strictly for legitimate health issues.
| c0nducktr wrote:
| Obesity is a legitimate health issue.
| vovavili wrote:
| I would rephrase it as "lacking high sense of self-
| control leads to legitimate health issues".
| carlosjobim wrote:
| So what? Why does that bother you? Is the (European) hatred
| towards your fellow brothers and sisters so strong that you
| prefer them to be chronically unhealthy, when there is a
| solution for them?
| lm28469 wrote:
| idk about them but to me people who don't value their own
| life and well being to that point are repulsive to me. Such
| a lack of discipline and self esteem, if you can't even
| control what you put in your mouth what can you even
| control? Why even bother if all you're capable of doing is
| mindless consumption? What can I trust you with if you
| can't even be trusted with yourself?
|
| Also from a purely financial pov they're a a major strain
| on the healthcare system when they're obese and still a
| major strain when we have to put them on drugs for the rest
| of their lives because the drugs will never fix their
| willpower and only temporarily fix the symptoms
|
| We should also obviously send 90% of food industry CEOs for
| a life long retreat in a dark cell somewhere underground
| because they clearly are part of the problem. I understand
| some people have legit health issue making them more prone
| to being overweight but these people don't even account for
| 10% of the total.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| People are cable of recreating themselves and digging
| themselves out of holes, sometimes even to later become
| greatly admirable.
|
| An Ozempic cure might be just the right push needed for
| someone to start a healthy cycle, which then has massive
| beneficial effects in all aspects of life for that
| person, as well as for others.
|
| > Also from a purely financial pov they're a a major
| strain on the healthcare system
|
| Except for victims of crime, you cannot point to a single
| adult receiving healthcare services, who is not to blame
| for "burdening the system". Whether that is obesity as
| you mention, or chronic injuries, or sports injuries, or
| traffic accidents, work accidents, any disease spread by
| virus or bacteria, and so on. All of those could be
| avoidable, and the patient is solely to blame for that
| and for "burdening the system".
|
| Europeans generally have the perspective that people are
| born a certain way and cannot change. That's why it is a
| continent with immense hatred against the rich and
| successful, because those are considered inherited
| statuses, something you get from estates and serfs.
| That's why so much focus in European politics is to ease
| out differences instead of striving for success. And
| naturally, that's why Europeans are (the only people in
| the world) against Ozempic. Because it's seen as helping
| people who are inherently bad to cheat on their
| discipline and gain benefits they don't "deserve". Not as
| a first step to a great new life for the individual.
|
| Just look at the angry European hackers censoring and
| [dead]ing the other guy's comment below mine, where an
| already admirable individual used this medicine for great
| personal health benefits.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > Except for victims of crime, you cannot point to a
| single adult receiving healthcare services, who is not to
| blame for "burdening the system". Whether that is obesity
| as you mention, or chronic injuries, or sports injuries,
| or traffic accidents, work accidents, any disease spread
| by virus or bacteria, and so on. All of those could be
| avoidable, and the patient is solely to blame for that
| and for "burdening the system".
|
| Some are way more avoidable, and much more of a burden
| (cig, alcohol, obesity, &c.). Nobody's upset at old
| people who get the flu and use an ICU bed. But if you're
| 40, smoking, obese and get the flu imho you're ripping
| what you sow and I won't be crying for your demise.
|
| > Europeans bla bla bla
|
| If you want to go into caricature I could tell you
| Americans are trying to recreate Matrix style pods, for
| them it would be paradise, you could go from birth to
| death without any single inconvenience. All of your
| problems come from over consumption... of foods, of
| medicine, of tech, and you keep piling more on top of it
| thinking the next layer will solve the previous layer's
| consequences.
| FatherOfCurses wrote:
| I hope one day you'll realize how easy it is to be
| judgmental on the internet and think of people you don't
| know as somehow less than human. If you think people who
| "can't control what you put in your mouth" are incapable
| of self control, you should see the amount of self
| control it took me not to post the things I wanted to
| post about you. Try to have more empathy and compassion
| in your life.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > Try to have more empathy and compassion in your life.
|
| My position is way more empathetic than the other side
| who think people are dumb beasts or cattle who can't do
| anything about their conditions and need external magic
| pills to save them from themselves
| Nasrudith wrote:
| You don't actually know the definition of empathy, do
| you?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I suspect if you verbalized that to people they would
| find you equally repulsive.
| kuttel2 wrote:
| Completely different demographics, too. USA has large sub-
| Saharan African and Hispanic populations, which seem to have
| higher rates of obesity and so forth. Ethnically, Germany is
| probably majority North-African, Middle Eastern and Central
| European. Genetics plays a big part.
| Tepix wrote:
| Germany is at 24% obesity rate and the US is about 10%
| higher.
|
| But the trend is the same worldwide. Obesity is on the rise.
| I don't think demographics has as big of an influence as you
| assume.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Germany is simply further from the origin of the Maize
| incident.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Obesity is not evenly distributed by age or demographic. If
| you're a relatively young person in the workforce, you probably
| don't know such people. But it is true that obesity is much
| less prevalent in most of Europe. Even the places with less
| "healthy" diets, suprisingly.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| But obesity rates are going up there, too, they are just
| lagging behind the Anglo world.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > But it is true that obesity is much less prevalent in most
| of Europe
|
| Let's put this into perspective. On average, the US has about
| twice the obesity rate as Europe (though in both cases there
| is a fairly wide variation regionally). And Europe has 4 or 5
| times the obesity rate of Japan. So relatively speaking,
| Europe is not in a position to argue that their regulations
| or lifestyles are the answer.
| tyjen wrote:
| The overall food quality in Germany is significantly higher
| than in the US. Visit an Aldi or Lidl in Germany, then visit
| one in the US; night and day difference in food quality.
|
| You can tell Germany cares for its population via food
| regulation and from what's offered; whereas, it's a toxic trash
| heap in America solved with drugs or paying a higher premium
| for healthier items. The healthier items in America should be a
| baseline instead of pricing out people. Feels like Americans
| are paying for a premium upfront or downstream via
| pharmaceutical/healthcare solutions.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >The healthier items in America should be a baseline instead
| of pricing out people.
|
| what percentage of people on Ozempic etc. are poor enough
| that they would be priced out by healthier food?
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I haven't seen that difference between German Aldi/Lidl and
| American Aldi; are you thinking of any particular items?
| Americans just buy more food.
| nasmorn wrote:
| Probably 95% of Germans live 15min from an Aldi. There are
| no Dollar General food wastes because the country is much
| denser and poor people have access to much better public
| transport
| 1123581321 wrote:
| True. Population density differs by about 2.5x, and the
| US has some truly depopulated areas that essentially
| don't exist on the European contintent.
|
| Although, rural Americans are also used to driving longer
| distances than rural Germans. I would venture that a
| 30-40 minute trip is not thought of as significant,
| especially if only done 1-2 times per week.
|
| Rural grocery shopping (real food, not snacks), is
| typically done at Walmart or a smaller grocery brand or
| independent. For quick errands, DG does get a lot of it.
| You're starting to see grocery store logistics push in to
| what were traditionally gas-and-convenience-store
| corners, including Aldi, so the commutes for groceries
| are getting shorter.
|
| It will be interesting to see what happens in the US with
| the price war over GLP-1 weight loss pills. Unlike
| Ozempic injections, they're going to penetrate into low
| income and rural households.
| brianpbeau wrote:
| It's not just processed foods, there is also a genetic struggle
| as well. Looking at my family living in the US and in the EU,
| being overweight is a thing for a large portion of us. Even in
| my grandparents generation of family had issues as well, and
| they were all blue collar manual workers that lived before
| processed foods.
|
| This is not to say you are wrong. The food supply in the US is
| not healthy. The bad news is that the same greed that destroyed
| our food will find ways to get around the ways GLP-1s work.
| xenospn wrote:
| I'm sure in 5 years all processed microwave meals and fast
| food will be "fortified with GLP-1".
| smileysteve wrote:
| Historically, this is called "fiber", and has already been
| regulated to be required in European breads
| patentatt wrote:
| I find this humorous but I'm also genuinely curious what
| the analogy is between fiber and GLPs?
| mminer237 wrote:
| Fiber is essentially mass with little to no nutrition in
| it. So it makes you feel fuller without adding calories,
| like GLP-1 drugs.
|
| I do think there's a strong argument that lack of fiber
| and protein are huge contributors to the world's obesity
| problems.
| array_key_first wrote:
| In most developed countries people eat lots of fiber.
| Like just unbelievable amounts of meat, more than ever
| before in human history and prehistory.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| What are you talking about?? Meat contains no fiber. The
| primary fiber source is plant-based foods (e.g.,
| vegetables). So modern populations eating lots of meat
| means they're getting little to no fiber.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Sorry, that was a mistype, I mean lots of meat, very
| little fiber.
| alvah wrote:
| "So it makes you feel fuller without adding calories,
| like GLP-1 drugs"
|
| Nobody really knows how GLP-1 agonists work, but given
| the other effects (e.g. insulin stability, change in
| other addictive behaviours etc.) it's definitely not just
| this.
| Zacru wrote:
| Probably simply "makes you feel full longer".
| staticassertion wrote:
| > and has already been regulated to be required in
| European breads
|
| Source needed.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| There's negligible "genetic" difference between German and
| American gastrointestinal systems. No DNA mutations occurred
| in your grandparents that caused all of their children and
| children's children to be overweight.
|
| There may be cultural or behavioral issues - attitudes and
| habits around cooking, expectations of what a meal includes
| or does not include, taste preferences on what's too sweet or
| too fatty, etc - but it's not genetic.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > there is also a genetic struggle as well.
|
| Weird that it virtually did not exist pre ww2 and that it now
| affects 75%+ of your population
| infecto wrote:
| I am not sure the genetic angle but there definitely is
| something happening at a craving level in the way the mind
| is responding.
|
| On the flip side I don't think your comment holds much
| weight either. A large portion of the population worked
| trade jobs and the access junk food was a lot less
| prevalent. You kind of have a good recipe for unhealthy
| population now. Low quality foods and less activity.
| lm28469 wrote:
| I have access to the same food as everyone else, I also
| have craving as everyone else, but as hairless monkeys we
| evolved a brain able to bypass instant rewards for future
| goals.
|
| My step dad was obese and blamed everything and everyone
| but himself. We installed an app to count calories on his
| ipad, he lost 1/3rd of his bodyweight in less than a year
| and he's now cruising at an healthy weight, it really
| isn't rocket science
|
| People who look for excuse will always find something,
| it's genetics, today is a cheat day, today was a bad day,
| I'm not feeling good, I crave chocolate,
| #healthyatallsizes, &c. people who stop making excuses
| get out of the hole surprisingly fast
| infecto wrote:
| You are blinded by your experiences. I don't think it's
| as clear as "stop making excuses". Obviously there is a
| healthy portion that is probably this but I do believe
| there is a borderline if not full blown addiction that
| happens where people are not able to put it out of their
| thoughts.
|
| I don't think we fully understand why but it's becoming
| increasingly clear that it's a real problem. After all
| there is a reason that glp1 show efficacy with other
| addictions.
|
| Accountability is important and I even think there is a
| healthy level of social shaming to be made, we should not
| be normalizing obesity. But I also realize that there is
| something at play that's more than simply excuses.
| nathanyz wrote:
| What if some people's hunger is louder than others? What
| if your expended willpower to not overeat is a lot less
| than what is required by others?
|
| I ask these as that is what the GLP-1's are showing. They
| change the hunger feeling and it might just be that you
| and others got lucky with a lower hunger feeling than
| others. There is no objective measure of food noise, but
| I think we all need to be open to the possibility that
| the food noise is different for different people and its
| not all willpower or laziness.
| lm28469 wrote:
| They still have a brain capable of complex thoughts and
| should be able to prioritise long term health over short
| term pleasures.
|
| Again I don't really care, I managed to help people
| around me following this dead simple recipe, if you want
| to make excuses for yourself or others go ahead and
| suffer. Suffering from obesity is much harder on the body
| and soul than "suffering" from skipping a snack or
| counting calories
| infecto wrote:
| "Again I don't really care". Yet you keep coming back
| saying your way is the only way.
| lm28469 wrote:
| I'm convinced it is but you can't help people who don't
| want to be helped. People who want to be helped get out
| of the problem in a matter of months.
|
| Fix your shit, it's much better than taking pills for
| life to fix your obesity, which is arguably the very last
| link of a long chain of problems. Eat clean, exercise,
| understand that food is fuel, understand how the fuel is
| used, learn discipline, learn timing, learn to recognise
| good and bad fuels... pills won't do any of this, and
| being skinny won't bring health if you don't do/learn the
| things I just enumerated. Obese people need a complete
| lifestyle overall, not pills. No amount of pills will
| help if they keep everything else the same, and if they
| implement the changes they don't need the pills to begin
| with
| gtr wrote:
| I have done that multiple times in the past but there
| came a point where I couldn't "white knuckle" my diet any
| more. GLP-1 has really helped a much better quality of
| life - lower cravings for food and alcohol, meaning that
| I am losing weight and feeling cheerful instead of
| gritting my teeth.
|
| Why is that so bad?
| lm28469 wrote:
| What's your plan? pills for life? Life is tough, fighting
| cravings is on the easier side of what life's going to
| throw at us
| brianpbeau wrote:
| Yes. What's wrong with that? There are large portions of
| the population that already do that for other health
| related issues.
| zobzu wrote:
| natural selection. you can only cheat it so far.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| We have decades of experience telling people to exercise
| more and eat better. If telling people those things
| worked, we would know by now. It doesn't. This is not in
| any way new.
| brianpbeau wrote:
| Ah yes, the ever popular "they are just lazy or weak
| willed" rhetoric. Obesity is a disease just like
| addictions are. But I'm sure another round of "just try
| harder" pep talks and motivation posters will solve
| everything. Maybe stop for a moment and realize your
| perspective is narrow.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| Wow, you have solved all mental illness. Just change the
| way your brain works so its normal. Brillant!
| budsniffer95 wrote:
| This is loser thinking: you are skinny because of luck.
| You are successful because of luck. You are rich because
| of luck.
| staticassertion wrote:
| > I also have craving as everyone else,
|
| I laughed at loud at this. What an insane thing to claim.
| "I can experience the qualia of others, quantify it, and
| claim that mine is identical" lol
|
| Also it's empirically false that all people experience
| the same level of craving. We have studies demonstrating
| different dopamine responses etc.
| lm28469 wrote:
| The obesity rate in the US tripled in 45 years... so
| clearly it's not about genetics or cravings. People had
| the same genetics, cravings and access to calories in
| 1980 USA as today, we're not talking 1580 here.
| staticassertion wrote:
| Your point about having the same cravings as others is
| exactly as stupid as it was before you made this
| unrelated point about obesity rates.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Yeah right, I'm obviously an elite genetical specimen and
| 75% of people are simply dumb animals with insane amount
| of cravings I cannot even begin to comprehend. And these
| people didn't exist 45 years ago.
|
| Feel free to guide me to the literature explaining these
| phenomenons, it seems extremely interesting, I'm
| especially interested in knowing how the genetics of
| 3/4th of the population somehow converged to this
| "uncontrollable cravings" pattern over two generations
| staticassertion wrote:
| I'm not talking to you about obesity. I'm talking to you
| about the idiotic statement that you have insight into
| the qualia of other people. Everything else you're saying
| is irrelevant, I'm not trying to explain all obesity or
| whatever by appealing to cravings, I'm saying you're an
| idiot if you think you have insight into qualia.
| lm28469 wrote:
| But surely you realise something doesn't add up... Either
| cravings somehow automagically drastically changed in two
| generations or you're plain wrong.
|
| > you have insight into the qualia of other people.
|
| Yeah that's called statistics, averages, &c.
| staticassertion wrote:
| No, that's still really dumb. For example, maybe we
| always had radically divergent populations with regards
| to cravings but limited access to food. It's so easy to
| come up with situations to account for.
|
| And again, you can not say your cravings are the same as
| others. I'm not going to explain qualia to you.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >I also have craving as everyone else
|
| This is a pretty massive assumption that your "craving
| level" is the same as everyone else. This takes a complex
| process (the feedback from the body to the brain on
| feelings of hunger, satiety, etc.) and pretends that it
| is a simple A-B thing. Just for type 1 diabetics, their
| insulin levels have a huge effect on feelings of hunger,
| with hyperphagia (feelings of insatiable hunger) being
| common. Diabetes is just an extreme example of the
| spectrum of how individual bodies regulate insulin, and
| insulin is just one hormone effecting and effected by
| food.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > This is a pretty massive assumption that your "craving
| level" is the same as everyone else.
|
| We didn't go from sub 10% obesity to 40%+ obesity in 50
| years because of people cravings.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| No, it was probably the incredible advances in everyday
| automation combined with massive increases in food
| availability. Survival is not nearly as physically
| demanding today as it was in the middle of last century.
| brianpbeau wrote:
| It's also a matter of making foods more addictive to
| increase sales. And creating marketing to do the same
| thing. And then creating food deserts, etc.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| It's almost like the difference in the way ultra
| processed foods are digested, absorbed, and the way
| hormones are released in response has something to do
| with that. It's almost like this is a biological process.
| It's almost like the brain is an organ and if its
| hormones and chemicals are messed with, that can have
| health implications. Or maybe it just "don't be lazy".
| array_key_first wrote:
| > also have craving as everyone else
|
| How could you possibly know that? You don't even know how
| your brain works, let alone how other people's brains
| work.
|
| I can drink alcohol and be perfectly fine, but a lot of
| people can't, because they're alcoholics. Similarly, Ive
| met people who have tried to smoke but couldn't pick it
| up, meanwhile for me it will be a lifelong, every day,
| struggle.
|
| The mind is complex, have some humility. You are not
| necessarily a beacon of purity by your own doing.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| > I also have craving as everyone else
|
| No you dont. Have some epistemic humility. People
| experience reality in unique ways, you can not push your
| experience onto anyone else with any level of confidence.
| https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-
| library/Nagel_Bat.pdf
| thefz wrote:
| Or that it happens overwhelmingly in specific places with a
| very broad genetic mix.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Not remotely weird: people were poorer and food was more
| scarce across the board pre-WWII.
| lm28469 wrote:
| But how did people survive their craving, they must have
| all been completely on the verge of insanity right?
|
| Are all these lean and healthy people from archive videos
| actually suffering and in distress? Poor souls...
| blell wrote:
| "Eating disorders didn't exist one century ago" is indeed
| some take.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Are all these lean and healthy people
|
| Vast numbers of these 'lean and healthy people' were
| suffering from serious nutritional deficiencies. Pellagra
| (generally caused by _eating nothing but corn_ ) wasn't
| really knocked out until around WWII, for example.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Because genetics alone aren't enough, you also have to have
| opportunity.
|
| If you don't have enough food, no one is going to be fat.
| If you have plenty of food availability, then certain
| people are going to have genetics that make it more likely
| they end up fat.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Many people pre ww2 were perpetually hungry. Now they can
| afford as much food as they want
| lm28469 wrote:
| Obesity rate more than tripled since the 80s (1980s),
| people had already access to more than enough food to
| become obese in 1980 USA, so this alone doesn't explain
| much
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It went up sharply in all countries. What is the common
| factor, if it is not the cultural moral failure you are
| painting it to be?
| cthalupa wrote:
| Genetic differences can exist and not be meaningful if the
| situation doesn't allow for them to be meaningfully
| expressed.
|
| We know that people just have different metabolisms,
| different levels of hunger response, different levels of
| "food noise," etc.
|
| We see obesity rates raising in nearly every country across
| the world as economic power and access to ultra-palatable
| hyper-calorie dense food increases. This is universal
| across the developed world with very few exemptions - Japan
| seems to largely be immune, but Korea and other portions of
| Asia aren't.
|
| The growth curves look very similar, despite many of these
| cultures across the world putting even more emphasis on
| discipline and responsibility than America, things that in
| theory directly align with being more responsible about
| diet. If genetics weren't involved and it was all willpower
| (and where does the capacity for willpower come from? Is
| there no genetic component to it?) we wouldn't see these
| growth trends be so similar to America and each other.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> It's not just processed foods, there is also a genetic
| struggle as well. Looking at my family living in the US and
| in the EU, being overweight is a thing for a large portion of
| us.
|
| It's not genetic, this is just your family refusing to take
| responsibility for their own eating habits. The proof is
| people who have bariatric surgery so that they _can 't_ eat
| as much, and people on GLP 1 drugs so they aren't hungry.
| Both groups lose weight. It's not your genes, it's the fact
| that you put too much food in your mouth (and probably the
| wrong kind of food). As an overeater myself, knowing this
| does not help reduce intake... People have to make changes
| and stop blaming genetics, or thyroid (there are drugs for
| that too) or whatever it is they think is beyond their
| control.
| staticassertion wrote:
| You're assuming something they didn't say. Genetics might
| mean a poorer response to GLP1, or a poorer metabolic
| response to specific hormones, or how we observe that
| people with ADHD have poorer eating habits, or if you're
| genetically smaller then your metabolism may be smaller,
| blah blah blah. There are many genetic factors that
| obviously impact weight.
|
| We know that alcoholism is genetic, addition is genetic,
| etc, and those are just tiny subsets of problems that
| genetics are involved in.
| RobinL wrote:
| I was curious for a UK comparison so I looked it up.
|
| At the start of 2025, about 3% of adults in UK had used GLP-1
| drugs in past year in the UK. And "most GLP-1 for weight loss
| in the UK is from private, rather than NHS provision" [1].
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12781702/
| esperent wrote:
| I assume that translates to it being really hard to get in
| the NHS so people are resorting to buying it themselves. I
| wonder what the percentage would be if it was easy to get
| from the NHS?
| Aurornis wrote:
| UK numbers are always interesting because the NHS leans
| conservative about access to many types of care and
| medication.
|
| For another example, rates of COVID-19 vaccination are
| significantly lower in the UK not because people there don't
| want vaccines, but because the NHS only makes them narrowly
| available to people above a certain age or with a strict set
| of conditions.
| ChromaticPanic wrote:
| Maybe it's just not as talked about. Why would anyone bring it
| up. I can already sense the condescension in your statement.
| arghwhat wrote:
| I think it's a bit more popular outside the US than you make it
| out to be. As an anecdote, I know a handful of people on it in
| Denmark - and that's despite the local Danish price being
| higher than the German one and Denmark having notably lower
| obesity and diabetes rates than Germany.
|
| I imagine you'll find that people of certain lifestyles tend to
| cluster together a bit, with those with more active lifestyles
| and healthy diets likely to have their friends and family be of
| active lifestyles and healthy diets, and in turn less likely to
| be in need of such drugs. Lifestyle changes are difficult to
| implement by nature.
|
| Although, the term "processed food" is awful as it covers so
| many unrelated things. The problem is ultra-addictive, ultra-
| high glycemic index foods consumed in large amounts partly due
| to their addictive qualities - a quality _some_ processed foods
| have.
|
| For reference, Danish sausage sandwich toppings are highly
| processed foods, but it won't drive anyone to obesity or
| diabetes. Elevated blood pressure, perhaps. Junk takeaway,
| candy and sugary cereals on the other hand...
| amelius wrote:
| Processed foods are easier to modify. Hence, given corporate
| greed, they are addictive and unhealthy.
| arghwhat wrote:
| Foods, full stop, is easy to modify. More generally, a
| producer can arbitrary control any product composition
| according to their own goals.
|
| Nothing to do with "processed foods" in general, despite a
| good portion of the affected foods being under that label.
| It's simply a matter of malicious companies combined with
| unknowing, unempowered consumers.
|
| By trying to single out something as massively generic as
| "processed foods", you're just making it easy for companies
| to avoid the problem: Using and manipulating official
| definitions to be removed from it as a "solution",
| justifying the whole thing in the basis of numerous good
| things being in the same category, drawing attention to
| other foods in the same category that are more commonly
| associated with the term despite theirs being way worse,
| etc.
|
| If you want to fix the problem, you need to attack the
| problem. That is not processing - it is addiction and
| glycemic value. Going for the underlying attributes means
| you cannot redefine your way out of it, and gives consumers
| a better chance to learn what to actually avoid.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Mintel (market data company) claims 8% of Germans have tried a
| weight-loss drug in the last year and a further 15% are
| interested.
| https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/08/11/glp-1-affec...
| omgJustTest wrote:
| i considered it, but the gym was a much better option.
|
| for everyone who says "i've tried etc doesnt work" all i would
| say is, possibly if you dont have the time due to kids etc.
|
| Otherwise, get to it!
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Even easier than the gym, and cheaper ! Eat less shit.
| Simply.
|
| If you eat only vegetable and meat, you're going to have a
| hard time gaining weight.
| thw_9a83c wrote:
| > but the gym was a much better option.
|
| If you live in a suitable city, there is an even simpler
| solution. Just walk to wherever place you need to go.
|
| Unfortunately, the century of individual automobile ownership
| has made most cities unsuitable for this natural mode of
| transportation.
| yourusername wrote:
| You can't out excercise a bad diet. You can hit the weights
| for 2 hours straight every day and eat those calories back
| with a single bad dietary choice (like a handful of peanuts
| or a single large cookie).
| yunwal wrote:
| I must've missed when peanuts became a bad dietary choice.
| What's the evidence for this?
| EA wrote:
| OP isn't saying peanuts are a poor source of nutrition.
| OP is saying a few peanuts are calorically dense and it
| is easy to consume hundreds of calories through seemingly
| inconsequential amounts of snacks and drinks.
| johnyzee wrote:
| Calories isn't everything, there is a lot more focus
| these days on how different foods affect metabolic
| hormones affecting satiety, blood sugar, etc. On those
| metrics, fat alone (which account for most of the
| calories in peanuts) is very satiating and does not
| trigger a later blood sugar drop (which causes cravings).
| That's why people on a diet drink 'bulletproof coffee'
| (coffee with butter in it), because it is extremely
| filling while not making you hungry later.
| bluGill wrote:
| Depends on what your entire diet is. If you are eating
| only peanuts - or anything else - that is bad. If you eat
| a handful of peanuts once in a while that is fine. Even a
| cookie every few weeks is fine, but 6 cookies a day every
| day would be bad. Someplace in between is generally a
| good place to be.
|
| I'm assuming of course that you are "normal". If you are
| allergic to peanuts they are of course worse than a
| cookie. If you are diabetic cookies are bad.
| darkwater wrote:
| But GP literally said
|
| > (like a handful of peanuts or a single large cookie).
| neutronicus wrote:
| A handful of peanuts is roughly the amount of excess
| calories burned in a 30 minute cardio workout (I'm
| assuming).
| neutronicus wrote:
| My experience, in my mid 30s, has been that I slim down
| pretty damn quick when I'm able to run 10k 3-4 times a
| week. Unfortunately, due to my knees and my childcare
| responsibilities that's "not anymore". More generally,
| anytime I've trained for performance at anything other than
| pure powerlifting (climbing, kickboxing, cycling), my
| experience has been that my weight more or less falls in
| line.
|
| It's not like I live off McDonald's or anything. But I'll
| be overweight, change only my exercise habits, and notice
| big changes in body comp on the timescale of a couple
| months.
|
| So clearly I'm out-exercising my evidently-bad diet.
|
| IDK. Maybe it's different with this kind of functional
| exercise vs 30 minutes on the elliptical or whatever.
| bubblethink wrote:
| It's not that it doesn't work. It's not the primary tool for
| weight management. Gym is great for strength, muscle, cardio,
| and general fitness, but weight management is mostly about
| counting calories that go in. The calories that you burn are
| a function of your metabolism first and to a lesser extent
| the amount of exercise you do. The exercise side of things is
| < 500 kcal for most people per day.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| If I go for a 10k, I burn ~1100 calories (I'm a big dude). I
| can eat that deficit no problem, hell, I was able to maintain
| my weight during my marathon training last summer.
|
| It's always a balance, there's always nuance, and there's no
| one single solution.
| nwienert wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iM103vKdI5E
| SecretDreams wrote:
| > It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off
| the processed foods killing them in the US.
|
| Completely agreed. That said, I've been to Germany a handful of
| times but not in the last 7 years (sadly) and two things always
| stuck out to me:
|
| * There's way more attractive/healthy looking people.
|
| * There's wayyyy more young attractive people that smoke
| (wtf!).
|
| Not sure if the smoking has subsided, but it was far more
| prominent than in NA since I've last visited.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Americans (and increasingly us Europeans) are pigs.
|
| The society is built to sit in a chair 8h, get in your car and
| drive 1h home and sit in a chair. Then repeat.
|
| Also "eating 3 meals a day"
|
| I eat 3 full meals, I blow up like a balloon. I don't get it.
| It's like they have to constantly eat. When I was a teen or in
| my 20s yes. Now in my 30s its game over.
|
| It is also the way society, public transport, cities are
| designed.
|
| I walk 4km to work when its nice out here in Europe. Could I do
| that in the USA?
| xenospn wrote:
| The entire world eats 3 meals a day. Even if you eat 6 meals
| a day you can easily lose weight. It's about the contents of
| the meal, not the frequency.
| lm28469 wrote:
| I eat one meal a day for as far as I can remember. Fatties
| love to tell me it's unhealthy, my doctor hasn't figure out
| yet though so I imagine it really isn't that unhealthy.
|
| Eating three meals a day is a very very very recent thing
| if you account for human history, or even modern human
| history
| tayo42 wrote:
| You need to include more info about your one meal, height
| and your actual weight. If your 5'2 this is alot less
| interesting
| lm28469 wrote:
| 180cm, 75kg, leanish, I optimise for rock climbing and do
| kettlebell workouts 2 to 3 times a week. I do close to
| the bare minimum of what is available to stay in decent
| shape, it takes me less than 4 hours a week total. Not
| counting the time I save cooking/eating
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Okay, you are correct but not realistic. 3 realistic meals
| in USA and Western Europe then. Cofee/toast or cereal/musli
| for breakfast, bought lunch
|
| Yea I can down a familiy pizza if its all I eat for the
| day.
|
| Also, the rise of zero/light drinks have actually helped.
| exhumet wrote:
| mhm! i do pretty well portioned 3 meals. small breakfast,
| small lunch, average sized dinner. i really like just
| grazing all day, eat a cracker or two, have a yogurt, have
| some chips etc. id honestly say im snacking a good bit
| whenever i feel like it. but exactly, portion and contents.
| im a pretty lean 150lbs
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Yes but US portions are anything but small
| phkahler wrote:
| >> I walk 4km to work when its nice out here in Europe. Could
| I do that in the USA?
|
| I had a business trip to Germany (from the US) and found it
| enlightening. We all went out to eat after work one night and
| a couple of the local Germans had to walk 20 minutes from the
| restaurant to the train station to go home and didn't think
| anything of it. It wasn't a big deal to walk, but you'd never
| do that here in the US - or at least in Michigan where we
| have no real public transportation.
| garbawarb wrote:
| That's not uncommon in New York either.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| One (1) city in the USA with 10million people vs most of
| Europe depending on how urban it is.
|
| My small Swedish town of 50k has buses going everywhere
| every 10min. An American town of 50k is a village where
| there is maybe 1 bus line.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > a couple of the local Germans had to walk 20 minutes from
| the restaurant to the train station to go home and didn't
| think anything of it
|
| I mean, why on earth would they think anything of it?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| One of the heaviest people I worked with only ate one meal a
| day.
| sekai wrote:
| > One of the heaviest people I worked with only ate one
| meal a day.
|
| People usually lie or have no idea how many calories they
| consume.
| infecto wrote:
| I don't think it's any more insane than 40% of Germans
| believing in the efficacy of homeopathic remedies. Different
| cultures and different problems.
|
| The obesity problem is a lot lower in Germany compared to the
| US. As all things I am sure it's a combination of factors.
|
| I don't think it's fair to call purely a processed food problem
| but I am sure it does not help.
| lumost wrote:
| Eh, the drugs work. A great many people in the US struggle with
| weight despite shifting to high quality foods, fad diets,
| exercise etc. I'd honestly attribute the root cause to high
| general stress levels in daily life.
| nipponese wrote:
| Overeating doesn't just happen in a bubble - there is a
| confluence of issues creating anxiety and stress in Americans's
| daily lives leading to the obesity issue.
| infecto wrote:
| I agree with this take too. Culture influences it but I don't
| think anyone can be singled out being immune. We are stressed
| and overworked. Simple food takes work. We no longer have a
| village. If you have kids so many are just stuck at home.
|
| I compare it to my childhood which was a while ago but not
| that far and I would go out in the middle of the day with
| instructions to come back home before dark. I would be
| running all over town on my bicycle. Now parents in the US
| are obsessing over travel sports and keeping booked calendars
| for their kids. Both parents will be working. There is nobody
| around put a meal together.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > In my friend circle in Germany I don't even know one single
| person on this stuff.
|
| Most people don't announce when they're taking a new
| medication.
|
| GLP-1 drugs are popular in Germany, too. Not quite to the level
| of some other countries but a quick search shows about 1 in 12
| individuals in Germany.
|
| Note that the US number quoted above was for _households_ not
| individuals, so the numbers of households in Germany with at
| least one member on a GLP-1 is higher. This isn't a uniquely
| American phenomenon, despite attempts to turn this into another
| America-bad comment thread.
|
| > It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off
| the processed foods killing them in the US.
|
| GLP-1 drugs don't make people stop eating processed food. They
| reduce food intake and cravings. It's still up to the user to
| make healthy choices about what to eat.
|
| Also it's been about a decade since I visited family friends in
| Germany but there was plenty of processed food to be had when I
| was there, too.
| nwienert wrote:
| Well said, to add though they do make you crave certain foods
| differently - fruit more, processed foods less.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| _> I was wondering how you could get such a high impact
| overall. But it seems one in 6 households are on GLP-1 drugs
| in the US. _
|
| I had the same question and did some back of the envelope
| math. The data I have seen says the average American eats
| 400-700 excess daily calories, and 3600 daily calories total.
| That means 10-20% excess per person. If everyone started
| eating the right amount overnight, grocery spend would drop
| 10-20%.
|
| But since it's 16% on these drugs, and figure since they are
| Losing Weight (not maintaining), safe to say those 16% of
| Americans are eating 20-30% less... 20-30% times 16% = 3-5%
| decrease in spend.
|
| So it tracks, roughly. And we are not at the bottom yet.
| _alternator_ wrote:
| The decrease in spend was at the household level, not
| aggregate, so it's a 5% decrease across 16% of households,
| or a bit less than 1% overall.
|
| The overall weight loss seems to be because the spending
| decreases most heavily in calorie dense foods like savory
| snacks; yogurt and fresh fruit spending goes up a bit.
| stewarts wrote:
| I'm not sure how this math checks out.
|
| 1lb of fat is roughly 3500 calories. Given 500 calories a
| day of excess, that would lead to 1lb of fat gain per week.
| 52 pound average gain per year?
| jmpetroske wrote:
| As you gain weight, your base metabolic rate also
| increases. Having fat means you inherently burn more
| calories, even if you don't exercise any more.
|
| Take one person, say they eat 2000 calories to maintain
| bodyweight. If they start eating 2500 calories a day,
| they won't gain 1lb of fat a week forever. As they gain
| fat, their body naturally burns more calories due to the
| increased body weight, and eventually a stable weight
| (higher than their original weight) will be reached.
|
| So yeah if you're eating 500 calories above your
| metabolic weight, you'll theoretically gain weight
| forever. But in this case your metabolic rate is rising
| over time, so you would be eating more and more calories
| per day.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Fat does not raise your metabolism by a lot (relatively),
| and tiny changes in diet lead to massive swings in the
| equilibrium implied by basal metabolic rate formulas. In
| fact, some formulas do not include weight due to body
| fat. If you think about it, that fact touches on the idea
| that your natural weight is being maintained by another
| body system, one related to GLP-1.
|
| By the way... if humans had to count calories to not
| accidentally starve or die from overeating, we would not
| have made it long enough as a species to invent a
| scientific way to do that. Even the diets of obese or
| overweight individuals are being naturally regulated,
| because anyone could physically eat even more.
| margalabargala wrote:
| The potential for overeating chronically has not been
| possible for most people, in most societies, throughout
| most of human history. Our current caloric abundance
| being available to literally everyone in Western society
| is something unique to the past century.
| whatshisface wrote:
| If you eat 1% fewer calories than you burn every day you
| will die. You will also die if you eat 1% more calories
| than you burn every day. Is it possible, really, to
| suggest that the availability of calories was 100% of the
| daily requirement of our ancestors, and not 99%, or 101%?
| That is a level of accident that exceeds belief.
|
| It is incredible to think this precise balance could be
| maintained by anything other than a closed loop of
| biological control. How would the wheat on a medieval
| farm know how much to grow each season? If it was off by
| 1% consistently, everyone would have died... unless they
| had a mechanism for satiation.
|
| How do you think our microbial ancestors maintained
| internal salinity, through the limited availability of
| salt in the ancient ocean?
| cogman10 wrote:
| > unless they had a mechanism for satiation
|
| It ends up being the opposite. Rather than the body
| having a satiation response, it controls the metabolism.
|
| If you've ever fasted, you've experienced this. You just
| don't have the energy to do much other than sit around
| when you are hungry.
|
| Ancient societies realized this, it's why they'd give out
| calorie dense meals to their farm labor. For a serf in
| England, harvest time was often met with a very calorie
| dense meal. For roman soldiers, they had a diet of meats
| and cheeses.
|
| I'd also point out that you don't need to have exactly
| 100% daily calorie intake. You can go a week with just
| 99% and catch up with 101% the next week just fine.
| margalabargala wrote:
| You will also die if you eat precisely the amount of
| calories you burn every day.
|
| There exists something called a "feedback loop",
| something common in biology. You would probably find it
| interesting, you should look it up.
|
| Basically, it means that if you try to chronically eat,
| say, 1% more calories than are burned, your body will try
| to burn more calories to compensate.
|
| I'm not sure I grasp the rest of your comment, could you
| try again to explain? The wheat farm your ancestors
| worked did not provide the excess of cheap calories
| available to the present day American.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That is the intended conclusion of my post, that body fat
| is obviously regulated biologically, and suggestions that
| changes in obesity rates are due to the increased
| availability of food (implying that it was regulated by
| some sort of precise cycle of starvation in the past) or
| individual choices (implying that most people are
| measuring portions and keeping a running tally) are in
| conflict with that.
| margalabargala wrote:
| You haven't made that point and I disagree with your
| conclusion.
|
| Your error is claiming some "precise cycle of starvation"
| is necessary to explain obesity via increased caloric
| availability.
| pixl97 wrote:
| In reality there were times of excess and times of
| shortages far more often in past times. In times where
| there were plenty of items that didn't last you over
| consumed. By late winter you were getting lean.
|
| >If it was off by 1% consistently, everyone would have
| died...
|
| You do realize that starvation was a massive killer in
| the past. Everyone didn't die, but the young, the old,
| and the weak sure did.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| It's not necessarily about BMR - if you maintain a
| similar activity level as you gain weight, you consume
| more active calories as well, in almost every activity,
| particularly the most common ones such as walking.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This hits on something that seems to get lost in most of
| these "obese people are lazy fat slobs" circle jerks. A
| typical American gains 1 or 2 pounds per _year_ as they
| age. This is not a candy problem, or a binge eating
| problem, this is way more subtle than that.
| moi2388 wrote:
| More subtle as in still not a healthy diet with exercise?
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Let's take a pound of fat as 3500 calories. To gain one
| pound in a year is an average of 9.59 excess calories per
| day. Or about 0.5% of the typical total daily intake.
|
| Yeah, managing a system within 0.5% is subtle.
|
| Especially when biologically and psychologically the
| pressure is towards over consuming rather than under. If
| you consistently eat a deficit you will very obviously
| feel hungry. If you consistently eat a small excess the
| effects that would lead you to regulate are much more...
| subtle.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| 10 calories a day is like the BMR difference between 20
| and 30.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Judging from the downvotes my observation got, you're not
| the only person who skipped math class. I couldn't say it
| any better than the comment below this one that already
| replied to you. 10 calories a day, expressed in candy, is
| two M&Ms.
| vasco wrote:
| > That means 10-20% excess per person. If everyone started
| eating the right amount overnight, grocery spend would drop
| 10-20%
|
| I doubt that $ spend on the top end of caloric intake
| scales linearly with # of calories because of high caloric
| density foods.
|
| If I spend $500 a month on groceries, lets say I need $400
| to keep me alive and hygienic and the last $100 are going
| to be the candy and sodas that make me fat. So to give an
| example, reducing the caloric intake by 50% could be
| achieved by reducing spend by only 5% if there's very
| caloric foods making me fat.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Also need to account for restaurant spending.
| jjk166 wrote:
| > The data I have seen says the average American eats
| 400-700 excess daily calories, and 3600 daily calories
| total. That means 10-20% excess per person. If everyone
| started eating the right amount overnight, grocery spend
| would drop 10-20%.
|
| You're falsely assuming a 1:1 ratio between calories and
| cost. Unfortunately the big problem with ultra processed
| food is that calorie rich but nutrient deficient food is
| way cheaper than the less processed foods. Cutting out the
| cheapest items is going to reduce spending less.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| >You're falsely assuming a 1:1 ratio between calories and
| cost
|
| Not falsely. Back of the envelope. If you want to improve
| the model go right ahead, but I was upfront with its
| limitations.
| carlmr wrote:
| I got some similar responses on my post above. HN
| discussion quality is really suffering recently.
| Wondering how many LLMs are involved here at this point.
| zahlman wrote:
| > calorie rich but nutrient deficient food is way cheaper
| than the less processed foods
|
| I hear this a lot but I really don't see good evidence
| for it. And people keep peddling stereotypes about "fast
| food" consumption after QSRs saw much larger price
| increases than grocery stores. For that matter, the UPFs
| are where I see people most commonly reach for overpriced
| name brands over the generics.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| > jjk166: You're falsely assuming a 1:1 ratio between
| calories and cost Give the guy some credit... No, clearly
| CGMthrowaway is not assuming that at all, it's purposly
| left out. The first sentence mentions "back of the
| envelope math" and makes it clear it's a rough order-of-
| magnitude estimate. Also it's in response to a statement
| about "wondering how you could get such a high impact
| overall". Also, also, the last sentence is "So it tracks,
| roughly. And we are not at the bottom yet."
|
| It's perfectly fine for people to do rough estimates to
| understand a situation, especially in informal
| discussions. It not a dissertation for a Ph.D. or formal
| position paper.
| ponector wrote:
| >> calorie rich but nutrient deficient food is way
| cheaper than the less processed foods
|
| How much is a bag of Doritos? Compare it with a bag of
| white rice, dry lentils, raw potatoes - processed is
| often more expensive.
| derektank wrote:
| > But since it's 16% on these drugs, and figure since they
| are Losing Weight (not maintaining)
|
| I would not assume this. Most people remain on GLP-1
| agonists after they reach their goal weight, as without it
| cravings return and weight starts coming back on. I would
| guess a substantial fraction of people on the drugs are on
| a maintenance dose
| criddell wrote:
| > If everyone started eating the right amount overnight,
| grocery spend would drop 10-20%
|
| Probably not. Americans (households, grocery stores, and
| restaurants) throw away an insane amount of food.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| These calorie numbers don't make much sense to me. The
| typical recommendation for how much a man should eat is
| 2000-2800 Cal/day, and for the average woman that is
| 1600-2200 Cal/day, depending on age and exercise levels
| [0]. So if it were true that the average American ate 3600
| Cal/day, they would be eating 800-2000 excess Cal, not
| 400-700.
|
| Even if we assumed that average food cost/Cal is a
| meaningful concept, the reduction would be much higher.
|
| [0] https://www.ummhealth.org/health-library/eating-the-
| right-nu...
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| You're right I seem to be referencing bad data, and the
| excess is probably more like 10-50 cals/day.
|
| Whatever the figures are, what's interesting to me is the
| growing secular impact on an entire sector of the economy
| (the most stable and inelastic sector). If eating right
| means spending 5% less, extrapolating that across the
| entire sector, not just for the 16% using GLPs today,
| could be catastrophic
|
| I suspect ultimately though supply will meet demand and
| prices may even rise for the food people are still eating
| malfist wrote:
| > the average American eats 400-700 excess daily calories
|
| This can't possibly be true. A caloric surplus of
| 500cal/day adds a pound of weight per week. That'd mean in
| a decade of life the _average_ American would add an
| additional 260 pounds. In 4 decades Americans would add
| half a ton to their waistline, on average.
|
| That'd mean at then end of their life the average American
| would die weighing over 2 tons
| carlmr wrote:
| The question is how you calculate or define excess. For
| one, excess calories aren't 100% stored as fat. We're not
| that efficient.
|
| Additionally the fatter you are the more calories you use
| at rest. So there's a point where if you consistently eat
| too much you'll stop gaining weight.
|
| The biggest source of error here will be the calories in
| the garbage bin though. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot
| of this is stored in the waste disposal, not the waist
| disposal.
| malfist wrote:
| If I throw away 500 calories of food, I'm not eating an
| excess 500 calories. Let's not engage in equivocation
| carlmr wrote:
| If you don't read the main part of my reply, why do you
| even reply with snarky nastiness.
| thefz wrote:
| Assuming a steady surplus of 500, and considering that a
| kg of human fat is roughly 8000kcal, it will take two
| weeks to gain a kilo. But a larger person consumes more
| to simply stay alive so the curve flattens out once a
| certain mass is reached.
| malfist wrote:
| Excess means above what your metabolism consumes. If I'm
| 200 pounds and my metabolism consumes 3200 calories per
| day, eating 3200 calories per day isn't 500 calories in
| excess. Same as if I'm 600 pounds and 4000 calorie
| metabolism. It isn't excess unless its excess.
| thefz wrote:
| Hm, good point
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| In excess or a normal body's caloric need, not in excess
| of what you need to maintain your current weight. The
| latter would lead to infinite growth.
|
| Once you're 140kg, a sedentary lifestyle requires you to
| take something like 800 more calories as the same person
| with the same lifestyle at 70kg, to each maintain your
| weight.
|
| So excess eating of 500 calories over what a normal
| bodyweight (say 70kg) needs to maintain, leads to fat
| people (say 110kg) who at some point stop gaining weight
| and stay at that fat level (of say 110kg).
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| There is no direct correlation between dollars and calories
| though. I could spend 10 dollars on 400 calories of
| strawberries or 10 dollars on 4000 calories worth of
| cheetos. So theres no way to do that kind of math on this,
| really
| __alexs wrote:
| 1 in 12 is wild. That means about 50% of all obese germans
| are on GLP-1s.
| kube-system wrote:
| Are overweight but non-obese people unable to get GLP1s in
| Germany?
| __alexs wrote:
| You need a BMI >30 or a BMI >27 + some risk factor like
| high blood pressure.
| roel_v wrote:
| Yes, anyone is able to 'get' GLP1 analogs, but your BMI
| and comorbidities (as well as purchasing power) determine
| the 'how' and the cost.
| phil21 wrote:
| It also likely includes T2 diabetics, where these meds are
| more or less best-in-class treatment now.
| Y_Y wrote:
| I don't think you've eliminated the likely hypothesis that
| overly processed food and GLP-1 use are significantly more
| prevalent in America. I don't think anyone would argue that
| these things don't exist at all in other countries, but we
| can still talk about degrees.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > we can still talk about degrees
|
| And yet Europeans in this discussion are going out of their
| way to play the America Fat game without acknowledging how
| much fatter Europeans are than Asians.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Ah but you see that's unfair, because Europe has much
| better beers than Asia.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That is certainly true. But now I feel like we need to
| talk about beer in America. Because as much as I love a
| real German beer, the variety and quality of beers we
| have to choose from in America is pretty astonishing. At
| least it seems that way in my bubble (and it certainly
| helps that I live in an area of the PNW that has a high
| per-capita number of breweries).
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _the variety and quality of beers we have to choose
| from in America is pretty astonishing_
|
| That feels like a 2000+ change though.
| lII1lIlI11ll wrote:
| Yes, I still enjoy weissbier sometimes but currently
| mass-produced German beers can't hold a candle to all the
| incredible US craft breweries that popped up during the
| last two decades (Monkish, Other Half, Evil Twin, etc.)
| danielscrubs wrote:
| I think most europeans wouldnt mind agreeing to that most
| Asian countries are eating healthier, and their bmis will
| reflect that.
| carlmr wrote:
| Nobody did, please don't derail the conversation. I did
| even acknowledge that Germans aren't that slim.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Most people don't announce when they're taking a new
| medication.
|
| Indeed, I do not announce it even to many people in my own
| circle of friends and family. Plenty of people (as you can
| clearly see just in this discussion) see the issue as one of
| morality and the get very judgy. If you use medication to
| help yourself become healthier, you have cheated.
|
| Sometimes I wonder how much comes down to religion. After
| all, isn't gluttony one of the deadly sins?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _After all, isn 't gluttony one of the deadly sins?_
|
| Ergo its opposite is a missed branding opportunity for the
| religiously inclined: 'Ozempic: bring yourself closer to
| God'
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| To be honest I don't even have a single fat friend, and I'm
| not picking my friends on looks. I couldn't imagine anywhere
| close to 1/6 taking this medication.
| fullstop wrote:
| I don't know a single person on it either (USA), but it's not
| exactly something that people talk about. I am naturally quite
| thin, as is the rest of my family, but there's certainly no
| shortage of hefty people here.
| elictronic wrote:
| It's not just hefty people. Swimsuit season is a thing. A
| interesting metric would be gym memberships during the run up
| to summer. I expect they will be going down over time.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| They are probably still eating processed food just less of
| it...
| zelos wrote:
| It's not just a US thing. Obesity rates in the UK and Germany
| are similar and I know plenty of people on GLP-1 drugs in the
| UK.
| nvarsj wrote:
| Why is it insane? You sound like someone who says to depressed
| people "just be happy".
|
| I'm on tirzepatide but not for obesity. It completely cures my
| life long IBS. These are miracle drugs imo and should be as
| cheap and widely available as possible.
| jacobthesnakob wrote:
| Do you seriously think that you're not in a minority of
| people taking GLP-1 drugs for IBS and not weight loss?
| jrockway wrote:
| Why is taking it for weight loss such a bad thing? It
| improves quality of life, health, reduces risk when surgery
| is needed, etc., etc.
|
| Why create a new account just to litigate how statistically
| relevant the grandparent comment's anecdote is?
| jacobthesnakob wrote:
| >It improves quality of life, health, reduces risk when
| surgery is needed,
|
| And as pointed out elsewhere in this thread, needs to be
| taken forever as the vast majority of patients regain
| most or all of the weight they lose after taking GLP-1s.
|
| >Why create a new account just to litigate how
| statistically relevant the grandparent comment's anecdote
| is?
|
| Red herring. My account was not created today, I've
| participated in numerous other threads prior to this one,
| and it's irrelevant to the content of my comment.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > needs to be taken forever
|
| Oh well. I'll be taking my omeprazole medication for the
| rest of my life, too. Sometimes the body has a chronic
| issue that needs lifetime management, frequently with
| medication. Only with GLP1 does this suddenly seem like a
| moral issue for some.
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah, I'll be taking minoxidil for my hair forever. And
| zyrtec for my allergies forever. So it goes. "What if you
| get lost in a cave system for 30 years? What then?" I
| guess I'll lose my hair and be sneezing a lot, and gain
| weight. So it goes. Until then, it doesn't really bother
| me.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| Why is it that people can't seem to grasp that the brain
| is just as biological as the kidney or pancreas? If your
| pancreas isn't producing the right chemicals in the right
| quantities at the right times for normal healthy
| functioning, of course we need to treat that. But if the
| brain isn't producing the right chemicals in the right
| quantities at the right times for normal healthy
| functioning, then obviously its willpower or laziness or
| whatever.
| jacobthesnakob wrote:
| > Why is it that people can't seem to grasp
|
| I imagine the perceived gap here is that "those" people
| understand thermodynamics and the failure to grasp is
| entirely in your hands.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| Literally no one is saying overweight people are
| magically defying the laws of physics. Managing weight
| involves the brain, and the brain is a biological organ
| that is affected by genetics and the chemical and
| hormonal signals from other organs in the body. this
| moralizing about using a drug to lose weight being wrong
| or lazy or cheating or whatever is no different than
| people saying depressed people need to just stop being
| sad or ADHD people need to just pay attention.
|
| The solipsistic idea that because your brain has the
| ability to do X means that everyone must work the exact
| same way, therefore if my brain is able to do something
| everyone else must too. If I can sit down and focus, ADHD
| must just be lazy and choosing not to. If my feelings of
| hunger are mild and easy to moderate, overweight people
| must just be weak willed and gluttonous.
|
| To frame this as trying to argue for basic thermodynamics
| is such a strawman that my pet crow flew out the window
| in fear. If you think fat people are lazy and refuse to
| use willpower, and using a drug is a lazy substitute for
| mental willpower, then say so and have an honest
| discussion.
| immibis wrote:
| These ideas make a lot more sense once you realize some
| people just enjoy being cruel.
| overgard wrote:
| I don't think "medication stops working when people stop
| taking it" is really a terrible thing.
| nasmorn wrote:
| The part of the population that deals better with our food
| system want to feel morally superior.
|
| While I am in that part, I realize that having a fairly
| balanced feeling of hunger is just as much of a privilege as
| needing glasses to see is a disadvantage. Certainly some
| people just say fuck it and ballon to 200kg but a lot are
| just unhappy at 90kg in what should be a 65kg body being
| hungry every day and still overweight.
|
| Yes if they ate only carrots and Brokkoli they would probably
| solve their weight problem but it is a hard ask to make in a
| world that looks like ours. Makes alcoholism look like
| child's play since you cannot just abstain from food
| nicbou wrote:
| When talking about ADHD medication, a doctor asked me why
| someone would choose not to wear glasses if they could see
| well with them.
|
| There are some flaws with this argument, but I keep it in
| mind when I feel like others are "cheating" by getting a good
| trait that I was born with. We should not insist on people
| getting things the hard way.
| semiquaver wrote:
| > such a high impact overall
|
| The 5.3% figure is on a per-household basis and only applies to
| households with at least one GLP-1 user.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I am 47, Czech, slightly overweight (183 cm / 87 kg at the
| beginning), but with a lot of this fat concentrating on my
| belly. I don't eat horrible processed food and I exercise quite
| a lot, but I still wasn't satisfied, so I decided to try
| Mounjaro on the lowest dose (2,5 mg).
|
| I don't think that I told anyone in my friend circle, so if you
| were my friend, you would not know.
|
| 4 kg down in 2 months, effortlessly, plus many metabolic
| parameters improved. My blood results are now similar to what I
| had when I was half that age.
|
| What is more interesting is the general feeling of being
| better. Something subtle shifted in my overall bodily feeling,
| in a positive direction. I am more optimistic, sleep better, I
| like to go to the gym more. They opened a brand new gym right
| next to where I live and I didn't omit a single day since
| January 2, because I enjoy it.
| Kreutzer wrote:
| Perhaps they are less forthcoming about taking it. I wasn't
| aware my father was on it until I saw his medicine cabinet.
| matwood wrote:
| > In my friend circle in Germany I don't even know one single
| person on this stuff.
|
| It's my understanding in the EU that it's generally harder to
| get. Generic GPL-1s in the US are pretty easy to get shipped
| direct with very little doctor interaction.
| Aunche wrote:
| This is one of the major reasons why Americans are stuck with
| expensive private healthcare that never gets talked about.
| People who are used treating their insurance as an all-you-can
| eat buffet will feel like their health coverage is getting
| worse under a socialized healthcare system that is pressured to
| keep costs down. No government is going to foot the bill for a
| costly drug under patent when they can do perfectly fine with
| cheaper older generics a fraction of the price.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| > It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off
| the processed foods killing them in the US.
|
| hah, they're not using them to get off of processed foods...
| they're using them to reduce the impact of processed foods
| dboreham wrote:
| That's not how these drugs work. Think of it in terms of
| there being a programmable neural network in the gut (and
| associated brain I/O areas). This network is designed to get
| the animal to eat appropriately. But food makers figured out
| ways (by thousands of years of machine learning) to tweak its
| weights such that it tells the animal to eat too much. GLP-1
| works by un-tweaking those weights (not quite: more like it
| clamps some of the inputs to the network but the result is
| the same). So it does indeed work by stopping the consumer
| from eating as much.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yes, they don't eat as much -- but it does not change the
| habits of what they eat.
|
| > to get off the processed foods killing them
|
| so this isn't _really_ happening, they 're not getting off
| of processed foods, they're just consuming less food
| overall
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| 16% is a huge number. Really hope this doesn't end up being one
| of those cases where a hidden negative isn't known until years
| later because that's a really large chunk of the population
| that would be impacted. That said, lots of people do seem to be
| getting a better life now because of the drugs.
| brightball wrote:
| There are so many things going on in the US impacting our
| health. Nobody's been more passionate about fixing it than RFK
| Jr but there are so many entrenched financial interests it's a
| long road.
| kingkawn wrote:
| Nobody telling you because you have only judgements about it
| instead of empathy
| DVassallo wrote:
| The rate of type 2 diabetes in Germany is almost the same as
| the USA at 9.8% vs 10.7%. Ozempic is a T2D drug.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I'm in the US and have a large friend circle across multiple
| states (from having moved for work over the years) and also do
| not know one single person using them. However my friends tend
| to be quite active.
|
| The Added Sugars (that's how they are listed on labels in the
| US) are _insanely_ and insidiously pervasive in US food. it's
| truly nefarious.
| elictronic wrote:
| A close family member and myself are both on them. They get
| very upset if I ever mention them using them while I happily
| tell anyone about myself. Wanting to lose weight is shameful
| to many.
|
| Wait for swimsuit season and I have a feeling your even
| active friends might start without telling anyone.
| paul7986 wrote:
| We all drive to where we're going we do not walk or bike daily
| like most Europeans do. When in Europe for my ten day trips I
| always come back five to ten pounds lighter.
|
| Myself I count calories (1500 to 1800 a day for middle aged
| dude) and lol drive to do my daily five mile walks on a rail
| trail.
|
| Foods here if ur lazy and just buy whatever indeed are lasted
| with preservatives but you can put some effort into ur health
| to maintain a European look :)
| blell wrote:
| Because you are on vacation. That's why you walk. Europe is
| much bigger than Amsterdam and Berlin. People drive
| everywhere here too. You should look up average steps per day
| by country and you will see the difference between the US and
| European countries is practically inconsequential, especially
| taking into account how few calories walking burns.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Do you have a source for that? I can only find crappy data
| and it doesn't show what you are saying.
|
| It also gives what seems like very low numbers across the
| board.
|
| https://www.healthline.com/health/average-steps-per-
| day#occu...
| doug_durham wrote:
| Most Europeans do not bike daily. Most drive cars where they
| need to go. You are not losing 5 to 10 pounds in 10 days
| (unless you are dehydrating yourself). 5 pounds would be a
| 17,500 calorie deficit or 1,750 per day. The base metabolism
| for a male is around 1800 calories. That means that you'd be
| eating 1/10th of a banana every day to get that type of loss.
| For me a century bike ride (100 miles with 5,000ft of
| climbing) consumes about 2,900 calories. Are you doing
| century bike rides every day while only eating 1,200 calories
| while in Europe?
| rkomorn wrote:
| Math checks out.
|
| I'm someone whose weight easily oscillates by 2kg (1kg
| up/down from my average trend line), and it took a while to
| accept only the trend line over several weeks matters.
| paul7986 wrote:
| So you did your math but I know me (50 5'11 maintain 175
| pounds and under) and weigh myself daily/count
| calories/exercise a few times a week. If I see my weight go
| over 175 pounds I eat less calories and do more exercise.
|
| I was in Europe in April for ten days and same amount of
| time in December. As noted I weigh myself daily and each
| time I came back i was 169 pounds and maintained my weight
| to under 175 for awhile the 1st time and not so long 2nd
| time (Christmas).
| rconti wrote:
| It's household spending, not nationwide. Presumably you'd see
| similar findings among German households on "this stuff".
|
| > Within six months of starting a GLP-1 medication, households
| reduce grocery spending by an average of 5.3%.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| I mean, 75% of americans are overweight or obese right? It's
| wild that the richest / least obese counties in the US still
| have 15% of people who are obese (
| https://datacommons.techsoup.org/ranking/Percent_Person_Obes...
| )
| BeetleB wrote:
| I live in the US and I don't know of anyone taking this drug.
| But if they were, why would I know?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Indeed, aside from online, where I don't feel consequences
| from admitting it, very few people know I've taken a GLP1.
| None of their business, and I don't need to waste seconds of
| my finite lifespan nurturing their need to feel morally
| superior. Let everyone worry about their own problems, I'll
| worry about mine. And I wish they were all as easily solved
| with GLP1s...
| cthalupa wrote:
| I'm quite open about my usage in real life because I want to
| be honest about how I achieved my weight loss - I'll also
| show some pride in all of the lifestyle changes I made, but I
| don't hesitate to mention the GLP-1 use and impact it has
| had. I'm not ashamed of it and if me being open helps
| normalize it, all the better.
|
| But most people on the internet that I speak to that are on
| them have had specifically negative encounters from people
| learning - lots of moralizing, lots of denigration. A whole
| lot of them now specifically don't bring it up unless
| explicitly asked.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I live in the US. If those numbers are true, then it seems
| likely that I know at least one person on it. I however don't
| _know that I know_ someone one it, since people (at least in
| the US) don 't usually announce "Hi everybody, I'm taking
| weight loss drugs." Being overweight is seen as shameful, and
| losing weight through any means other than diet and exercise is
| an admission of failure.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The best part is feeling the judgement from someone who
| thinks taking GLP1s is a moral failure when they are carrying
| an extra 50+ pounds themselves. I have met many people who
| seem to believe that being fat is actually the higher moral
| ground than using medication to help solve it. And these are
| religious people, too! Don't they know about gluttony?
| sgwizdak wrote:
| I started a GLP-1 in October. I've been eating healthy and
| exercising for a decade, but I was still in the obese category
| and blood sugar tests indicated I was at the edge of pre-
| diabetes. If I pushed hard on calorie reduction or exercise, I
| could gain 10-20% improvement, but it seemed like that would
| always reverse itself when I'd hit an injury or got sick. I'm
| hitting my mid-40s and decided it was time for a drastic
| change. I could have continued yo-yo dieting or opt for a
| solution that gets me to a healthy BMI within a year.
|
| I gained a lot of weight during puberty, coupled with a less
| healthy diet in my youth. I suspect many folks are in the same
| boat - by the time they realize they need to eat/exercise, it's
| too late. Their metabolic system has been compromised by either
| diet, hormones, genetics, whatever.
|
| In four months on a GLP-1, I've dropped about 18kg and since I
| coupled resistance training, I've increased on various strength
| parameters. The sudden reduction in weight has benefited my
| activity level substantially. There tends to be two classes of
| folks - those who need to stay on this drug forever and those
| who don't - I'm hoping in the end I fall into the don't, but
| I'm going to let the data from my continuous glucose monitor
| decide that.
|
| I highly recommend the book "Ozempic Revolution" if you're
| considering the pros/cons of this path.
| 93po wrote:
| > it's too late. Their metabolic system has been compromised
| by either diet, hormones, genetics, whatever.
|
| I do want to be clear to anyone reading: there is no "too
| late". One's system does not become somehow damaged at some
| cliff of weight and eating habits. It doesn't become
| irreparably meaningfully _physically_ more difficult to lose
| weight. What _can_ happen is a shift in many systems that
| effectively make one feel hungry all the time and
| psychologically react very strongly to those hunger cues,
| which makes people eat more. Outside rare circumstances, if
| you eat less, you will lose weight. I do have a lot of
| compassion for the psychological side of things being
| extremely difficult, though.
| sgwizdak wrote:
| Sorry - I think there's complexity with insulin at play
| that you're overlooking. When I did caloric restriction, I
| was constantly battling hypoglycemic events that made me
| not want to exercise. I don't get that with the GLP-1s. In
| online discussions, people tend to conflate GLP-1 with
| appetite suppressants - but there's also insulin
| stabilization that occurs.
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| Wdym you were eating healthy for a decade and still obese?
| How does that work. A diet where you eat to obesity isn't
| healthy.
|
| And how did surpressing your hunger via GLP-1 drugs (a pure
| change to a more healthy diet for you) lead to big changes,
| if you apparently already had such a healthy diet.
|
| Seems to me your diet was unhealthy for a decade and now
| isn't.
| sgwizdak wrote:
| Think of it this way - once you're in a state of obesity,
| resolving that situation is quite difficult. Eating healthy
| may not be enough, particularly if there are other
| metabolic issues going on.
|
| The imbalance of fat to muscle leads to insulin resistance.
| Insulin resistance gets in the way of weight loss. After a
| long time of trying other means, I decided to directly
| tackle the insulin resistance problem. And it's been the
| only thing that's worked.
| liampulles wrote:
| My dad was in a similar situation a couple months ago. He has
| been very obese for decades, which started after he stopped
| smoking. He does not eat fast food, has long ago cut out
| sugar and he favors whole foods in his diet. It was getting a
| shock blood sugar result and diabetes warning that pushed him
| to take Mounjaro (similar to Ozempic) that actually cut his
| weight down.
|
| In his own words, what he noted as being the main contributor
| to his obesity was the moment to moment urges to just eat
| something (I empathize with that a lot - I'm also obese).
| Losing that desire made sticking to good portions and fixed
| calorie intake windows much easier. He has lost ~50kg of
| weight in the last year and now walks and bicycles around
| everywhere for hours every day.
|
| I wish you luck!
| sgwizdak wrote:
| Awesome, happy for your father!
| skywhopper wrote:
| You really don't know what you're talking about and should not
| make inflammatory comments.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| There are vast differences in obesity rates between rural and
| urban areas, and red states vs blue states. Someone in San
| Francisco California is going to see a lot less obesity than
| someone in Plano Texas. I'm sure it is similar in Europe, with
| the caveat that Europeans are healthier than Americans in
| general.
| case540 wrote:
| Title is misleading, it's "[Among households with an ozempic
| user], grocery spending reduced by 5.3% on average. It's not
| overall
| viccis wrote:
| >It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off
| the processed foods killing them in the US.
|
| If you understood how super stimulants work, then you wouldn't
| have found it "insane."
| NeutralCrane wrote:
| It's not just the processed foods. It's the sedentary
| lifestyle. US cities are so car centric that actually getting a
| minimal baseline of healthy activity requires working into
| one's schedule. When I lived in Japan, everything is so
| walkable/bikable that it makes a significant difference in the
| base activity level of average individual. I imagine Europe is
| similar.
| Drupon wrote:
| Look he's doing the "we are not like that in Germany" meme
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| They wouldn't tell you that they are on it
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Over 50% of the German population is overweight, and over 20%
| is obese
|
| I think many Germans will start using these drugs once they
| become cheaper
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| I got the poison, I got the remedy.
| francisofascii wrote:
| > a handful of categories showed increases. Yogurt rose the most,
| followed by fresh fruit, nutrition bars and meat snacks.
|
| Interesting. Wonder what it is about yogurt and ozempic users.
| Probiotics?
| layble wrote:
| protein
| astrange wrote:
| Probably that it's a soft food and so is easier to eat when
| you have no appetite. Protein isn't that relevant.
| nemomarx wrote:
| I'd believe probiotics are involved. It seems to cause some gut
| issues as digestion slows down, so you really want to stay on
| top of fiber and a few other things?
| FatherOfCurses wrote:
| Yeah, I found out the hard way about that about two weeks
| into my journey and it was not a pleasant experience.
| eru wrote:
| People who start on a new drug also make lots of other
| lifestyle adjustments. Especially when it's a weightloss drug.
|
| You'd get some of that effect, even if the drug was actually a
| placebo. But if it's working, then people have an even better
| motivation to make changes.
|
| Yogurt is widely seen as healthy, so people who want to change
| to a healthier lifestyle might pick it.
|
| (Yogurt might actually be healthy, I don't know. That's almost
| besides the point for the effect here.)
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| if you buy plain, unsweetend Yogurt, then yes. can even buy
| some probiotic Yogurt to help digestion etc.
|
| sweetened Yogurt with fruit or chocolate or caramel or
| whatever on the other hand is basically a dessert and not
| particularly healthy.
| stasomatic wrote:
| It's hard to force yourself to eat at all while on Ozempic.
| Yet, you need the protein, and yogurt, cottage cheese and
| protein bars go down easier than regular meals.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > It's hard to force yourself to eat at all while on Ozempic
|
| If that's true for you, or someone you know, your dosage is
| too high, and/or you should consider dosing a lower amount
| more frequently.
| warmedcookie wrote:
| I see this sentiment everywhere, but I eat more than I did
| now that I am on Ozempic (1.7). I've always been perpetually
| starving + lift weights every day since I was a teen though.
|
| Haven't noticed muscle mass decrease either, at least from
| the perspective that I can do the same reps / sets for my
| weight routine.
| t-3 wrote:
| It's probably just because yogurt is commonly considered to be
| a "healthy" food, but given Ozempic's bone-density effects
| maybe there could be cravings for calcium-rich foods?
| astura wrote:
| When I had severe loss of appetite (caused by mental illness)
| yogurt was the easiest food to get down, by far, and the least
| likely to come back up. The lack of chewing also really helped
| because everything tasted like cardboard and chewing on wet
| cardboard is really unpleasant.
| apparent wrote:
| Protein, to combat the well-publicized muscle loss that can
| occur.
| cheald wrote:
| Yogurt's been a staple of mine ever since I started eating
| clean years ago. It's high in protein, can be mixed with all
| sorts of protein powder, fruit, nuts, and seeds, and is always
| quick and easy to prepare. The probiotic effects are an
| excellent benefit, but the real trick for me is that it offers
| that junkfood-like "quick snack" availability while being
| actually pretty nutrituious. It makes a pretty solid default
| snack.
| dougb5 wrote:
| To clarify the headline, this is the effect for households that
| use a GLP-1, not the country overall.
|
| > Within six months of starting a GLP-1 medication, households
| reduce grocery spending by an average of 5.3%.
| bearjaws wrote:
| That is pretty astonishing given 10% of Americans use semaglutide
| / tirzepitide.
|
| > Spending on savory snacks dropped by about 10%, with similarly
| large decreases in sweets, baked goods and cookies. Even staples
| like bread, meat and eggs declined.
|
| I can't read the paper (paywall), but that means something like
| the 10% of Americans who are on it must switch to purchasing
| almost no junk food.
| nemomarx wrote:
| It's the change for households where at least one person is
| taking it, not the entire population. So the effect size
| doesn't seem that large considering
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I personally do not use it, but know someone who does. She says
| it is more like a appetite suppressant. You just do not feel
| that hungry. Her doctor also said 'if you eat like crap this
| stuff will punish you'. Basically you will have some stomach
| cramps.
|
| Now are you saving money? Not particularly. The food which is
| better for you is also a decent amount more expensive. On top
| of the 1k per month the meds cost. Now many people can get the
| meds covered by insurance but some cant.
|
| Cost wise it is pretty much a wash. As you are eating less but
| you are spending more. So there could also be people are
| watching what they eat more closely in addition to the
| medication.
|
| My wife also says it is a change of diet not a diet.
| eranation wrote:
| That's an astonishing number. Wouldn't that be more than enough
| to cause a decrease in grocery prices?
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| Your assumption of the existence of a grocery market competing
| on price might be wrong.
| eru wrote:
| If they aren't competing on price, what were they competing
| on to have Wal-Mart take over so much market share? Did
| people just switch to shopping at Wal-Mart because they like
| the greeters?
|
| And what about Aldi and Lidl? Why do people put up with these
| weird German hard discounters, if not for lower prices?
| mpyne wrote:
| There are other major factors also influencing grocery prices,
| such as tariffs. It may because that was are seeing a
| significant influence on price, but one that is counteracted by
| other influencers.
| mrits wrote:
| Do you think we get our little Debbie snacks from Paris?
| relaxing wrote:
| No but the wood pulp for the cardboard boxes and the parts
| to keep the manufacturing lines running come from abroad.
| eru wrote:
| It depends on how elastic grocery prices are.
|
| And so far it's 5.3% reduction in the spending of <16% of
| households on the drug for a total reduction of less than 1%.
| Compared to eg tariffs and general inflation, that's a bit hard
| to distinguish from noise.
| quitit wrote:
| This headline is a touch misleading as it gives the impression of
| being across all US households, the quote is:
|
| >Within six months of starting a GLP-1 medication, households
| reduce grocery spending by an average of 5.3%. Among higher-
| income households, the drop is even steeper, at more than 8%.
| Spending at fast-food restaurants, coffee shops and other
| limited-service eateries falls by about 8%.
| tzs wrote:
| That works out to something like $30-100 a month for most
| households. A bit disappointing for those hoping the savings on
| food would pay for the drug at the current drug prices.
| jasongill wrote:
| The cash-payer (no insurance) price of GLP-1's has fallen by
| about 70% since I started on them 18 months ago, from around
| $1100/mo to $350/mo, for brand-name non-compounded (Ozempic,
| Zepbound, etc). Many people also stretch that 1 month supply
| to last longer, as well (eg "click counting").
|
| Not to say that it's cheap, but they are no longer the high-
| priced drugs only for the glitterati that you may be
| thinking.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| n=1, I pay $300/month for 2.5mg of Zepbound (tirzepatide)
| for cash pay direct via http://lilly.com/, shipped to my
| door.
|
| (no affiliation, I just like the drug)
| kube-system wrote:
| LillyDirect is $400-450 for standard doses though. 2.5mg
| is just a starter and most people should be off of that
| dose pretty soon after they start.
|
| FWIW tirzepatide is the more expensive of the GLP1s right
| now.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > FWIW tirzepatide is the more expensive of the GLP1s
| right now.
|
| That's not surprising, it is the most effective -- for
| now. On the gray market, reta is even more expensive than
| tirz, and also more effective. I expect it will be the
| most expensive at retail, as well, and I hope that the
| net effect is to make tirz more affordable.
| zahlman wrote:
| > The cash-payer (no insurance) price of GLP-1's has fallen
| by about 70% since I started on them 18 months ago, from
| around $1100/mo to $350/mo
|
| My total food bill is still a fraction of that.
| mrmuagi wrote:
| You are spending a fraction of $350/mo on food? I'm
| actually interested in learning more...
| zahlman wrote:
| About $6/day, Canadian. Only for myself. Not counting
| energy costs.
|
| The core of it is the stuff you'd expect, at least if you
| remember older stereotypes of the diets of the poor. But
| it doesn't have to be _just_ the things that would drive
| you mad. There 's room for quite a bit of variety,
| really. In fact, there's room to eat out sometimes at my
| current price level.
|
| I buy a lot of dry food (naturally dry or dehydrated in
| processing) in bulk: flour, rice, dried fruit (carefully
| portioned out), legumes (split peas and kidney beans are
| what I like; I could get others if I wanted), skim milk
| powder (many culinary uses). Mostly frozen meat (not pre-
| made things in boxes), or ground meat that I buy in
| quantity and freeze. Boring old generic cheese in the
| full-sized bars, not sliced or shredded and definitely
| not the plastic crap. (I really should get eggs more
| often. Even at regular prices, which have nearly doubled
| since 2020 for the most basic offering, they're still
| reasonably priced for what you get.) Not a whole lot of
| fresh vegetables, or rather, just starchy ones like
| carrots and potatoes when they go on sale.
|
| I drink tea that I make myself (I haven't crunched the
| numbers but I assume homemade drip coffee is comparable).
| I don't buy pop (er, "soda") and my selection of snack
| foods is quite limited: generally bottom-shelf generic-
| brand cookies and biscuits (even then I shop around) and
| sometimes generic-brand potato chips. I used to get
| generic-brand ice cream sometimes but those prices have
| gone way out of control.
|
| And I read the flyers.
| wasabi991011 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, this is useful advice for a fellow
| Canadian. If you don't mind me asking follow-ups:
|
| Can I hear more about the frozen meat? I usually go for
| chicken thighs or pork (almost always one is on sale),
| it's about 8-9cad/kg. What's your cuts of frozen meat,
| and price point?
|
| Also, no frozen nor canned veggies in your budget?
|
| And finally, can you describe your typical breakfasts,
| lunchs, and suppers? You say it's "what you'd expect",
| but I grew up affluent and only recently going through a
| budget crunch so I don't really have any reference for
| what to expect.
|
| Cheers.
| zahlman wrote:
| > Can I hear more about the frozen meat? I usually go for
| chicken thighs or pork (almost always one is on sale),
| it's about 8-9cad/kg. What's your cuts of frozen meat,
| and price point?
|
| I wouldn't get anything with the bones in if I can avoid
| it. Even fresh boneless skinless chicken breast is often
| under 11 cad/kg.
|
| No Frills carries pre-cooked (I still fry them a bit to
| give flavour and heat them up) meatballs in 1.5 (used to
| be 1.8) kg bags for $10. If you check labels and do the
| math they're a pretty good deal. Ground chicken and
| turkey can be found a few places at $11 (or at least not
| much more) for 4 lb (beef has gone up quite a bit
| though). It's not the most pleasant looking stuff, but it
| works fine for things like chili.
|
| Pork tenderloin often goes on sale in the cryovac 2-packs
| for $6.60/kg. Sometimes it's even Canadian produce.
|
| Every now and then I might treat myself to some T-bone
| steak. It's harder to find on sale now, though, and when
| it is available it's often "cut from ungraded Mexican
| beef" which I find rather a turn-off. It's probably been
| a couple years now, actually.
|
| > Also, no frozen nor canned veggies in your budget?
|
| Frozen vegetables are probably still fine but I got
| annoyed seeing them go from $4 pre-COVID for a 2kg bag to
| at least $6.50 now. (I can still remember getting them at
| $2.79.) Canned have, overall, always been more or less a
| rip-off in my estimation, but I do still get canned
| tomatoes on sale. Again, chili is a great way to stretch
| out meat and get lots of healthy veggies and fiber.
|
| (If you really just can't have pasta without a tomato
| sauce, 2 parts of crushed tomato to 1 part of a basic
| cream sauce -- one of the many uses for that skim milk
| powder -- should get you fairly close for less money. At
| least based on my reading the labels and doing some
| napkin math. I haven't actually tried it.)
|
| > You say it's "what you'd expect"
|
| I meant that things like rice and legumes make up a fair
| bit of it. (As another side dish, I also buy flour in
| large bags and make dumplings. Pasta is definitely more
| expensive than it used to be, but it's really going to be
| meat that drives expense when you cook for yourself.) I
| don't really eat on a typical schedule; I tend to cram
| most of my daily intake into a single meal and snack (and
| drink tea) the rest of the time.
|
| Best of luck out there.
| wasabi991011 wrote:
| Cheers. This is great advice, thanks.
| mrmuagi wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, I am also a Canadian. I'll read and
| digest (no pun intended) what you wrote.
| buellerbueller wrote:
| While you might be right in what you have presented, your
| calculation of the total savings is not including reduced
| medical spending.
| jjk166 wrote:
| I mean considering most drugs don't result in any cost
| savings on routine household spending, that's still pretty
| welcome.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| That's not "a touch" misleading. It's very misleading.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Unless the title was changed, it says "average" which to me
| pretty clearly means it's measuring individual or household
| consumption
| a123b456c wrote:
| The question is what average; some people apparently view
| "in the US" as implying US population-level averages (which
| it does not explicitly imply), whereas authors report the
| average within adopting households, which for this study's
| data source, all happen to be in the US
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| If the claim was just that grocery spending is down 5.3%
| across the country they wouldnt have said average, the
| title would just be "Ozempic reduced grocery spending by
| 5.3% in the US"
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Thank you. It didn't make sense that if 16% of the population
| was on these drugs that grocery spending overall would be down
| over 5%.
| otikik wrote:
| I think it's not ozempic, it's people not able to afford as much
| as before
| cbg0 wrote:
| This study looks at households where someone is using something
| like Ozempic, not all households. It's the second paragraph of
| the story and the first sentence of the linked study.
| fph wrote:
| True, but another factor is that the families where someone
| is taking a 300$-per-month medication have less money left to
| spend.
| otikik wrote:
| It's not cheap, especially in the US. That extra expense has
| to come from somewhere
| francisofascii wrote:
| Maybe? Although it sounds the study was able to differentiate
| between families where people were taking a GLP-1 vs families
| who were not.
| awakeasleep wrote:
| Read the article or just the headline?
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Yet they seem to be spending more in restaurants:
|
| > Ozempic Users Actually Spend More Dining Out.
|
| > ..In casual dining establishments, they spend 25% more than
| non-GLP-1 households do, the market researcher says. Data firm
| Numerator shares similar findings, noting that while GLP-1 users
| report eating out less and cooking at home more, their spending
| says otherwise: "Verified purchase data reveals that their fast-
| food buy rate is up 2%."
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-02/ozempic-g...
| (archive: https://archive.ph/V6Erv)
| potato3732842 wrote:
| GLP-1s are a fairly strong proxy for having enough
| discretionary income to justify luxury expenditures like eating
| out or whatever.
| ChromaticPanic wrote:
| Maybe a bias on wealthier households in the US who can afford
| these drugs. Personally, my total food spending is down 30%.
| GLP 1 is $66CAD after insurance.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I can't say exactly what the numbers are, but anecdotally,
| there are a _lot_ of "research" users buying tirz (and reta,
| for that matter) for a few bucks a week on the gray market.
| The better known sources sell out batches in a week or two,
| which amounts to 750K-1M worth of product (at gray prices,
| not retail). There's a reason you're starting to see regular
| news stories about it.
|
| I'm curious how these below-the-radar users skew the numbers.
| Maybe not at all?
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| Wow, it's hard to think of a better example of a correlational
| study measuring something that would obviously be confounded by
| the thing being studied. Don't forget that most GLP-1 users are
| obese and many will continue to be after treatment (as it only
| causes a reduction in 10%-20% of body weight). And they're
| rich. So the headline is "rich obese people spend more in
| restaurants than average".
|
| No shade on people taking the drug btw. I'm on tirzepatide
| myself.
| firecall wrote:
| Do we know what the reason is for the limits of around
| 10-20%?
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| As you lose weight, your body needs fewer calories to run.
| That "needed amount" keeps dropping with your size, until
| it eventually equals what you're eating on the medication.
| At that point you're no longer in a deficit, so weight loss
| slows or stops.
| doubleunplussed wrote:
| That is true but requires some extra assumptions to
| explain why people don't keep losing weight - because the
| strongest influence on most people's appetite in the
| short run is how much of a deficit or surplus they're
| currently in. Thus as TDEE drops, so does hunger.
|
| In "setpoint theory" there's an additional hunger drive
| based on whether you are below or above a given level of
| adiposity - your "setpoint". This is often given as an
| explanation for why people can't keep weight off, and is
| the sort of thing you'd need to posit to explain why
| people on GLP-1 inhibitors can't as easily get to lower
| levels of adiposity.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I don't know that there's a consensus on what the limit
| really is. Semaglutide is good for about 15%, tirzepatide
| about 20%, and retatrutide about 25%. Some people don't get
| that much, some people get a lot more. Personally,
| tirzepatide got me just over 35%. I never got anywhere near
| max dose, either, I am what is colloquially referred to as
| a super responder.
| vladgur wrote:
| Sorry for personal questions please answer any OR none as
| you feel comfortable
|
| 1) How is your energy/stamina following the 35% loss
|
| 2) Have you done any dexascans/bodyspecs to measure your
| lean mass percentage before and after your loss
|
| 3) Did you take any steps to reduce the muscle loss?
|
| 4) with 35% loss, what BMI are you at?
| jaggederest wrote:
| Not the original guy, but down 32%, for a point of
| comparison:
|
| 1) Amazing, like being a decade and a half younger
|
| 2) Not before, planning one in the next couple months,
| but I use skinfold and impedance and they say I've
| dropped from about 48% to ~20% as I've dropped from 272
| to 186, lean mass seems maybe 5kg lower than I started
| with? Less lean mass loss than I expected.
|
| 3) Weight bearing exercise and medium-high protein intake
| (>80g/d)
|
| 4) Per above, starting BMI 37.9 -> ending BMI 25.9
| vladgur wrote:
| these are amazing numbers -- how long did this loss take?
| jaggederest wrote:
| Just over 2 years from end to end, the majority towards
| the end when I finally got onto the right GLP-1
| medication.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| To add my own anecdata, it took me a bit over a year
| (September 2024 to December 2025) to lose the weight. I
| averaged about 1.5 pounds a week consistently.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Your stats are very similar. I started at something like
| 274 (though my overall highest point ever was 284 a
| couple years ago) and now I'm down to 181. It's a huge
| difference, as you say it's like being 15-20 years
| younger. Life changing.
| wincy wrote:
| I also lost 35% body mass, from 318-208 today. It took
| from September 2024 to beginning of January 2026.
|
| 1) amazing, I can actually do things now. I didn't
| realize how much I was resting and just not doing
| anything around the house. I managed to do my work with
| stimulants but that's about it.
|
| 2) I did a scan and am currently around 110% for with
| 100% being the baseline for the average male my age, for
| my muscle mass. I did lose more muscle mass in the
| 230-210 loss than most of the previous, but I think
| that's because I couldn't ride my bike everywhere as it's
| winter time. I had to chug protein shakes while losing
| weight and do physical therapy for a few body parts,
| especially my hip and my shoulders as they were easy to
| hurt. Going to the gym regularly solved this long term.
|
| 3) I guess I answered question 2
|
| 4) I'm now 27.1 BMI, although my percent body fat is only
| 18.9%, so I'm not concerned about the number since I have
| access to a body scanner and can see I'm fine. My
| visceral fat levels have dropped below concerning levels,
| which is great.
|
| I also sleep way better, and the heartburn I thought was
| just a part of life went from "literally every day" to
| "once or twice a year, and only if I do something I
| shouldn't have".
|
| I was also way more aggressive about just going to the
| dose and hit 15mg in April of 2025, and have stayed
| there. I might go for another 10 pounds mostly out of
| vanity.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > the heartburn I thought was just a part of life went
| from "literally every day" to "once or twice a year, and
| only if I do something I shouldn't have".
|
| I feel this, too. I was on Prilosec indefinitely,
| gastroenterologist said I have a mild hiatal hernia and
| that I'll probably be stuck on PPIs forever. But after
| losing a lot of weight, I was able to switch to
| occasional Pepcid instead, with Prilosec temporarily if I
| get tolerant to the Pepcid. The hernia won't heal itself,
| but taking the pressure off has really reduced the GERD
| symptoms.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 1. I feel _wonderful_. Things that were hard are now
| easy, exercise is invigorating instead of exhausting.
|
| 2. I have not. Considered it, but locally the scans are
| expensive and I could not convince myself what I'd do
| differently if I knew the numbers. My goals would stay
| the same.
|
| 3. I lift weights, but there's no way around it, losing a
| lot of weight means caloric deficit and I have
| _definitely_ lost some mass. I 'm trying to establish a
| slight caloric surplus now combined with a heavier focus
| on lifting-for-growth to see if I can claw back some of
| what I've lost. I got big enough at my largest (and I am
| just over 50 years old, which does not help) that now I
| have a little bit of loose skin on my belly, thighs, and
| upper arms ... I'm hoping that if I can regain some
| muscle that I can alleviate much of that. Otherwise I'll
| get a surgeon to do it.
|
| 4. Currently at 25.2. Could lose some more, but happy
| enough where I'm at and my test results are spectacular
| now, so I am no longer targeting further weight loss. I
| still weigh myself but I am now refocusing my definition
| for success in how I look and feel.
| jaggederest wrote:
| Super responders unite, I'm down 32% and shooting for 36%
| before I hit maintenance. I only made it about half way
| up the dosage chart before I had to back off due to
| losing too rapidly (!!). I took a 3 month maintenance and
| am back to losing again, it's been life changing.
|
| The other wild thing is general health improvement - all
| of my bloodwork has gone from questionable to better than
| standard - closer to ideal values than I would ever
| expect. Liver values, cholesterol, lipids, blood
| pressure, everything. I expected them to improve but not
| to the degree that they have, my LDL has gone down by
| 60%. Actuarial tables say it's given me another ~10 years
| of probable lifespan, and even more if you think in
| healthspan.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Congratulations! It feels great, doesn't it? I was not
| quite pre-diabetic, but trending in that direction. Blood
| pressure elevated (but not quite 'high'), cholesterol and
| stuff in the sketchy zone. But now ... everything is
| really good! A1C was 4.9 at my most recent test.
| Cholesterol great, blood pressure ~115/70 every day now,
| etc. I went from what felt like a slow but steady decline
| through middle age and now I feel 20 years younger, the
| future looks not like decrepitude but way more active and
| exciting.
| phil21 wrote:
| > as it only causes a reduction in 10%-20% of body weight
|
| This was simply when the studies ended. Weight loss for most
| definitely tails off, but doesn't completely stop if you
| continue longer than the 18mo SURMOUNT-4[0] study went for
| with Tirzepatide.
|
| I also do not know if this was patients going on maintenance
| dosing, staying the same, or ramping up doses to the full
| 15mg max dose. Would need to re-read it as it's been some
| time.
|
| fwiw Tirzepatide is actually around 25% average loss vs. 20%.
| My anecdotal evidence from my peer group shows that the vast
| majority can go further than 25% (if needed) and then
| maintain it - but that does require significant lifestyle
| changes to maintain. The few who simply kept eating junk but
| less of it had far less drastic results.
|
| I do consider it a performance enhancing drug for dieting due
| to that fact. Those that use it as one tool of many seem to
| do incredibly well. Those that use it as the only tool have
| much worse outcomes. No surprises there, but it was
| surprising to me how durable so far those who decided to make
| life changes have stuck with it now over the course of around
| 3+ years.
|
| My random guess would be that if you use it to break habits
| and establish new ones, you tend to become a super responder.
| I like to tell people it was perhaps roughly 60% of my weight
| loss (36% or so, but I tapered off due to hitting my goal)
| was due to the drug, 40% due to other factors like eating
| better and creating new workout habits. The drug simply made
| it _much_ easier than previous attempts at dieting, and the
| results turned into a feedback loop.
|
| Another pet theory of mine is that if you use it to break a
| food addiction, you end up being able to stay on the wagon
| easier. This is based on other life experiences with other
| substances - the longer you stay off, the easier it becomes
| (for most) to abstain. Especially if you create new habits in
| their place. I no longer crave those late night taco bell
| runs like I once did even when (mostly) off the drug itself.
|
| [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38078870/
| danielscrubs wrote:
| I know I will be downvoted into oblivion for this but here
| goes: Im sorry to be crass but if someone makes lifestyle
| changes after taking drugs its 100% the drugs.
|
| Kind of tired of people taking anabolic steroids and then
| claiming it's a smaller part of their success or people
| being born rich talking about hard work whilst being on the
| golf course.
|
| Just be happy that we live in a time where drugs have been
| painstakingly researched and move on without the ego boost.
| Be humble.
|
| https://nymag.com/news/features/money-brain-2012-7/
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if someone makes lifestyle changes after taking drugs
| its 100% the drugs_
|
| Multi-variate causation doesn't losslessly or
| deterministically reduce to a single dimension.
| Particularly when the causes aren't independent.
|
| The drugs facilitate behaviour change. Changed behaviour
| helps the drugs work. Both done together are stronger
| than independently, and the strength of that interaction
| (and the overall effect) is mediated by other inputs.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I think it depends on what you mean by "100% the drugs".
|
| I don't think anyone is arguing that the outcome would
| 100% not happen if it weren't for the drugs, but I think
| it is useful to note that part of the benefit comes from
| the habits the drugs help you form rather than simply
| 100% the appetite reduction the drug produces.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Are they really habits when they go away when you stop
| taking the drug?
|
| I take a tiny dose of retatrutide for IBS (works
| amazingly well, btw). I'm not overweight. One week I
| stupidly got my injections mixed up and I took what's
| still a fairly low but standard dose.
|
| I could barely eat 1/3 of my supper. Granted, I'm sure
| you get used to it somewhat but it's no small help that
| it's giving you and I don't know if it would help make
| new habits. The whole point of what most of us non-
| overweight people do is not eat despite being able to eat
| more, or even still being hungry. How are you learning
| that habit when it's hard to eat and you stay full
| ridiculously long?
| phil21 wrote:
| > How are you learning that habit when it's hard to eat
| and you stay full ridiculously long?
|
| For me? By changing my diet, understanding what "full"
| actually feels like, and keeping certain things I know I
| will binge eat out of the house. Plus the knowledge that
| I can have a bad day or two and get right back on the
| horse of healthy eating and be totally fine - if I gain a
| couple pounds I know precisely how to take them off in a
| repeatable and successful manner. That mental bit is key.
|
| But for food itself - it's eating differently. Basically
| avoiding carbs and sugars does 90% of the work. It's not
| a 100% cutting out of my diet like Atkins, but it's
| prioritizing lean proteins and then simply being fuller
| for longer.
|
| And part of it is learning you can be hungry for a period
| of time and not indulge. Which is much easier when you
| don't have those snacks you can't resist in the house.
|
| It's certainly nothing groundbreaking, but habits are
| built over time. Motivation fades. I'm certainly not
| motivated every day or week or even month to eat well -
| but now it's habit and routine so it's almost more
| difficult to break it to go to the store to buy junk, or
| decide to order take out.
|
| Going to the gym on a regular strict basis? I'm not
| exactly sure what changed. Likely being able to look in
| the mirror and feel a little vain? And knowing now it's
| all just about consistency. If I miss a day, just make it
| up the next day and stay on schedule. No big deal.
|
| All those things stayed roughly the same after I came off
| Tirzepatide and hit my goal weight. They became harder of
| course, and I had some rebound (I overshot where I wanted
| to be on purpose on advice from my doctor) weight gain
| like most do - but I've now been stable at a healthy
| weight for over 18mo now. Habits have continued and stuck
| in place.
| cthalupa wrote:
| The drugs were a precondition to them being successful in
| the changes or seeing the level of impact be
| significantly increased doesn't make it 100% the drugs.
|
| Since you brought up steroids, plenty of people take a
| gram of gear and look like they don't even lift. I'm not
| saying that someone taking anabolic steroids should act
| like they've worked just as hard as someone who is
| natural and at the same level of musculature, but good
| results take effort and consistency in the gym, diet, and
| rest of your lifestyle. You get some benefit just from
| being on steroids, but and there might be some genetic
| freak hyper-responders that blow up without any of that,
| but the overwhelming majority of people aren't going to
| look like they're a steroid user if they're not pushing
| themselves very hard as well, and the sheer amount of
| mediocre physiques from people on gear proves it.
|
| Similarly, if someone turns their lifestyle around with
| the help of a GLP-1, if they change up their diet from
| crap to decent or good, if they move from being sedentary
| to exercising regularly, does the drug get 100% of the
| credit? Do we throw away all of the other work done?
|
| You can both take a drug and also put in significant work
| that you can and should be proud of. Both things can be
| true.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| There are studies on that that showed: Steroids WITHOUT
| training produced more muscle mass and strength than
| training without steroids. Bhasin et al., 1996 - New
| England Journal of Medicine
|
| Belgian Blues dont really need to go to the gym, so it's
| not really that hard to phantom.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Bhasin's study is fundamentally flawed in that it sampled
| muscle size while they would still have inflated muscle
| size from increased glycogen and water retention from the
| steroid use and didn't use a method of measurement that
| compensates for it. It is not a direct comparison of
| contractile tissue, which is presumably what we would
| care about.
|
| Belgian Blues grow that large because of a mutation with
| their myostatin gene. This is hardly the same method of
| action.
| ChoGGi wrote:
| Your spell checker made wonder what ghosts are doing with
| steroids.
| roel_v wrote:
| "Kind of tired of people taking anabolic steroids and
| then claiming it's a smaller part of their success"
|
| Sounds like you've never taken steroids brother, and with
| that mindset you shouldn't, because I'll tell you that no
| matter how much you shoot into your muscles, if you don't
| put in the work in the gym, there's no way you're going
| to get jacked.
| hare2eternity wrote:
| That position does not appear to be supported by clinical
| evidence. [This study](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/do
| i/10.1111/dar.12433) references several studies that show
| that taking low (in the context of gym users) doses of
| steriods and not exercising is more effective at building
| muscle mass than strength training and not taking
| steroids.
| roel_v wrote:
| Sounds like you've never taken steroids either brother
| LOL. You believe what you want, taking steroids and not
| exercising is not going to get you the results you're
| looking for...
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Bro science bullshit doesn't belong here. I'd rather take
| roids and not lift than do SS+GOMAD and listen to /fit/
| memes. Rich Piana and Zyzz are dead for a reason.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Steroids significantly increase glycogen/water retention
| in-muscle while on them and for a period of time while
| coming off of them. This would increase muscle size by
| the measures noted in Bhasin's study (the big one people
| reference here), but not increase the amount of actual
| contractile tissue. There's also a cap there - going up
| in dosage, going for longer, etc., is not going to
| continually increase overall muscle size at that rate
| because you've saturated the stores in the muscle for the
| glycogen and water.
|
| You will gain some additional contractile tissue doing
| nothing on gear. The average person, if faced with the
| two options, will gain more actual contractile tissue
| opting to lift weights without gear.
|
| You can find huge quantities of people in gyms that are
| on gear and look like they barely lift.
| phil21 wrote:
| It might be 100% the drugs, but just watching my friend
| group I can say it takes something more than the drugs to
| change habits.
|
| I'm not offended by the suggestion. It just doesn't make
| logical sense based on first person evidence. Those who
| change up their routines seem to (so far, at least) be
| having much longer and durable success. Taking the drugs
| absolutely allowed them (and myself) to do so, but it
| doesn't explain why others did not and the nearly perfect
| correlation between outcomes.
|
| It could simply be luck I suppose? I'm not sure what
| other explanation could explain differing outcomes.
|
| The thing is - I honestly don't care. If I return to old
| habits again and the drugs get me off those, great. I'll
| take it for life. It's not a moral issue to me, it's a
| practical one. When friends of friends come to me for
| advice, I will continue to tell them that it's most
| effective if you use it as a means to performance enhance
| your dieting and then use that space and motivation from
| the results to change your lifestyle habits that got you
| there to begin with. It's simply what seems to work at a
| pragmatic level.
|
| Telling someone "don't worry, the drugs are going to
| change your grocery shopping decisions, get you walking
| on a daily basis, and get you into a consistent gym
| routine 100% on your own" seems rather silly. I can't see
| how it's helpful to anyone. It sets far more people up
| for success if they also put effort into change from
| their end as well.
|
| Re: Steroids - those who work out while on them are going
| to see larger gains than those who don't. They are called
| performance enhancing drugs for a reason, same as I think
| of the GLP-1 drugs - just in a different category. You
| certainly will get results with either, but they increase
| the results of effort put in as well.
|
| In the end, do what works for you! The health outcomes of
| these drugs are amazing, and I think they will be up
| there with the most important medications ever invented
| in terms of quality of life years saved.
| quesomaster9000 wrote:
| Not GLP-1, but moved onto an OMAD diet which is essentially a
| 23hr daily fast with nothing but neat espresso, cigarettes and
| water in between - although occasionally I have a small treat
| or sugary drink.
|
| But now I eat almost exclusively at restaurants and enjoy it,
| and overall it's cheaper than cooking at home given wastage
| with many ingredients and desire for variety.
|
| I do eat very simply though, usually south & east asian food.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| How can eating at a restaurant be cheaper than at home? Could
| you give examples?
| quesomaster9000 wrote:
| Sure, any kind of non-veg protein adds up quickly,
| especially if you're doing 3 meals a day.
|
| Most local Indian places will do you a solid 1500 calorie
| meal for PS10 if you know what to look for.
|
| Versus, go to supermarket... get stuck in a routine every
| day of "buying stuff", wanting snacks, meat, and so on adds
| up quickly to the point where sticking below PS10 a day
| becomes a constant battle. It's the routine and constant
| food noise that really got to me, and when even a chocolate
| bar can be 10% of your budget for a day the decision
| fatigue is real.
|
| So by breaking the routine, sticking to OMAD, I lost
| weight, had much less decision fatigue, and no constant
| food noise - that was the major change that saved me a load
| of money, time & effort.
|
| For example yesterday I found a tiny cantonese place, got
| wonton soup and some duck, vegetables and watermelon for
| about PS8
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| I don't understand the point. Supermarket food is cheaper
| than restaurant food, virtually without exception.
|
| But the 'routine of supermarket shopping' creates 'noise'
| that makes you want to eat more / more often? How does
| that work.
|
| I tend to go to the supermarket once a week and make this
| buying decision on a full stomach. I've not bought snacks
| or soda during this type of shopping since I was a
| teenager, I simply refuse to buy these things, like
| cigarettes or alcohol. There is no decision fatigue, the
| decision was made once and stuck to.
|
| The discipline required is about 30 minutes a week. The
| rest of the time I'm not at the supermarket, and
| travelling to the supermarket to buy a snack just isn't
| worth the trouble. This way sticking to the decision
| becomes easy: I only shop once a week.
|
| Then I have to cook the food (I only buy ingredients).
| I'm not a big fan of cooking, so I wouldn't go out of my
| way to cook more often than I need or want, and overspend
| in this way.
|
| This seems like a lot less noise or fatigue than going
| out for food 3 times a day and being presented with
| ready-made menu's of tens or even more than a hundred
| food options per day, and making a healthy and budget-
| friendly decision 21 times a week, on an empty stomach --
| there's no way I could ever spend less at restaurants
| than cooking.
|
| I get eating out, I've been doing it solely for the last
| months due to travel and I love it. But I'm absolutely
| not spending less or eating more healthy.
| quesomaster9000 wrote:
| The key for me really was eating once a day, I got stuck
| in a bad routine with the shops and alcohol too.
|
| Whereas now I almost exclusively eat set menus, thalis,
| nasi kandar etc. at small family run places and ask for
| extra rice, pickles and veg at little to no cost, and the
| staff end up getting to know me.
|
| So most days it's "Oh... it's 8pm, I should eat now" and
| I'm done in half an hour without really thinking about it
| and somebody else handles the cooking, shopping &
| cleaning - sometimes I just sit down and look at my phone
| and food turns up.
|
| As a weird benefit - I don't really drink alcohol any
| more. The craving and even desire is gone.
|
| ---
|
| Re: food noise, it's irrational craving to fill the time,
| it's sugar, fats, salt. It is an addiction, a little
| devil on your shoulder going "IM HUNGRY!!! GO TO SHOP AND
| CONSUME" even when you're not. It's a choice I've had to
| make to regain more control, and I understand not
| everybody has the same relationship or brain so may not
| experience it the same.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| > sometimes I just sit down and look at my phone and food
| turns up.
|
| i mean it's your experience so it must work, maybe it
| also differs between countries - absolutely no chance
| that i could order take-out food and get it delivered to
| me for less money than buying the groceries myself and
| cooking it at home :O
|
| (at the start of the pandemic it was almost doable
| because deliveries were way cheaper and everyone started
| doing it, but nowadays delivery has become pretty
| expensive. kind of like airbnb, start out cheap and over
| the years add a couple of bullshit fees).
| quesomaster9000 wrote:
| Try walking into an small diaspora place during slow
| hours, paying cash and not being fussy about what you
| eat, do that 3 days in a row and say "yesterday I was
| still hungry" (or something to that effect).
|
| I think we're talking apples vs oranges here.
| ragazzina wrote:
| > Supermarket food is cheaper than restaurant food,
| virtually without exception.
|
| Supermarket food is cheaper than sitting at a restaurant.
| For take-out, I don't see why it couldn't be cheaper
| considering whatever you buy and do at home, the
| restaurant does at scale.
| apparent wrote:
| Very interesting, it's like the Steve Jobs black
| turtleneck approach to eating: don't spend any time
| shopping/preparing/cleaning up, just go to a restaurant
| once a day. I can see how this would yield a favorable
| calculation when time and money are taken into account.
|
| Restaurant food is generally much less healthy than food
| one cooks at home, but perhaps if it's just one meal
| that's outweighed by the disciplined calorie control.
| heffer wrote:
| My local Indian restaurant offers tiffin service for CAD
| 250/month. That's enough food for my wife and I for lunch
| on the 5 out of 7 days of the week included in the price
| (and we usually have leftover Naan each day that we can
| snack on in the evenings). I would be hard pressed to walk
| out of a grocery store in Ontario buying fresh ingredients
| for that level of variety for 20 days out of the month. We
| can easily spend more on groceries each month for the 10
| days that we do actually cook for ourselves.
|
| Granted, this setup does require that you do like Indian
| food and don't mind having the bulk of what you eat each
| month generally be of that cuisine. But in our case the
| restaurant has enough variety that with both of us having a
| different dish for each meal there are enough dishes to
| choose from that we don't have to eat the same thing more
| than once all week.
|
| With all that said, we haven't even talked about how there
| is no cooking or cleanup involved either, so there are
| massive time and convenience benefits as well.
|
| But I can appreciate that not everyone would be satisfied
| with this.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Others have given specific examples, but in general it
| seems like a weird thing that eating out is almost always
| more expensive than cooking in. You've got a place run by
| professionals, and they can prepare the meals in bulk,
| overall it should be possible to run it cheaper than an
| individual. But that would be more like a cafeteria type
| situation than the super-customized experience we usually
| get...
| zmgsabst wrote:
| That's because home labor and quality often aren't priced
| in:
|
| - a chef is faster
|
| - a chef will produce better quality
|
| - but a chef charges for their time
|
| A restaurant often is paying half the price to
| ingredients and half to overhead; which means you can get
| it "cheaper" despite paying more for ingredients -- since
| 150% as much on ingredients is still only 75% cost, once
| you don't count personal overhead.
|
| You need a lot of efficiency on the professional side to
| offset that cook time and kitchen space are "free" on the
| home side of the equation.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| Priced out tacos on Amazon they add up to ~$1.25 per taco.
| You can go to a taco tuesday deal and get the same price or
| cheaper, plus free chips and salsa, as just one example.
|
| I don't know if it's true but a friend from Kaohshing told
| me almost no one cooks at home anymore as the food outside
| is cheap, convenient, and abundant.
|
| You also have to consider what you're eating. You can buy
| caviar for home ($$$) and have hot dogs out ($)
|
| And, you have to take into account your time. If it takes
| you an hour to prepare food vs 10 minutes to get food made
| for you then there is some value to getting those 50 mins
| back. Some people enjoy cooking. I do. But if my choices
| was to hang out with a friend for ~2hrs or say nah I can
| only meet for ~1hr because I gotta make dinner, I'd value
| that extra time with my friend more than zero.
| mh2266 wrote:
| cigarettes are an explicit part of the diet...?
| quesomaster9000 wrote:
| Tackle one addiction at a time a wise sage once said to me.
| copx wrote:
| Cigarettes surpress appettite. That's why pretty much all
| models used to smoke.
|
| Fortunately we have much healthier alternatives (like
| Ozempic) now.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Nicotine is a fairly potent appetite suppressant
| protocolture wrote:
| Doesnt surprise me honestly. I have done this too. I buy a few
| things and eat only a small amount of each. Like a taster.
| iambateman wrote:
| My initial question was whether this 5% was overall or just for
| households with someone using ozempic.
|
| It looks like it's just for users, not across the board.
| rconti wrote:
| Households that contain one or more users.
|
| > Within six months of starting a GLP-1 medication, households
| reduce grocery spending by an average of 5.3%.
| cdvonstinkpot wrote:
| This isn't surprising to me. I'm on Topamax as an appetite
| suppressant & I notice a similar effect. A lot of the time a
| Soylent will do the trick, or a small snack that can't even be
| considered a meal.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| > Notably, about one-third of users stopped taking the medication
| during the study period. When they did, their food spending
| reverted to pre-adoption levels - and their grocery baskets
| became slightly less healthy than before they started
|
| That's very interesting and it confirms what i thought about this
| drug. It's a life long commitment. As soon as you stop, you end
| up becoming your old self whereas you don't lose all the gains
| when you stop paying a nutrition expert.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| This is more like someone who is bipolar who is functional when
| on meds, and goes back to being bipolar when they go off their
| meds. A nutrition expert cannot fix your brain chemistry, and
| will power is an illusion. A long term fix is needed for the
| GLP-1 pathway to properly regulate to the target metabolic
| profile. Fractyl Health is working on this.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46348199
| donkey_brains wrote:
| > will power is an illusion.
|
| Lol, what? No one has ever abstained from anything, huh? No
| one ever quits drugs or alcohol, and no one was ever able to
| control their weight before this drug? Well, guess that
| absolves us of all personal responsibility then!
| 46493168 wrote:
| That willpower is an illusion doesn't absolve anyone of
| personal responsibility. After all, we still take a car off
| the road if it has faulty brakes, and cars certainly don't
| have a will of their own.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > It's a life long commitment
|
| Yes, it is managing a chronic disease, you can expect to take
| it indefinitely. People suggesting otherwise are doing a
| disservice. Especially when they are medical professionals who
| should know better.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| This is wild. 5.3% isn't a small amount, at least not for US
| consumers.
|
| All economies have deep and sometimes non-obvious dependencies.
| I'm interested in what happens next.
|
| Will food stores lay off workers? Will they change their mix of
| offerings? Where is the new equilibrium going to be?
|
| As an example from the piece:
|
| > Only a handful of categories showed increases. Yogurt rose the
| most, followed by fresh fruit, nutrition bars and meat snacks.
|
| Will the unit prices of these products go up to compensate for
| the losses in savory snacks?
| bargainbin wrote:
| We're seeing similar in the UK, fast food restaurants are having
| to adapt and dieting companies have outright collapsed.
|
| Sounds conspiratorial, but when you look at the revenue impact
| this is having, the deluge of baseless articles about it making
| your eyes fall out or "users who stop taking it gain the weight
| back" or whatever malady they can make a tenuous link to, it all
| make a lot more sense.
|
| The biggest food companies do not want people to be thinner. They
| want people to buy their low-quality, high-margin products.
| mrits wrote:
| How are they baseless? Why wouldn't you gain the weight back?
| You have less muscle mass, out of control cravings, and the
| thought that you can just get back on later.
| zelos wrote:
| Regaining the weight quickly after stopping taking the drugs
| seems reasonably well substantiated?
| https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj-2025-085304
| dayyan wrote:
| So, the body positivity campaign was a psyop.
| snvzz wrote:
| The "fat influencers" either died or awakened to reason thus
| abandoning their unhealthy lifestyle.
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| I wonder how much the 2026 SNAP food stamp item rule changes will
| move this needle further, with several states using new federal
| waivers to restrict "junk food" items like soda, candy, energy
| drinks, or prepared desserts?
| vaadu wrote:
| I would bet big bucks that the people not on SNAP are healthier
| than those on it.
|
| SNAP is supposed to be about nutrition.
| fortran77 wrote:
| People know in GLP-1 will tell me it "changed their metabolism".
| Few fat people want to admit that they're simply eating less, and
| if they ate less without drugs they'd also lose weight.
|
| I worry that eventually fat people on GLP-1 will figure out a way
| to over eat, just as people with stomach reduction learned to sip
| calories all day long and get fat again...
| dgacmu wrote:
| The title snippet here is potentially misleading. From the paper:
|
| > Households with at least one GLP-1 user reduce grocery spending
| by 5.3% within six months of adoption,
|
| The reduction is only within those households using GLP-1 drugs,
| NOT across the US as a whole. Same for the other claims in the
| paper.
|
| (That still suggests that these drugs are responsible for a 0.8%
| drop in total grocery spending in the US, which is remarkable.)
| seydor wrote:
| But why is a Danish product being accused of something that an
| American product also does
| ukoki wrote:
| Interesting to consider the effects of GLP-1 drugs on the
| environment then
| didntknowyou wrote:
| hopefully it's reducing the demands of snacks filled with
| artificial crap and shifting the trend to give manufacturers an
| incentive to focus on healthier alternatives
| stivatron wrote:
| Happened as such on my home as well. And, although i wasn't
| expecting it, cut off lots of money on booze and beer.
| dabadabahn wrote:
| This matches with another study that found that Ozempic reduced
| people pooping by 4.2% on an average.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I'm confused by the language...
|
| _Within six months of starting a GLP-1 medication, households
| reduce grocery spending by an average of 5.3%._
|
| A household doesn't take Ozempic, a person does. Are they
| implying that if everybody in the household takes Ozempic, as a
| group they see a 5% reduction? Or, any one person in the
| household causes a 5% reduction for the group? The average
| household in the US is 2.5 people...
| rconti wrote:
| Presumably it's difficult to figure out individual grocery
| spending, so they measured the household level spending.
|
| So when one (or more) people in a household begins taking the
| drug, the household spending goes down by that much.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| How can they measure individual grocery spending habits? People
| buy groceries for their whole household.
| hare2eternity wrote:
| If the dataset includes household size you could limit the
| analysis to that subset. Alternatively you could focus on
| households with lower average basket sizes and hypothesise
| that those households have fewer adults. Obviously those
| measure aren't going to be anywhere near perfect but might be
| informative.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Tracking household size as part of the study.
|
| See my parallel comment... are they reporting 1/4 of a
| household eats 25% individually (for a 5% reduction across a
| family of 4). Or, does one person eating 5% less cause the
| other 3 to also eat 5%... if it's the latter, this
| potentially has health impacts across people who aren't
| taking the drug.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Or, any one person in the household causes a 5% reduction for
| the group?
|
| I'd go for this one. Which means the one person reduces their
| food intake by at least double the 5%.
|
| Or possibly the other people in the household see them eating
| less and follow their example...
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yeah, that's probably correct - it just feels like a really
| odd way to present the data.
|
| What I'd like to know is your last bit - is one quarter of a
| household eating 25% less on their own, or does "mom" on
| Ozempic cause "dad and 2 kids" to eat 5% less individually?
| The former isn't nearly as interesting to me as the latter...
| cheald wrote:
| You ever shop hungry? You buy way more, and often not the stuff
| you should be buying.
|
| If the primary shopper in the household is on GLP-1, I would
| expect the household expenditures to drop.
| LazyMans wrote:
| I thought it was interesting to see this around late 2023.
| Walmart had said the noticed a reduction in cart spend by those
| filling GLP1 prescriptions at their pharmacy.
| observationist wrote:
| How does this pass as science?
|
| There's no economic correction. They're making causal claims
| without identifying mechanisms. Self selection bias, self
| reporting, the people being polled are the type of people who
| answer polls. Massive conflicts of interest with one of the
| authors benefiting from the company collecting the data. They
| don't collect causal medical information, and cannot justify any
| of the causality claims they're asserting, with virtually none of
| the confounders able to be corrected for from the data that was
| collected, nor able to be trusted or validated, based on how the
| data was collected.
|
| Oh, Journal of Marketing Research. The paper is the marketing,
| got it.
|
| This Numerator guy on the paper is an enshittification leech
| doing his best to profit off of the casual corruption of science.
| Stuff like this should be ridiculed and torched wherever it
| surfaces.
|
| All the legitimate universities and publication platforms should
| try having actual standards and nuke these types of submissions
| from orbit, but instead I'm sure they're happy to get their
| little chunk of clickbait revenue.
|
| This is legitimately nuts. We can choose not to let this be how
| people become wealthy and degrade everything they touch.
|
| edit: Go down the rabbit hole and look how these people grift.
| Companies like this are exactly and precisely why we can't have
| nice things.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I agree with this take 100%. But also, anecdotally, I do know a
| number of people who saved enough on their grocery bill to pay
| for their GLP1. But whether that applies across the whole
| population, I've no idea.
| observationist wrote:
| I'd guess a majority of people could save more than enough in
| groceries just by planning meals and making an effort to
| budget instead of going on autopilot to afford GLP-1 drugs.
| Heck, I'd bet a majority of households eat way too much fast
| food and restaurant meals, and just doing things on purpose
| would mean hundreds of dollars a month per person in savings.
|
| "Doctors recommend this one simple life hack to revolutionize
| your grocery budget!" Or something like that.
|
| GLP1 confounds things with the psychological impact as well;
| it apparently allows for more executive agency, disrupts the
| impulsive behaviors and cycles people get into, and might
| allow for some high discipline strategies that the simple
| calories difference in groceries don't account for.
|
| It's not that there's no interesting questions to be asked,
| this paper is just awful. Everything about it is bad.
| 93po wrote:
| it's frustrating how much the entire world operates this way.
| the only solution i've found is to close my laptop and spend
| less time on the internet reading these things. maybe my apathy
| isn't the best thing ever but it certainly makes me feel better
| to ignore the things i can't change
| alexfoo wrote:
| It's not just GLP-1 type drugs.
|
| My grocery spending has fallen significantly since I started ADHD
| medication. Both lisdexamfetamine and methylphenidate absolutely
| zeroed my appetite. When I walk around a grocery store I'm no
| longer tempted by anything I didn't actively go in to buy. This
| is a huge shift from my pre-medication days.
| jollyllama wrote:
| This comment is more insightful than it may appear initially.
| It looks like the 5% drop is in comparison to the pre-Ozempic
| spending. To what extent is the cut on spending monetary i.e.
| "I am spending more on this drug and will cut back my other
| expenses." Sure, Ozempic will kill the cravings, and that is
| probably the main driver, but from a 5000 foot view, this is
| using money to buy drugs instead of foods. In a very abstract
| way, it's the same as buying amphetamines to lose weight, just
| with a different (arguably smaller) set of side effects.
|
| Also, I can't find the comparison in the study to spending by
| non-Ozempic households. Is it possible that they decreased
| their spending during the time frame too, for other economic
| reasons? All this to say is that I think the story is more
| complex than the headline indicates.
| alexfoo wrote:
| > "I am spending more on this drug...
|
| I'm in the UK and got my ADHD diagnosis on the NHS (well, via
| Right To Choose) so the maximum I'll ever pay for my
| medication is about US$150/year. [1]
|
| If I had a private diagnosis I'd be paying about half that a
| month for the same medication.
|
| Anyone with a BMI over 35 is likely to qualify for GLP-1 type
| drugs on the NHS too. Not sure how long they'll keep
| prescribing them to you if you take them and lose lots of
| weight. Most people I know on GLP-1 type things are paying
| lots (US$200 or more) a month privately.
|
| 1. PS114.50 for a Prepayment Certificate covering all
| prescriptions for a year: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/help-nhs-
| prescription-costs/nhs-pr...
| rmonvfer wrote:
| That's crazy cheap, I pay close to 400EUR (!!!) monthly for
| Tirzepatide (GLP-1) and close to 50EUR for Lisdexamfetamine
| (ADHD) in Spain. Truth be told, the ADHD meds are covered
| by the Social Security health insurance or I'd be paying
| double that, but I don't think GLP-1s will ever be covered
| here.
| u8080 wrote:
| Genuinely asking, why not getting plane ticket somewhere
| generics cost 10+ times less?
| codezero wrote:
| This happened when I started Adderall, but eventually appetite
| came back after a few years.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Both those drugs are also known to suppress appetite in many
| people - to the point that some used them solely as appetite
| suppressants.
|
| They also do have significant risk of side effects (not trying
| to say anything about their used for ADHD which is well
| proven). Probably not a great idea to be prescribing tons of
| stimulants to people who don't need them (especially because
| these are drugs which are in large shortage often)
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Since we are taking about ADHD, these drugs also help with
| executive function and impulsivity. Even without their
| appetite suppression effects, they might help ADHD sufferers
| stay on task with losing excess weight.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| This is why if we can get them down to ~$50 I think they are
| clearly +ROI just on the individual level.
|
| I snack, drink less, and feel like eating out significantly less.
| Or when I do those things, I eat the take-out meal over multiple-
| meals. 1-2 less takeaway meals and a svelter grocery bill due to
| the less booze or snacks probably is at least $50 if not more.
| jdhdjdjd333 wrote:
| Something feels extremely dystopian about this statement that I
| cannot quite put my finger on.
|
| I hate to say it, but I do not think taking meds to curb
| snacking sounds healthy. Just learn some self control.
| okrad wrote:
| Easier said than done.
|
| Snacks could also be healthier. The bread we are sold could
| be less like pound cake. Easier said than done.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Self control is only effective for some people, so for
| others, meds can be the best option. We have plenty of
| natural selection that makes us crave calorific foods and
| often that craving will override our decision making.
| (Disclaimer - I'm not on weight management drugs nor intend
| to be)
| gpt5 wrote:
| Your comment completely doesn't understand how hard it can be
| to be on a sustained diet.
|
| The funny thing is that ever since starting to take GLP-1,
| I've kind of gain empathy to the "just stop eating so much"
| crowd. When you are on GLP-1, you lose a lot of the feeling
| towards food, so it's easier to understand how a person who
| has never had the same level of urges and difficulty would
| feel.
|
| FWIW, there is no research on "natural" diet that shows
| sustained long term meaningful weight loss. And even the most
| controlled and extreme short term diets of people in
| controlled living spaces with prepared food shows 17% weight
| reduction at the state of the art. While GLP-1 medication
| reach 20%+ on average without any lifestyle change. It's just
| not comparable.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Something feels extremely dystopian about this statement and
| I have no issue putting my finger on it. Stop judging others
| for how they want to live their life
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Poor people can stop being poor by just earning more money.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| I have done experiments like water fasting for 2+ weeks while
| ruck sacking up one of the steepest hills in Los Angeles
| every morning. I have done multi-day solo hikes in pretty
| miserable weather. I consider my self control pretty strong,
| but unless I am extremely vigilant and accept a very poor
| quality of life (i.e. strictly the same meals day after day),
| I slowly gain weight.
| cthalupa wrote:
| If "just learn[ing] some self control" was a viable solution
| we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic in the first place.
|
| It's not like obese people don't know they should be eating
| less and healthier foods.
| armenarmen wrote:
| Anyone else notice the lack of crowds at their gym post new
| years?
| 01100011 wrote:
| No, I quit the gym last year.
| alphazard wrote:
| Strange to think that the whole obesity epidemic was essentially
| people buying 5% more calories than they should have.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Only strange because everyone who likes to be holier-than-thou
| claims the problem is all about stuffing your face with candy.
| Your number is off by as much as a factor of 10, by the way.
| The average American gains a pound a year or so, which is 1% or
| even less of a surplus.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Your conclusion is correct but the average weight gain is
| rather misleading. If people were actually gaining weight at
| that rate, then obesity would take decades to develop. In
| reality it's really more of an S curve where people quickly
| put on a lot of weight and then it levels off afterwards. So
| the overwhelming majority have stable weight, but a small
| fraction have very quickly increasing rates at any given
| time, leading to a small positive average.
| ilamont wrote:
| The shopping app I have used in my area for the past 7 or 8 years
| shows the number of "deals" in each category. This week there are
| 36 deals in "Cookies, Snacks & Candy" (up from 20-25 from winters
| past) and 19 in "Frozen Food" which is also higher than years
| past.
|
| The big processed food brands are clearly more aggressive in
| their discounts. Lower demand overall from GLP1s or common sense
| is part of it. But the other factor relates to the huge increases
| in prices starting during the pandemic.
|
| I mean, 13 ounce bag of Doritos for $7.29? A box of freaking
| Cheerios for $5.99? Few people will touch that, so they're in a
| situation where they must discount heavily to move product. These
| particular products are on sale 2-3 weeks every month at $2.29 to
| $2.99 (see https://www.starmarket.com/weeklyad)
| cptcobalt wrote:
| > Notably, about one-third of users stopped taking the medication
| during the study period.
|
| This isn't always the patient's choice--my insurance/PBM (CVS
| Caremark) dropped coverage for the GLP-1 that I was taking
| (Zepbound) and had several rounds of prior-authorization
| shenanigans over a few months before they approved the previous-
| generation GLP-1, Wegovy. Now I've had to start the ramp-up of a
| different medication again, which hurt and stalled progress.
| Evil.
| foxyv wrote:
| Insurance companies should have to refund your premium when
| they do this for the time period they are making a decision.
| It's gotten absurd how badly they are abusing patients.
| anon7000 wrote:
| Frankly, it should be considered fraud.
| wincy wrote:
| I got a sleep apnea diagnosis so have that in my back pocket if
| they try to push me off Zepbound. I also had substantial mental
| health and physical side effects (like crying hysterically at
| 3am in the bathroom while vomiting) from that drug that I made
| sure my doctor documented.
| Melatonic wrote:
| For those that really need to lose weight I think these drugs are
| likely hugely beneficial. Obesity has so many downsides and is a
| huge net drain on healthcare systems.
|
| In terms of long term effects the only medical study I saw that
| concerned me was done on rats and showed a decrease specifically
| in the muscles of the heart. This was taking into account general
| weight loss and appetite suppression (which might more generally
| affect muscle mass). Not hugely concerning for the obese that
| might see massive benefits but for those who are already a
| healthy weight and taking it to get 6 pack abs it might be
| something to consider.
| knowitnone3 wrote:
| There is lots of talk about food in these comments but the other
| part of the equation is exercise. You can eat as much as you want
| but then you have to burn those calories with exercise and most
| people don't.
| padjo wrote:
| Trying to lose weight through exercise is a fool's errand. It's
| fine for maintaining but if you want to lose weight au natural
| then you're better off spending your mental energy on learning
| how to deal with being hungry all the time.
| subpixel wrote:
| > It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off the
| processed foods killing them in the US
|
| The American diet is insane, full stop. However, I've just begun
| a GLP-1 regimen to address a willpower problem, not a nutritional
| problem. I'm not quite young anymore and have given lots of other
| approaches a shot over the years, but have persistently failed to
| achieve a weight that is not a threat to my health.
|
| So far, what being on a GLP-1 gives me is a steady state that
| most people probably find quite unremarkable: I don't crave a
| snack, and I don't thirst for alcohol. Both of those desires have
| had real control over me for a very long time.
| anon7000 wrote:
| And crucially, many of those bad foods can be pretty addictive.
| They're quite literally engineered so that you want to eat a
| lot of them and buy more. So it's not surprising many people
| struggle to change that habit when the food ecosystem is
| working against you. Junk food both tastes better and is easier
| to eat than home-cooking a very healthy meal. You're not
| exactly set up for success here.
| bsder wrote:
| > They're quite literally engineered so that you want to eat
| a lot of them and buy more.
|
| Even if it's not intentional, I find that the
| enshittification seems to run along these lines.
|
| The things that finally drove it home for me this year were
| "peppermint bark" and "ranch dip". I used to buy this stuff
| or use the premade. This year I worked out how to do them
| properly myself.
|
| People _raved_ about both. But I noticed that _they ate far
| less of them_ (including myself!). My suspicion is that the
| difference was that I used actual chocolate and actual
| buttermilk. I suspect the extra fat made people sated and
| they quit eating afterward.
|
| I'm finding this applicable to more and more foods. I'm no
| genius chef, but simply using _standard ingredients_ causes
| people to eat very differently.
| padjo wrote:
| Or they weren't actually that nice and people were being
| polite.
| cbozeman wrote:
| For a site chock full of logic-worshippers, we do seem to
| forget Occam's Razor too frequently.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| the tech bro demographic is terrible at self reflection
| or solving problems that involve their own biases
|
| very smart people can rationalize themselves into or out
| of anything position
| pmontra wrote:
| Maybe that's the reason but the cook also ate less and
| should be able to compare the taste.
| padjo wrote:
| Yes because people are famously good a judging their own
| work accurately
| pmontra wrote:
| Well, I can't cook very well but I can assess if I like
| more what I cook, what I buy at the store, what I have at
| a restaurant. It's usually restaurant > me > supermarket.
| Packaged food is the worst.
| bsder wrote:
| > Yes because people are famously good a judging their
| own work accurately
|
| Sorry, not going to let that slide. Just because Dunning-
| Kruger exists does _NOT_ exclude the fact that people
| _are_ good at judging some things.
|
| This is especially true for something like food which
| people have lots of direct experience with. Now, someone
| may not have the _skill_ to make something taste a
| certain way, but that does not mean that they cannot
| identify that something doesn 't taste "good" or "right".
|
| And, that, in fact, was what sent me down the ranch dip
| rabbit hole. Something tasted _wrong_ the last time I
| used the pre-made packets. And no matter what I did, it
| kept coming up wrong. So, I sat down, interpolated a
| couple of recipes, and eventually settled on a flavor
| profile that seemed "correct" again.
|
| Side note: the error I was tasting seems like they did
| something with the glutamate quantity (either via MSG or
| via ingredients like onions). There was a nasty
| aftertaste that I even got when I did it myself (although
| not as strong) originally. I had to replace onions with
| chives to avoid it.
| bsder wrote:
| Perhaps. But my friends aren't ... ahem ... very polite.
| If it wasn't better, I'd hear about it.
|
| However, now that you've mentioned it, Occam's Razor
| could also suggest that many of my friends are on
| semaglutide (we are of that group) and that would have a
| big impact.
|
| So, I guess I only have my own personal anecdata to go
| on. Oh, well.
| Tanoc wrote:
| The enshittification has taken even the foods that were
| staples of the carb and sugar funnel. Many people aren't
| buying these foods not just because of GLP-1s, but because
| the quality of the food itself has gotten so bad. Doritos
| for example have almost no cheese dust on them, and the
| chips themselves are much thinner and now made with palm
| olive which makes them crumble rather than crunch. The
| satisfaction of both the flavour and the mechanics of
| eating Doritos is gone. Cheez-Its are more salt than cheese
| flavouring, and are overbaked until they're thin and
| crackly like flint flakes so as to maintain volume while
| using less dough. Faygo has reverted to using sucralose,
| which is mildly toxic and is a known carcinogen. Sucralose
| also tends to trigger sugar backlash, where the body
| mistakenly assumes it has taken in far less sugar and carbs
| than it actually did and then proceeds to rush and crash.
| Gushers come in packs of just four to seven now, and use
| far more xanthum gum as filler which makes them trend more
| towards chalky than gummy. Bagel Bites are now just bagels
| with cheese, as their is almost no sauce and hardly any
| toppings. Corn dogs are likely to be chicken or chicken and
| pork with soy fillers rather than beef or beef and pork.
| Little Debbie Swiss Rolls have a chocolate coating so thin
| that you're almost guaranteed to find holes on the top and
| sides where you can see the bare cake and have also
| switched to using palm oil.
|
| I could go on and on. But the point is, these foods are no
| longer a source of contentment. I've spoken to a lot of
| people who stress eat who have told me that the terrible
| quality of their comfort foods has become a stressor in and
| of itself. They eat an entire box of Cheez-Its without
| noticing because the thinness of the cracker walls and the
| salt triggers them to eat more, they feel sick after eating
| frozen tacquitos because the tortillas have so many
| fillers, or they get anxiety that they've wasted their
| money because they get so little in a Payday bar. It's
| driving them away from these foods.
|
| On the upside maybe it will drive them to cook for
| themselves like it has to you.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| My local store the old standbys for sweets are getting
| less and less space. Half the cookie isle is store
| brand/off brand. The 'crunchy/granola' section has more
| candy selection than the traditional candy isle, and
| maybe half as much cookies as the traditional cookie
| isle. They really seem to be putting themselves out of
| business.
| banannaise wrote:
| I'm beginning to strongly suspect that many foods are being
| engineered not to leave you satisfied but to leave you _so
| close_ to satisfied. I never feel like I just got the
| perfect bite. My brain wants one more, chasing that perfect
| bite.
|
| It's a worrisome addiction pattern. I'm still not sure if
| it indicates something that's been done to the food or a
| serious problem with my thought patterns.
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| I looked at a recent football (US) game, and I could not
| believe the pictures of the grease bombs they were pushing as
| 'food'. I literally felt ready to gag when I saw some
| 'chicken nuggets' or whatever was in the fried outer coating.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Sugar, salt and fat in the perfect combination makes
| _anything_ tickle an ancient part of your brain, making you
| crave more of it.
| joshocar wrote:
| I also think there is an education gap. People grow up eating
| processed food and don't learn to cook. People often try to
| cook, but online recipes are not really teaching you anything
| and are often far more work than they need to be or turn out
| bad, so people think or learn that cooking a meal takes a
| long time, is a lot of work, and doesn't taste as good.
| Cooking becomes the exception rather than the norm.
|
| In reality you can have a piece of salmon, with a veggie and
| side in ~20m with 2m of prep and 2m of cleanup. An online
| recipe would have you cooking down a sauce, making a
| complicated side, and use some random ingredient that you
| need to buy for that one meal.
| nottorp wrote:
| I guess most online recipes assume you're cooking for
| "special occasions".
|
| I can buy a bag of frozen assorted veggies and a few pieces
| of frozen salmon in the store across the street, throw them
| 15 min into a pan and be done. It's mostly what I feed on.
|
| Not in the US though.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| I think the main problem with online recipes is that
| there's a lot of stuff that "cooks" and "people who cook"
| learn that carries over VERY STRONGLY from dish to dish
| that is just totally absent from online tutorials. Things
| like what done (but not dried out) chicken looks like, and
| how to position chicken in a pan so the thicker parts get
| more heat, and why your chicken went right from "looks
| plain" to burned with no maillard reaction.
|
| I think foods/culinary courses should be mandatory in high
| school. I took one as an elective, expecting it to be a
| blow-off class, but I ended up being shocked by how much I
| - honor student and all that - didn't know about browning
| hamburger, much less actual cooking. I ended up taking the
| subsequent 3 classes in the "foods" line.
| throw8383833jj wrote:
| Also, these ultra processed foods set up unrealistic
| expectations of what "good" food should taste like. years of
| eating UFP ruins the taste buds. So, once you start eating
| real foods like whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables
| (especially if its cooked without truckloads of oil), you
| think it doesn't taste good when actually the problem is your
| ruined taste buds.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| I wonder if we will create a Glp for gaming, they are also
| addicting.( And created to get you addicted)
|
| What a world we live in...
| cush wrote:
| Alcohol is no joke. It can take hold of families and persist
| for generations. Kudos to you!
| mettamage wrote:
| > Alcohol is no joke.
|
| I never got this, other than seeing it's hard for others. So
| in that sense I agree. I've seen the effects on others and
| how hard it is to quit. That's no joke indeed.
|
| I just don't get why I find it quite easy to stop drinking
| for a year (or longer). While I haven't been able to stop for
| life, doing those yearly challenges is relatively easy, for
| me.
|
| If I'd be a normal person then that's whatever. But I say
| this I say this as a person whose whole family consists of
| alcoholics. Genetically, I _have to have_ an addictive
| personality. Yet, I find myself I can easily not be addicted
| by substances.
|
| What I find harder:
|
| * YouTube (I recently have been able to stave off a social
| media addiction but YouTube specifically is tougher)
|
| * Coffee
|
| Maybe I should make a blog post. Throw in my 2 cents. While
| anecdata is anecdata, if it helps one person it'd be a good
| thing.
| ilinx wrote:
| I'm a recovering alcoholic. I'm almost positive that the
| effects of alcohol are wildly different between the two of
| us. When I drink my brain spits out more reward chemicals
| than I know what to do with. It makes me feel extremely
| energetic and creative. It inflates my sense of self-worth
| and gives me confidence. It's genuinely more enjoyable than
| sex.
|
| And that's how it dug its claws in, because almost all of
| those go away after binge drinking for a while. Then you're
| just left with the addiction. And getting sober means
| having to learn to want whatever is left of your life.
| accidentallfact wrote:
| Definitely. Alcohol just makes me confused and sick, with
| no upsides to it.
|
| I'be been told that I must be drinking incorrectly, and
| given advice how to drink correctly, but no, no positive
| experience with it for me.
|
| The funny thing is, I actually like the taste of it (it
| tastes kind of minty to me, while most people claim it
| tastes bitter) but the effects are pure poison.
| mlrtime wrote:
| Same, it is the least feel-good drug of any I have tried.
| But I do love a good German beer with a steak or burger,
| amazing. Or a cold beer at a baseball game.
|
| But I feel horrible after.
| ravenravenpl wrote:
| Funny, I could place myself directly in middle of you
| two. When I drink, I feel pretty great at the beginning
| and it gets progressively more tiring and confusing with
| more drinks (but you still crave it, it being effectively
| a drug). Then the next day is just wasted time because of
| the hangover.
|
| So while I liked to drink more with friends in the past,
| now I do so less often. And when I do, I tend to
| overthink how much I should drink not to feel bad later.
| So usually I just don't drink much, with more time
| between days when I drink (currently I'd say it's weeks
| inbetween).
| wiether wrote:
| Same here.
|
| Except that even the smell of alcohol makes me want to
| puke.
| omnee wrote:
| My experience is closer to yours, and I've had to learn
| to enjoy _without_ alcohol, which has been a positive
| transformation. I still drink, but now I know when to
| stop. Some of my friends still drink too much and would
| probably benefit from GLP drugs even when they are not
| obese.
| mlrtime wrote:
| There are people like you [and me] that have almost 0
| addictive tendencies when it comes to food/drugs. Or we may
| become addicted for a short amount of time and just stop.
|
| I've tried all sorts of rec drugs/food activities etc..
| Some are amazing but eventually I get bored and stop.
|
| Smoking was probably the hardest, but I just decided to
| stop one day and never did it again.
| joshocar wrote:
| People develop drinking problems for two reasons, they have
| a genetic predisposition to getting more reward from
| drinking and/or they have untreated trauma that they are
| medicating. In my family, my grandfathers war trauma was
| transferred to his kids, who then transferred it to their
| kids or dealt with the trauma and didn't.
|
| For the genetic side, people often slide into it by
| culture/habit. For example, it starts with a drink with
| friends, then a few times a week with friends, then on your
| own and with friends, after a few years it turns into every
| night on your own, then a few each night, then you hide how
| much you are drinking from loved ones, until you
| (hopefully) realize that you might have a problem. Bill
| Barr talked about this last year in his standup, for a good
| example and an example of how you can get ahead of it if
| you are self-aware. Many people keep going and end up with
| the physical addiction.
|
| The trauma side is why I think some people have a real hard
| time shaking the addiction, and tend to go back. The
| drinking can also cause you more trauma, making it harder.
| defatigable wrote:
| A datapoint for you to consider. I recently started taking
| Naltrexone, which is an opioid antagonist used to treat
| alcohol abuse. It reduces your body's endorphin response,
| making alcohol less pleasant.
|
| I wouldn't call myself alcoholic, but before Naltrexone I
| would have evenings where I would go out for drinks with
| friends and have trouble sticking to limits I set myself (I
| would set myself a limit of three drinks and end up having
| four or five).
|
| Taking Naltrexone, I have no problem at all. It's trivially
| easy to regulate my drinking habits, it requires no effort
| whatsoever.
|
| The experience has very much made me open to the idea that
| some people are biologically predisposed to alcoholism
| (even if, like you, it's not always inherited). Very easy
| to imagine that people with a heightened endorphin response
| might have more problems with alcoholism.
|
| Interestingly I had an almost identical experience with
| smoking and Wellbutrin (different mechanism of action). I
| was smoking one cigarette a day and using willpower to keep
| myself from smoking more. Immediately after starting
| Wellbutrin: immediately lost all interest in smoking,
| haven't had one since.
| vlod wrote:
| I have a few drinks a week max, doesn't really bother me if I
| don't drink.
|
| A friend of mine revealed they have a drink with dinner (at
| home) every evening, sometimes more and they still go out
| drinking.
|
| I was pretty shocked. I think trying to break this dinner
| habit (if you're doing this) is a good starting point.
| riffraff wrote:
| Congrats and good luck!
|
| If I may ask, do you think you will be able to cope with the
| lack of willpower once you stop taking the drug?
|
| I don't want to sound dismissive or argumentative, I'm asking
| out of pure curiosity, forgive me if I sound negative, I'm
| rooting for people who try to improve their health.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| that's the dirty secret. once you start this drug you
| basically need to be on it for life.
|
| I mean, you _can_ get off it, but studies show the effects
| reverse pretty quickly. Crucially, if you decide to get off
| of the drug, you'll likely end up in a worse position than
| you started. Why? Many Ozempic patients lose some bone
| density. That can be an issue as you age. So if you get off
| the drug, your food habits revert to baseline, you gain the
| weight back, AND you have less bone density than when you
| started. Not a great plan.
|
| If you need it, can tolerate the side affects, and can afford
| it, staying on ozempic for life makes the most sense. I
| believe the idea is that you can reduce the dose after you're
| in a good weight range, and continue taking it as
| "maintenance".
| cthalupa wrote:
| > Ozempic reduces your bone density
|
| We should be clear here - bone density loss is not
| something intrinsic to ozempic, it has to do with your rate
| of weight loss, exercise and dietary habits, etc.
|
| It is entirely possible for someone to modify their diet,
| lift weights, etc., while on ozempic and gain bone mineral
| density.
|
| But if you don't do those things and just lose a bunch of
| weight really fast, you're going to lose density (and lean
| muscle mass)
| lurking_swe wrote:
| yes thanks for clarifying.
| themafia wrote:
| Ozempic: Weight loss at a breakneck pace.
| wincy wrote:
| I've been taking Zepbound for a year and a half now. I'm at
| 210lb/95kg, as a 6'2"/187cm man. A year and a half ago I
| weighed 318 pounds. Ozempic had substantial mental side
| effects, and was not great for me. Zepbound on the other
| hand has been a dream.
|
| As I lost weight I discovered a love for bike riding, with
| a lot of E-Bike assist at first, then progressively less
| assistance, and took my wheelchair user daughter on several
| 20+ mile bike rides over the spring and summer. I've been
| going to the gym and building muscle mass. I have more
| muscle mass than the average man my age, and have about ten
| pounds of belly fat but I'm a normal healthy weight. My
| life is completely changed for the better. I feel as if
| I've been freed from a curse that's been lifted due to a
| wonder drug.
|
| I will say the muscle loss is real, I had to chug protein
| shakes and did some physical therapy to fix my hip, at only
| 39 I hurt my muscle and had to learn some exercises to
| ensure I could walk properly. Once I got down to my current
| weight, that problem has resolved itself with working out,
| and I'm in maintenance and working toward building muscle
| definition (although I could probably lose another ten
| pounds of belly fat, if I really wanted to, but important
| it isn't visceral fat on my organs, so it isn't negatively
| impacting my health). Amazingly my BMI isn't an accurate
| indicator of health anymore because I'm more muscular than
| the average person, according to the body scanner at the
| gym (bikes in a hilly area really work the legs!)
|
| It does give me pause, but I plan on taking this medication
| for the rest of my life, or at least until a better
| medication comes along. Weight loss is a skill, and one
| I've been good at for awhile, which is likely why my
| results have been so good and beyond the average. The hard
| part has always been keeping the weight off, weird
| metabolic effects or blood sugar crashes from eating sugar,
| and sleep apnea caused by obesity or food or something
| getting me into a vicious cycle where my life just falls
| apart. I've noticed I crave better foods, while still
| sometimes enjoying a small snack on occasion. I had a
| single yogurt cup today with some strawberry, some unsweet
| iced tea (I can't stand sugary drinks anymore! They taste
| far too sweet), and two servings of homemade matzo ball
| soup I made for my family.
|
| I'd much rather be thin now and not having the terrible
| side effects of being morbidly obese than worrying about
| some future problem I might have because of going off the
| medicine. My children are young and I want to be able to
| spend time with them and teach them better habits than what
| I learned from my parents, even if the key to that self
| control is through medication.
| asymmetric wrote:
| Really happy about how things are going for you, and the
| positive impact this is having on your family!
|
| It's good to get some good news sometimes. Thanks for
| that :)
| hare2eternity wrote:
| It sounds like you're making great changes to your
| health. Although BMI is a population metric and has its
| flaws it is accurate for the vast majority of people. The
| reason the weight component _seems_ low is that being
| overweight is so normalised. Most UFC fighters are in the
| normal weight range and are clearly more muscular than
| the average person. Society isn't suffering an over-
| abundance of buffness, it's just people are generally
| carrying lots of extra weight.
| DrBazza wrote:
| The American shopping experience is weird as well. There's a
| spectrum of supermarkets.
|
| Versus the UK, any US supermarket I've ever visited (I lived
| there for a couple of years) seemed to have far less fresh
| food, especially vegetables and fruit, but stuff in boxes was
| piled high.
|
| Then again, the UK vs. Spain or France is weird, by the same
| metric, they have even _more_ fresh food than us in
| supermarkets, and much less boxed stuff.
|
| Geography and having continent sized country probably doesn't
| help either.
| davidzweig wrote:
| And huge selection of frozen meals. These I actually found
| better than expected.
| alex43578 wrote:
| Is that accounting for just how much bigger the US
| supermarkets are?
|
| The ones by me, ranging from cheap grocery stores,
| Walmart/Costco, through premium grocery stores, all have
| plenty of fresh food available.
|
| They absolutely have aisles and aisles of frozen, packaged,
| etc; but outside of like specialty tropical fruits, there's
| nothing reasonable you could walk in for and not find fresh
| or at least frozen w/ minimal processing.
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| Those kinds of gigantic supermarkets do exist in Europe
| too, you're just not likely to see them as a tourist going
| around historical city centres.
| joshocar wrote:
| Food quality and options vary significantly with location
| in the US. In my city I have a Gucci market that gets super
| fresh veggies and fruit, along with imported cheeses, fish,
| very fresh meats, and other low processed food, but at a
| premium price point. There are also 2 other supermarkets to
| choose from. If you go an hour away there is one
| supermarket for the area that is "okay." Go to the next
| State over and the towns have 1/4 the fruit/veggie options
| and very limited meat options, all at a premium. The
| veggies are not fresh, no exotic fruits, and you might not
| find the cut of meat you are looking for.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Oklahoma is a shithole, that's what we learned from this
| post.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| What grocery store chain in the U.S. are you referring to?
| Every major chain grocery store generally stacks fresh food
| around the entire perimeter of the grocery store, reserving
| the aisles for boxed, canned, and frozen food.
|
| You can find dozens of varieties of fruits and vegetables,
| tons of fresh beef, pork, chicken and fish, milk, cheeses,
| even bread, in every major chain grocery store in the U.S.
| glimshe wrote:
| This. Sometimes I hear people saying random stuff about the
| US and I have no idea what they're talking about. I'm aware
| of food deserts, but that aside, I could find fresh food in
| most grocery stores in the many places I've lived in the
| US. When I say "most", I'm excluding places like Dollar
| General that explicitly aren't about fresh food.
| ragazzina wrote:
| Honestly I had the same experience, and I love exploring
| supermarkets in the US (I genuinely go there after work and
| spend hours just wandering around). I often found the
| variety of produce to be really limited, as in, half the
| kinds of fruit than you would find in a smaller supermarket
| in Europe. Jack's fresh market, Walmart, Hyvee and local
| chains.
| speleding wrote:
| The difference can be explained in large part by urban
| design: many US shoppers need a car to drive to the
| supermarket and only go there once a week or less. In Europe
| you live much closer to a supermarket, so you go more often
| and get more fresh food and less frozen or canned.
|
| Some Americans are surprised to learn that many supermarkets
| inside cities do not even provide parking, everyone walks or
| bikes there. People go to the supermarket every day.
| Faaak wrote:
| Makes no sense IMHO: produce can last more than a week in
| the fridge
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| That makes no sense. If the average American can drive to
| the supermarket, they're even _more_ likely to go more
| often than if they had to walk.
| phil21 wrote:
| Eh, this is just not proven true by observing what people
| do though.
|
| When I lived in Europe for a couple months, my first time
| there I grocery shopped like an American - filled up an
| entire cart with a week or two worth of groceries and
| then everyone stared at me when I checked out.
|
| It's absolutely true that Europeans who live in walkable
| cities go to the market to pick up groceries a few times
| a week. Americans simply do not, with very few
| exceptions.
|
| The grocery store density is much higher though. There
| were at least 2 grocery stores within a 5 minute walk
| from anywhere I've stayed in a city core in Europe. At
| least a dozen within 15 minutes.
|
| It's simply a difference in culture. There are plenty of
| places in the US where you could drive to half a dozen
| grocery stores within 15 minutes but people simply don't
| do so. The store sizes reflect this cultural difference
| too. The average grocery store in the US seems to be 4-6x
| larger than those in Europe.
| refurb wrote:
| Ive never been in a US grocery store that didnt have 20-30%
| of floor space dedicated to fresh veggies and fruit.
|
| Where you shoppin'?
| sharadov wrote:
| No idea what you're talking about!
|
| I live on the west coast in the US and the sheer variety of
| fresh produce would put any supermarket in the UK to shame,
| even Spain. California produces 40% of the nation's veggies
| and fruits.
| m463 wrote:
| I don't see this. The US markets have lots of fresh
| vegetables and fruits (though lots of processed foods too).
| There are also lots of healthy alternative supermarkets in
| most cities.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| > to address a willpower problem, not a nutritional problem
|
| I think those are one and the same.
| replwoacause wrote:
| What does are you on that brings you these effects? I take 5mg
| weekly and find the effects mild but appreciable.
| m463 wrote:
| Processed food is easy, tasty (in a shallow way) and more
| available than the alternatives. I think the real problem is
| that it's hard to give up "easy" when so many things vie for
| time and attention in the US.
| DANmode wrote:
| Thank Christ. Grocery's been a tip in the US for almost 20 years.
| Pendulum swinging back way overdue.
| ada1981 wrote:
| Just a reminder there are no shortcuts; doing the work to
| actually heal yourself and fast, etc. will always beat this sort
| of thing in the long run.
| literallywho wrote:
| There are plenty of shortcuts. I've fixed my sleeping schedule
| by taking lorazepam and melatonin every night. I've gotten over
| many illnesses faster than healing naturally by taking many a
| pill. Why shouldn't there be medicine for issues with weight,
| especially for people who haven't been able to beat it
| themselves in decades? I've been fat most of my life and
| managed to lose a significant chunk of it by myself and
| regained it all over the following 5 years. Honestly, at this
| point, it's not happening without something like Ozempic. And I
| think it's the same for many people. Also, I don't care for the
| "not natural" debate, personally. If I wanted everything to be
| natural, I'd live in the woods and hunt animals.
| ada1981 wrote:
| You lose .5-1 lb of fat every day you water fast; you will
| naturally increase stem cells, peptides, growth hormone, etc.
|
| You can do this for months if needed.
|
| You will reset your immune system, insulin response, eat off
| cancerous cells, etc.
|
| The bigger opportunity is to figure out why all of these
| things are going on, typically unprocessed emotional trauma,
| environment, and choices.
| literallywho wrote:
| I ain't doing a water fast. And most people will not.
| Again, your argument is essentially "just use your will
| power". Clearly, people don't have that level of will
| power.
| ada1981 wrote:
| Just because most people won't quit smoking doesn't mean
| that's not the best solution.
|
| Our bodies were built to be fasting regularly and have an
| entire biological process cycle you only can access by
| fasting.
|
| It's like driving a car and never having it serviced if
| you aren't fasting regularly.
|
| The evidence is clear and overwhelming.
|
| Also, fasting can start as 1 day, then 2, then 3. Once
| you cross 3 it gets easier, you feel better, are clearer
| thinking, and will likely feel like you will never eat
| again and save time and money - I have to remind myself
| we do need to eat at some point.
|
| All inflation and arthritis gone entirely after my first
| 7 day water fast.
|
| 3x more likely to complete one if you do it with a
| partner, and I'm happy to gift 100% free access to a
| program my fiance and I created called CouplesFast.com
| and to send you a free pdf of our forthcoming book on the
| same topic.
| venndeezl wrote:
| "Heal yourself" is an emotional relative.
|
| If epigenetic markers have activated there is no meditating
| them "off". Many other factors existthat foster diverse set of
| biological traits that are not toggled off by sitting by water.
|
| Don't play doctor online as observers may be confused and make
| poor choices relative their unique circumstances.
|
| Stick to over-charging people wracked with guilt and seeking
| salvation, and the bizarre longtermism you think you're
| bringing to fruition. Gonna stick around 10,000 years to ensure
| it all goes according to plan?
| ada1981 wrote:
| Choosing to avoid the trend of glp1s and instead figure out
| how to adopt a healthy lifestyle is not a threat.
|
| But I do appreciate the life advice from someone with a 4 day
| old anonymous account!
| venndeezl wrote:
| Heal yourself; get off the psychedelic treadmill.
| ada1981 wrote:
| I'd agree. Psychedelics are a flashlight at best, you
| still need to get off the treadmill and do the work.
|
| I just spoke in Antarctica with Paul Stamets and Rick
| Doblin about this very issue.
| renewiltord wrote:
| There are lots of shortcuts haha wtf. The entirety of
| civilization is shortcuts. Vaccines are shortcuts to prime your
| immune system, antibiotics are shortcuts, my eyeglasses are
| shortcuts. This is such guruslop that has no relation to
| reality. Surgeries are shortcuts, bicycles are shortcuts, gyms
| are shortcuts.
|
| The whole point of us doing all we do is to ensure that we get
| good at making more and more shortcuts.
| ada1981 wrote:
| I agree with this. I oversimplified my position.
|
| Let me say this, fasting is something everyone would benefit
| from being familiar with and using regularly as a tool.
|
| Much of what we are trying to accomplish or solve with
| traditional petroleum based pharmacy is accomplished for free
| and with no side effects, by fasting.
| keyle wrote:
| In other news, water is wet. More at 11.
|
| Is anyone surprised that hunger-affecting drugs used on a large
| scale are causing changes in consumer habits?
|
| One might want to consider inflation in the balance...
| deadbabe wrote:
| Becoming addicted to food can seriously wreck your life. Nothing
| makes every aspect of your life harder than being fat. And it
| just sneaks up on people because no one talks about it, like
| alcohol, it's just a thing people assume you will do.
|
| When I'm hungry, I eat, and that's it, I don't think about food
| until hours later when I get hungry again. It blows my mind that
| there's people that just never stop thinking about food, even
| shortly after they've eaten, even when they've had their fill. We
| don't have to live this way. Try to think about food less, it
| starts in the mind.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Most people get their eating habits in the first 5 years of
| their life. If your parents aren't looking out for you, you're
| screwed.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Part of the problem is the prevalence of useless advice like
| this along with the implication that it's a moral failing to be
| overweight.
|
| I think I'd rather be fat than a thin, condescending jerk,
| because at least then I could GLP1s to help lose weight.
| hexbin010 wrote:
| I try to think about food less but...
|
| - Every large/medium train station is rammed full of food.
| Everyone on the train is constantly shoving food and alcohol in
| their mouths
|
| - Every high street is full of fast food
|
| - Every service station is full of fast food
|
| - Every coffee shop has pastries etc all on display staring at
| you
|
| - Even at the gym the other day I had to listen to two women
| talking about their favourite steak and chicken etc for 15
| minutes (it's a small gym)
|
| - People's homes are full of snacks and temptations and
| friends/family can't comprehend the concept of my wanting to
| lose weight.
|
| - Grocery shops place unhealthy food at the entrance and the
| staples are often placed in a way to make you walk past the
| unhealthy foods. Online grocery shops force you to look at
| unhealthy food during your shop
|
| - People just walking around town are eating in the street
|
| We have a massive snack culture generally in the UK and it's
| become so normalised. Another thing you notice taking public
| transport is it's the default mechanism to entertain and keep
| children quiet, so kids are being taught to have a snack
| constantly.
|
| Food is everywhere all the time here!
| deadbabe wrote:
| Yes, it's similar to alcohol, where if you decide you won't
| drink, any time you go out or to a social event it seems you
| can't escape people drinking or offering you a drink.
|
| You just have to imagine yourself as being different from
| other people and you don't do those things that others do.
| cthalupa wrote:
| > When I'm hungry, I eat, and that's it, I don't think about
| food until hours later when I get hungry again.
|
| This was me up until my mid/late 20s. I never understood how
| people got fat. I didn't get it. It wasn't difficult for me to
| remain at a healthy weight.
|
| Then my life changed. Worked my way farther up the corporate
| ladder. More work. Higher stakes on that work. Less time and
| mental energy for cooking, etc. More eating out, more ordering
| in. Less time in the gym. Eventually that turned into cooking
| only for special occasions or special meals (and these
| certainly weren't healthier, though they were delicious), and
| that less time in the gym turned into no time. Eventually I
| became obese.
|
| And I realized my relationship with food had massively changed
| compared to where I was before. Physical hunger? Still easy to
| ignore. If it was just a matter of beating the feeling of
| hunger, it'd be easy. But I could not get food out of my mind.
| I tried mindfulness exercises, meditating, all sorts of things.
| No luck. But GLP-1s fixed it in a hurry.
|
| I had to eat crow on all the thoughts and comments I had made
| about how easy it was to just not eat.
| 46493168 wrote:
| >Try to think about food less, it starts in the mind.
|
| It starts in the gut. That's what we are learning with GLP1s.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| The best news was this:
|
| > Ultra-processed, calorie-dense foods - the kinds most closely
| associated with cravings - saw the sharpest declines. Spending on
| savory snacks dropped by about 10%, with similarly large
| decreases in sweets, baked goods and cookies.
| cush wrote:
| You know these diminishing profits have the food scientists at
| Pepsi, Coke and Nestle working tirelessly to fuel this arms race.
| Give it six months and there will be snacks on grocery store
| shelves so addictive even Ozempic can't suppress them
| socalgal2 wrote:
| Prediction, the food and/or restaurant associations will start a
| campaign to claim ozempic causes autism (etc...)
| apparent wrote:
| > Yogurt rose the most, followed by fresh fruit, nutrition bars
| and meat snacks.
|
| I would guess that this is because people are replacing full-
| blown meals with smaller snacks. The meat snacks is probably
| because people are warned about losing muscle mass. Perhaps this
| affects yogurt consumption as well.
|
| > Notably, about one-third of users stopped taking the medication
| during the study period.
|
| This seems pretty high considering they're only following people
| for 6 months. I guess people are most likely to have side effects
| at the beginning, but I feel like I've not gotten the sense that
| a third of people bail within the first year, due to side effects
| or other reasons.
| rumplecat wrote:
| A common reason people quit is that they miss the pleasure that
| eating previously gave them.
| wincy wrote:
| I've lost 110 pounds on Zepbound and still absolutely love
| food. My relationship has changed with it substantially,
| though. I used to feel a strong urge to eat, often, and
| anything I could shovel down. I felt like I literally could
| never eat enough. I had terrible heartburn all the time. I'd
| eat a box of zebra cakes on the way home from the store.
| Something was very wrong with me. Right now I'm enjoying a
| homemade matzo ball soup with rotisserie chicken and homemade
| stock. It's been absolutely life changing. I still eat zebra
| cakes sometimes, although far less, and I'm hard pressed to
| finish two, much less an entire box.
|
| I was able to lose weight before but it always required
| adhering strictly to a diet, or I'd just gain all the weight
| back. I'm so indescribably happy to be able to go on long
| bike rides, work on my house without getting tired after 20
| minutes, and I go to the gym regularly. All this happened
| after the weight loss, not before. I think a lot of things we
| think are causing obesity is mixed up -- the obesity for me
| seemed to be causing the dysfunction in almost every facet of
| my life.
| rumplecat wrote:
| That's great it works for you. I was basing my comment on
| an article from a German newspaper that cites an obesity
| researcher who said that lost pleasure from eating is a
| major reason people quit: https://archive.ph/UnjMe The
| evidence still appears anecdotal. They don't cite any
| studies that bear this out.
| accidentallfact wrote:
| Most people quit, because it doesn't work:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/aug/14/ozempic-
| wei...
|
| I hoped it will finally shut up those stuck on the dogma,
| but it seems the denial is far too strong, and nothing
| will change.
|
| And yes, it is a dogma, because no kind of evidence no
| matter how strong makes people like you reconsider.
| hexbin010 wrote:
| From your link:
|
| > "The meds are highly effective for a majority of
| patients but there is still a percentage who don't lose a
| clinically significant percentage of body weight.
| Everyone's physiology is a little different," - Veronica
| Johnson MD, an obesity medicine specialist in Chicago
|
| > He explained that for someone who is overweight,
| shedding even a small amount of weight can improve heart
| and kidney function
|
| And, the Guardian is exactly the kind of outlet that
| would publish "woe is me, it doesn't work for me"
| stories, as it's their target audience.
|
| It's a tool - it can be a force multiplier if you also
| make other changes. If you just take the jab and do no
| exercise and continue eating bad, weight loss will be
| minimal.
|
| Yes it's been oversold - just like almost any other
| product/service that ha an advertising budget. That
| doesn't mean it "doesn't work" for everyone.
|
| Does your car 'not work' because you can't attract those
| extremely attractive ladies in the street which are often
| featured in the adverts?
| accidentallfact wrote:
| It also cites a study which says that the average loss is
| 5%. That isn't what most people imagine as "highly
| effective".
|
| Weight also doesn't tell the whole story. The people
| don't get any better, they get (more) starved in addition
| to staying obese.
|
| It's a disease with another cause, hunger is only a
| symptom.
|
| Too much money has been wasted on proving and "educating"
| people that it's just overeating, while there is an
| overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary.
|
| The one that convinced me is horses. Horses get fat, and
| they need to wear a muzzle that makes eating difficult
| for them. Otherwise, they eat so much so fast that it
| literally kills them.
|
| There seem to be AREAS that are affected and areas that
| are less affected. Either there are fat people in the
| area, or there are no fat peoplle in the area. People who
| move seem to quickly change weight to fit the local norm.
| There doesn't seem to be any clear correlation with
| dietary habits, or anything else that is commonly
| observed. The entire Japan appears to be spared.
|
| It gets commonly missed that it isn't possible to get
| obese on purpose either. It's hard to eat more, and the
| body just seems to burn off the excess.
| sfn42 wrote:
| This is a load of bullshit man. Even the article you
| linked describes lying to his friends' parents to get a
| second dinner, being unable to have just one cookie etc.
|
| The only way to get fat is to eat too much and anyone who
| really eats too much will get fat. There's a huge amount
| of people who simply lie or are ignorant about their food
| intake. Fat people falsely claiming they hardly eat
| anything but can't lose weight etc. Of course you lose
| weight if you don't eat. Your body can't create energy
| from nothing. Without energy you die.
| mmooss wrote:
| That's not actually what the evidence says,
| overwhelmingly.
| sfn42 wrote:
| Share to share any of it?
| mmooss wrote:
| Always a fair request. I don't know it well enough or
| have time at the moment, but afaik it's the medical
| consensus:
|
| Obesity is a disease, (mostly) not a result of behavior.
| Eating less and/or more activity doesn't cure people;
| iirc bodies adjust to retain the same amount of fat, etc.
| under the new conditions.
| newsclues wrote:
| That's why I quit soylent.
|
| Now all I eat is chicken, and potatoes (regular and sweet)
| with avocado oil, and drink water. Salt is a bit of a problem
| because I use too much.
|
| Easy to lose weight or maintain it when you eat one meal a
| day ime
| hexbin010 wrote:
| Yes, you need to find other pleasures in life. Use the
| clearer head space to figure out the emotional reasons for
| enjoying food so much.
|
| Or just spend a long time in the Netherlands and they can
| teach you how people who enjoy food are indulgent and weird
| and therefore bad.
| mihaaly wrote:
| I feel that analysing details and consequences based on the
| article is premature and marginal. The reduction of 5-8% of
| medication using households is barely beyond measurable (we
| have higher variation by the season). Yet they use the words
| 'striking', 'steep'. Also saying 'clear changes' in one part
| then admitting 'the reduction becomes smaller over time'
| (without specifics this time). The highest decrease of 10% for
| savory snacks is also modest at most (e.g. still consuming 9
| pack instead of 10 in a reference period. having nothing good
| to watch on TV might have higher effect).
|
| The data might really be useful for the food industry once, but
| only after the usage of the medicine goes beyond 16% currently.
| 5-8% change, even 10%, for 16% of the population is tiny.
|
| To me the study sounds desperate to project significance, using
| adjectives rather than data for seeking attention.
| apparent wrote:
| Considering that only one person in a household might have
| gone on a medication, these percentages are actually more
| sizable than they might seem.
|
| It would have been useful if this were broken out
| differently, to highlight the different impact in single-
| person households and larger households.
| protocolture wrote:
| I get a lot of side effects on it, and during those side
| effects, yoghurt is about all I can stomach.
| snvzz wrote:
| For Ozempic to "change the foods Americans buy".
|
| Just how many Americans are on Ozempic?
| wincy wrote:
| Not enough! Every time I see an overweight person now (I lost
| 110 pounds), I want to suggest it. I convinced my sister to try
| it, and she's shedding lots of weight!
| goto1 wrote:
| "The share of U.S. households reporting at least one user rose
| from about 11% in late 2023 to more than 16% by mid-2024."
| roel_v wrote:
| Double digit percentages, and within a few years, this'll be
| true across most developed economies.
|
| Yes this is mind blowing once you think about it.
| RGamma wrote:
| Isn't it funny/shocking how efficiently the US free market
| creates both the problems and their "solutions" in a neverending
| self-escalating game of subjecting the consumers to their will
| (here: food vs pharma)?
| wraptile wrote:
| Ozempic is not a product of US though
| blurbleblurble wrote:
| Good thing the FDA is fighting back by suggesting people eat more
| pork, beef etc
| gabs007 wrote:
| That's only part of the reason, I'm sure. We are refusing to buy
| groceries we usually would buy because of this idiot president!
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| We need a constitutional amendment, allowing us rights to certain
| medication like ozempic, caffeine, adderal, xanax and pot. If
| alcohol gets its own amendment, and repealing amendment, why
| not!!
|
| (i'm entirely being satirical)
| borroka wrote:
| There is a mix of culture and food at play here. Most people,
| left to their own devices, without cultural pressure, are lazy,
| unproductive, and slovenly.
|
| We can see that with food: as soon as the shaming of people for
| being fat weakened, as it happened primarily in the US and then
| in the Western world at large, people started to indulge without
| guardrails.
|
| We can see that with clothing and appearance: people started to
| dress slovenly, preferring comfort to being presentable and well-
| put together.
|
| We can see that with "productivity": people started doomscrolling
| for hours or watching hours upon hours of life lived by other
| people, instead of living their lives.
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