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Sly comments on Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease - Less Wrong
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He doesn't want to be morbidly obese. He wasn't always this way. He doesn't want to die early and has tried to mitigate his trajectory into an early grave.
How about someone driving a car, skidding on a patch of oil and colliding with the guard rail? Was the collision voluntary? I don't think so, even if the driver in question habitually speeds and lets themselves get distracted. Add in a broken speedometer, and the analogy is complete. (And note that you can't take a human body out of commission like you can refuse an inspection sticker on a car.)
I think I see what you are saying here.
So non-obvious side effects of the descision are non voluntary. Colliding from speeding and obesity from overeating/lack of exercise would be arguable non obvious as well.
I would say however that the metaphor with the car may be more accurate if the driver was repeatedly skidding into mailboxes and other small things (apparently the ground has many oil patches), so that when he later on collided with the guard rail it was a rather obvious end result.
I notice you say "overeating/lack of exercise." I hope one of those two doesn't indicate careless reading.
I wouldn't be so glib about adjusting food intake, unless you've done it and kept weight off for some time. Usually, people who have done this know it isn't trivially easy. It's far from easy. Simply fasting for a set period of time is much easier by comparison.
The overeating/lack of exercise had to do with causes of morbid obesity in general.
I understand that this person has started to walk as a means of counteracting the lack of exercise, or are you referring to something else I may be misreading?
And yes, I understand that adjusting food intake is non trivial. How am I being glib? And how is that relevant to the metaphor?
Morbid obesity does not just spring up on you, your weight gradually changes and your eating patterns likely get worse. It is not at all like a sudden patch of oil.
It would be accurate to describe the situation in terms of a car driver not putting any maintenance into their car. Eventually the car starts to make strange noises. Later on still, the engine light comes on. As years go by, the car is driving slower and slower. Are we really surprised when the engine stops working altogether?