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CannibalSmith comments on The Obesity Myth - Less Wrong
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Comments (59)
That depends on how exactly they tackle the problem. I can imagine an overwhelming force solution of banning all junk food and proscribing mandatory exercise to all overweight people and punishing noncompliance with fitness prisons.
I can imagine a miracle drug that makes your body shape and size easier to change than your hairstyle. That seems roughly as likely as
in a liberal democracy with a lot of overweight people and a massive food and agriculture lobby.
Actually there are already drugs that do a pretty good job of reducing body fat (even in people that are obese). The catch is that all of them are illegal, even the ones that can be used safely for the majority of people.
Such as...?
That's an enormous claim to make; I think it's fair to say such a claim should be accompanied by some kind of evidence, as I seriously doubt it's common knowledge if true.
Such as fen-phen (made illegal for absolutely no reason whatsoever, very safe), ECA (semi-legal depending on where you live, I wouldn't be surprised if it got delegalized completely at some point for no reason whatsoever, very safe), amphetamines (extremely illegal, in amounts needed to fight obesity very safe).
ECA in particular has enormous amount of research behind it, freely available on pubmed.
Unless you know the right lies.
Olestra (not a drug, but a chemical solution to part of the obesity problem) had a lot of promise. It didn't get banned, but people did freak out about a generally minor side effect, hold a health scare, and finally send it into commercial oblivion.
We have one of those. As a bonus, it gives you larger breasts (irrespective of sex), saves on contraceptives (fertility? hah!) and even makes changing your hairstyle easier (if you're going to need a wig anyway...)
That's pretty much the plot of Fat by Rob Grant, which contains some very good information on obesity and various other food-related health myths: one of the facts that stuck with me is the obvious-in-hindsight observation that (even in first world countries) it is massively more dangerous for your health to be underweight than to be overweight.
And both are massively more dangerous than being fit.
Well, yes, by definition, since we're pretty much using underweight to mean 'having a weight low enough to damage your health' and overweight in a similar manner: I'm not sure what your comment is meant to add.