> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For all the effort we put into science education, cooking is applied science we do every day. We should start in elementary school and keep at it through high school, in my opinion.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> Just because Dunning–Kruger exists does NOT exclude the fact that people are good at judging some things.
I dont think this is about Dunning-Kruger, i think this is about the emotional attachment you build to something you created and how it clouds your judgement.
for example, if i recall correctly people liked their ikea furniture more, even tho its more work and of lesser quality, because they build it themselves and thus feel better about it.
Same thing probably extends to most things you can do yourself: Cooking, Growing plants, building a dirt hut in Minecraft
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.
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.
also remember it's pretty much the only addiction you are compelled to partake in even when "cured". No other addiction are you biologically compelled to do it (that i can think of) but for those with addiction issues and food as one of them it's often the hardest to shake because shaking addiction is easiest done simply by never touching it. Don't have that option with food. Even healthy food can be eaten in excess.
The tobacco companies like RJR, packed with scientiests researching how to make cigarrettes more addictive, were trojaned into mass food companies like Nabisco [1]
It should not be a surprise that there's been a relentless pursuit of addictive food ever since.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Less fresh food? Or a similar amount, in a larger building?
Fresh food spoils quickly and often goes around the perimeter as a draw to get people to navigate the whole store.
Shelf stable and frozen foods last much longer, and are what they try to fill the middle of the store with. This can be deceptive in terms of feeling equivalent - all stores are going to have ketchup, but one may have room for two kinds and another has room for 20.
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.
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.
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.
Isn’t a monolithic place. I don’t think there is a non micro-state country in Europe where the absolute majority of people don’t commute by car.
Living outside of dense urban areas without a car is still generally tricky. In quite a few cities there are no large supermarkets in the densest parts and you have to drive further from the center to find one. So not having a car might be tricky
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.
>I grocery shopped like an American - filled up an entire cart with a week or two worth of groceries
Is that really how the average American shops though? The majority of shoppers these days are in the self checkout or "15 items or less" lines with only a single basket of stuff, at least in the stores I frequent. Granted, I'm close to a city center but the store I go to is not very walkable
Your mileage varies, I guess. I used to live with easy walking distance of an upscale supermarket, but yet I did most of my shopping by driving to a different one farther away. Buying groceries with a car is simply more convenient.
Even after I moved out of that neighborhood, it wasn't unusual for me to stop at the grocery store every afternoon on my drive home.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
> 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.
Yea, me too. Holy shit. I have this too on certain things but not on alcohol.
> And getting sober means having to learn to want whatever is left of your life.
That's a good/harsh lesson for any addiction I think. Thanks for formulating that so clearly.
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.
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.
It’s a fact that drugs affect people very differently. There’s a big difference between “I must drink” and “I want to drink more”. My affliction is the latter and a far, far lesser burden than the former. Though one that can still fuck you up.
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.
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.
Time will tell. I have experience losing weight but could never lose 10lbs - my goal is at least 20. And I have experience taking and tapering off other medication.
I also play sports and work out and am making time for those pursuits - literally calendering workouts as opposed to maybe sometimes doing it.
In years prior the stakes were pretty low. My last bloodwork was a wake up call. I’m optimistic I can stay where I want to be once I get there.
I’m more concerned about alcohol, and falling back into the habit of saying yes to that weird desire to have a drink at 6pm on a Tuesday that turns into a few more.
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”.
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)
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.
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.
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.
> ..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%.”
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
That position does not appear to be supported by clinical evidence. [This study](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 £10 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 £10 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 £8
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.
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.
> 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).
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).
> 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.
In that way hiring a cleaner to come clean your house is cheaper than cleaning yourself, because they're professionals and take less time than you would yourself.
But if you don't pay yourself an hourly wage to cook and clean (which is true for most people), then paying someone else to do it will require you to spend more cash.
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.
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.
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…
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> “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?
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.
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.
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.
Then how does ozempic, whose primary mechanism of action is to decrease appetite, work for obese people?
Yes, your body will compensate somewhat for caloric deficit, and yes, when you gain enough fat mass your adipocytes will divide, creating more/stronger hunger signals that encourage weight gain moreso than someone who was never obese.
But your body is not magic. If you feed it a sufficiently low amount of calories, it has to break down energy stores, e.g. fat, to make up the difference in energy requirements.
That's a report on one person under direct medical supervision. The general consensus, afaik, is that starving yourself doesn't work, at least not more than short term - the weight comes right back.
It is a disease as in “your metabolism is slow” so you need to cut food even more. It is a disease as “you have problem with controlling your impulses and therefore crave food”
Psychological diseases are not better or worse from psychical/metabolic ones. They are real, and for some of them we have or we develop medicine.
Nobody is claiming that obesity can’t be a result of a disease, but under the hood it always ends up as: calories surplus is stored as fat.
Slow metabolism is a bit of a myth. By that I mean that it's not strictly wrong to say someone has a slow metabolism, but metabolism is an expression of your activity level so what you're really saying is the person is sedentary. If the person starts being more active their metabolism will necessarily increase.
So, slow metabolism is not a disease, it's not a genetic disorder, it is simply a result of the fact that someone is spending too much time on the couch.
I think this gets lost a lot when people talk about "slow metabolism", they turn it into this thing they're just helpless to influence, like they're just cursed with a slow metabolism and that's that. It's not like that at all, which is why I don't like the term. It just hides the reality of the situation.
I don't know where you get your science man but I'm about 100% sure what you just said is completely false. Not even remotely controversial just flat out wrong.
I asked first. You're the one claiming all this scientific and expert consensus. I'm just talking common sense stuff that pretty much everyone agree on. This is simply the basics of how the body works. I could take some time to find some sources but so could you and you aren't so why should I?
It's pretty clear that you're thoroughly convinced of your own bullshit anyway, if you had any interest at all in finding the truth you'd do some light googling and find that pretty much everything I'm saying is true. I'm not interested in wasting my time finding arbitrary sources for common knowledge that you're just going to ignore anyway.
You don't have to find sources for me, I know they don't exist and if you find anything it's going to be obvious bullshit anyway. There are no serious doctors, nutritionists nor researchers who have any doubt whatsoever regarding what the roles and relationships of food and fat are in the human body. You're obviously just delusional. So good luck with that, I hope you can get past your issues and improve your life some day.
You admitted to me a few days ago that you are so fat that it makes you miserable. If direct, personal experience with it not working doesn't convince you, nothing will.
Yeah I said I find it miserable to be moderately overweight. I never said being more active and eating less doesn't work. It works great when I do it. I was under 90kg last year after just a few months of being active and eating better. And when I stop being active and start eating too much food, I gain weight. Which is literally exactly what I'm saying. So, I have direct personal experience with my advice working exactly the way I'm telling you it does.
At this point I'm just saying the same shit I said in the other comment already. The fact that I find it hard to follow my own advice, which I just told you because I thought it might help get my point across, is completely irrelevant to whether the advice works.
Anyway I'm over this whole conversation at this point. Do and believe whatever you want. I've said what I wanted to say. If you don't believe me that's fine, I don't care.
Let's say there is a new discovery tomorrow - there is a virus that lives in your mitochondria, and makes them unable to produce energy. We can make a vaccine against it, and nobody will ever get fat.
Why would I be against that? I'm not against ozempic either.
I'm just against people who throw their hands in the air, say "my fatness is a disease" and continue eating 4000 calories a day while hardly moving at all. And just to be clear I'm not against the fatness - if you want to be fat that's fine, I don't care. It's your life. And if you want to say it's a mental disorder that's fine too, addiction is real and I know first hand that it's hard to resist good food and get off the couch.
Just don't claim there's nothing to be done about it. There is. I and many people I know have successfully lost weight by eating less and moving more. I've also gained weight by eating too much and moving too little. Because that's literally how it works, for everyone in the entire world. Sure it's possible to have some disease or disorder that prevents you from gaining weight by preventing you from utilizing the calories in your food. Or parasites can steal your calories. But if you aren't eating, your body still needs energy. It can't just choose to not use energy, energy is required to live. Without energy the heart doesn't beat, the lungs don't breathe, the brain doesn't brain, the muscles don't work. It's not like the body's just wasting energy, it uses as much as it has to. It's a fine tuned machine. So it can't just use less - the only way to use less energy is to spend less by moving less. Maybe the body can reduce it slightly by adjusting organ activity and such, but not much.
This is why we breathe oxygen and exhale CO2. Oxygen is literally used to burn calories, CO2 is the product of that combustion. Just like in a fire. When you exert yourself the body is spending more energy so it needs more oxygen and produces more CO2, that's why we need to breathe faster and our heart beats faster to get the oxygen to where it's needed and get rid of all the CO2. When you relax, your pulse and breathing lowers because you're burning very little.
Now, with this understanding of basic body functions it's obvious that moving more and eating less is how you lose weight. There is no question about it, it's just clear as day and absolutely indisputable.
Entire world? Everybody? No, I think most people are completely aware of the link between overeating and overweight. If everyone around you agree that food intake and weight are entirely unrelated things then maybe you're just in some kind of echo chamber. Or maybe people just don't care enough to challenge your ideas. I don't know, but I do know for a fact that what I said earlier is true and that it is the overwhelming scientific consensus.
That's why common remedies for obesity are things like dieting, stomach reducing surgery to reduce capacity for food, and ozempic and similar drugs that reduce appetite. See how the common denominator here is less food? Diet for those who can do it that way, more drastic measures for those who struggle with self control. And of course all of these solutions work better when coupled with regular physical activity. Simply taking a daily walk for half an hour is a great way to burn some extra calories and get the heart pumping at least a little, this has many benefits beyond burning calories.
Trust me I know it's hard. I'm not in the shape I wish I was. It's a lot easier to order a pizza than go to the store, figure out what to make, buy ingredients and cook a heathy meal. And it's so nice just crushing half or more of a large pizza in one sitting. The amount of junk food i can eat before I feel full is way more than I should have. It's a lot easier to spend all day in front of the computer or on the couch than getting out and doing some exercise. It's hard to do the things I know I should do, when what I should do and what I want to do are so different. I know from experience that when you get going it's easier to keep it going but I've also fallen off the wagon a lot. And it's not like you just do it for a little while and you're good, it's a permanent lifestyle change. It takes months or years of dieting to get down to a normal weight, it's a huge task.
But if you don't even believe that this is the solution, which it unequivocally is by the way, then you're either going to waste your time and probably money on things that don't work or more likely just keep eating yourself into an early grave while telling yourself you're just unlucky.
And I think it's worth some negative social points for saying things that might upset some people on social media, if I can maybe influence someone to get their shit together and work towards a better life.
This isn't opinion, I am 100% sure about these things and I'm not paid to say them. I just want to help. Trust me, you can lose weight and eating less and moving more is the way to do it. Ozempic and similar drugs can help with that and there's no shame in using them. The only thing that matters is getting healthy.
Obesity is a deadly condition and it's miserable. Trust me I've been in great shape I know exactly what I'm missing. And I'm not even very overweight, I'm about 100kg and it's already miserable. I can't imagine what it must be like for someone to weigh 150+. Struggling to breathe, getting winded just from getting off the couch. It's no way to spend your limited time in this world.
Oh and I forgot to mention a cool fact in my previous comment: that CO2 you're breathing out - that is your fat. That's where your fat goes when you burn it, you literally breathe it out. And the carbs of course. Your body turns the food you eat into energy and CO2. Unless you eat too much, then it turns it into fat to store it for later.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> We can see that with clothing and appearance: people started to dress slovenly, preferring comfort to being presentable and well-put together.
I know a 21 year old dude who dresses like he's from the 50s, suit, hat and all. He looks extremely presentable and is the biggest compliment machine that I know!
I live in a beach town and dress almost always in trousers and sports coat, occasionally in a suit, sometimes casually in jeans and shirts and desert boots, but always with intention.
Well, what can I do? I am terribly vain and don't see myself going out in flip-flops when not at the beach.
> Most people, left to their own devices, without cultural pressure, are lazy, unproductive, and slovenly.
I disagree strongly. I think most people do the best they can. When they are emotionally overwhelmed, they withdraw.
Doing things you dislike, such as dressing certain ways, is not slovenliness. Your opinion is meaningful only to you (and those who choose to share it), it's not a standard. Also, what data is there of a problem? When people started dressing more casually (which I guess is your objection), the economy boomed, freedom boomed, Silicon Valley - famously casual - boomed, etc.
We could say that your thinking is slovenly, too lazy to try to understand that others have very different thoughts, perspectives, and priorities which are just as valid as yours. Too lazy to try to look at evidence. Much easier to take the egocentric path and judge everyone else, and repeat misinformation that's appealing - and all especially easier when it's culturally enabled.
Of course I judge, and I expect other people to judge me. It is what we do every day: we assess, evaluate, and draw conclusions. What people have problems with is not to be judged per se, but judged negatively: "oh, please stop judging me as a brilliant, awesome, good-looking person!" is something that, in fact, nobody never said.
The way that the comment I am answering comes across is quite reactive in nature and too forceful in tone.
Nowhere I said that people should dress in a suit or sundress or that they should have visible abs. I do, but that is just my preference.
I just expressed my opinion that, when left to their own devices, people are often apathetic. Or maybe, as the writer of the comment suggested, they (some, to be clear, but in my opinion, too many) choose to be 400 pounds, not showering, dressing in PJs, or doomscroll, because that's the way they are happy.
Good for them, they surely live a life of fewer preoccupations.
> Of course I judge, and I expect other people to judge me. It is what we do every day: we assess, evaluate, and draw conclusions.
Not 'of course' - it's a choice, like the other ones you talk about. This choice isn't a meaningless subjective preference like clothing, but one that results in errors and harm to other people. We are responsible for our errors and for preventing them - claiming the error is inevitable is to make yourself a victim.
I don't judge people unless I have to - it's not hard to learn, especially if you learn from and are responsible for your mistakes; I didn't have to make that mistake many times. And that has been the approach of most wise people I know. There is no other way to prevent those errors: Lacking godlike omniscience, we can't read minds or observe more than a very little; we are prone to serious errors. There's a reason courts and science require objective evidence and strict process; truth is very hard. 'Judge not' goes back a couple thousand years.
When I have to judge - for example, when evaluating job performance - I am very aware of my own limitations. Otherwise misplaced confidence causes even more mistakes.
Dressing with intention does not require any particular willpower, just some desire, intention, a bit of time, and a taste that may develop over time.
Avoiding doomscrolling is not that hard. The first few days are usually hard when we want to break a habit that's hanging around like a terrible smell, but after that, it is smooth sailing.
One can play victim not forever but for a long time: we have seen that in particular between 2010 and 2015, with people claiming to be abused by the most absurd things.
But those abusers remain absurd, and the alleged victims--of food, social media, celebrities stealing their attention like a bully steals candy from a nerd-- pathetic.
These are all empty claim, including a grand social theory. I'm not even sure what you're talking about for 2010-2015. You really need to be drowning in yourself to believe it all and then, on top of it, to judge other people.
People don't share your priorities or beliefs. Maybe that's why they act differently.
> Avoiding doomscrolling is not that hard.
If you mean addiction to social media, that's empirically not true. You can see how many people are addicted, and the research about it. Typing a few bytes into HN doesn't change or establish any facts.
It is simple logic that dressing with intention is not hard. But let's define 'hard' with an example: running a marathon under 3 hours is hard for the general population; that is, it is an activity that, despite desire, planning, and effort, is beyond reach for many.
Dressing appropriately, such as not going out in PJs or with a mangled, overused, stained T-shirt or in flip-flops (apart from the particular cases I need to include, otherwise I am marginalizing people who don't have the resources to buy a 3 dollar shirt or refuse to clean due to some disorders included in the DSM-5) is not hard.
Avoiding doomscrolling is certainly not hard; one, given sufficient desire and a recognition of their inability to stop looking at other people's lives, could just delete IG, snap, X, or whatever.
Finally, people can do what they want, like going out semi-naked and without showering for 3 weeks, farting in public, which has become an unfortunate common circumstance, doomscrolling until their eyes are a bright red, or eating until they explode because sugar is "addictive".
But I like encouraging people not to live their lives like defenseless victims of circumstances.
Almost all of them - you have no evidence, just your subjective beliefs stated as facts. There is a great, wide world outside your head.
> It is simple logic that dressing with intention is not hard.
I don't see logic in it. For many people, such as those on the spectrum and those emotionally exhausted by other demands, it is hard. We have emotional limits.
> appropriately
You are defining appropriately. You are free to follow your own ideas, and others are free to follow theirs. Many think your 'appropriate dress' is a waste of time and money, and an attempt distract from merit - putting lipstick on a pig. If someone does good or bad, works well or not, many think dress is irrelevant.
> Avoiding doomscrolling is certainly not hard
See my prior comment, which has an objective factual basis.
> farting in public, which has become an unfortunate common circumstance
huh? That's a pretty wild claim.
> I like encouraging people not to live their lives like defenseless victims of circumstances.
They are not doing that; they are living their own lives their own way, for the most part.
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...
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...
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.
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.
> “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?
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!
> 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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's entirely discipline and motivation. Just because only a select few people carry it through and maintain it doesn't change that. Just very few people in this world are truly disciplined and self-motivated.
You can see it all around you in one form or another:- overweight/obesity, alcohol consumption, smoking/vaping, people spending 5+ hours staring at glowing rectangles.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
From what you just wrote, it appears you misunderstood what I said. Just to be clear:
Red kidney beans (50g): PDCAAS = 0.88, Protein = 11.25g
Basmati rice (50g): PDCAAS = 0.7, Protein = 4.5g
Red beans + rice (50g, 50g): PDCAAS = 1.0, Protein = 15.75g
Milk (500g..): PDCAAS = 1.0, Protein = 15.5g
So, from a protein perspective (according to PDCAAS), 500g of milk will give you the same amount of usable protein as the 100g rice and beans meal. There is nothing left on the table.
So, just eating kidney beans, PDCAAS would say that you aren't really getting the full benefit of the "protein on the label". But once you combine it with rice, you are getting the full benefit (according to PDCAAS).
You can't look at the digestibility of the two foods in isolation to make the calculations.
As long as you are eating a varied diet, PDCAAS is pretty pointless. If you have an eating disorder, or food scarcity issues, then it might become important.
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.
I just want to clarify that I'm obviously not suggesting to eat 3500 calories of beans daily, and that's it. Just like I did not straw-man OP by claiming he was arguing that we should live on 100% doritos.
I just made a simple comparison between two food types, on the one had the example OP gave (doritos), and on the other hand the most common staple foods eaten in the world, like grains and legumes.
Again if I have to repeat that, the most common staple foods in the world.
That I hope does enough to dissuade you from making the argument that eating these ingredients is a ridiculous endeavor. It's actually what the majority of healthy humans eat on this planet for centuries, the standard, the norm.
It's for anyone obese to figure out why they don't apply this norm.
Take legumes for example, cooked as a Daal it is eaten by more than a billion people all the time. 20 to 30 different types of pulses are cooked, and hundreds of recipies exist. If you walk into your local Indian restaurant, you'll experience a wide range of intense flavors. To say these are the blandest ingredients is incorrect, virtually everyone would prefer to eat such food daily compared to doritos for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The idea that ultra-processed foods are a staple in my diet, is insanity. I'd be disgusted. I love ultra-processed foods as an occasional snack, not as a diet. My diet is healthy, affordable and tasty. Google and youtube are full of examples of affordable, tasty meals.
Minimal processing is completely fine by the way. There's little wrong with a good canned bean for example, great shelf life, minimal salt, maximal convenience, good nutrition, good price. Thrown into a salad with a simple dressing of olive oil and lemon juice, with some cut vegetables, gives a complete meal. Not more expensive than doritos, healthy, full of vitamins, calories, low glycemic index, protein, and 'cooking' is a matter of throwing the ingredients in a bowl and mixing, childs' play.
Same with the daals I mentioned, mostly a matter of throwing ingredients into a pot. Cooks itself with no supervision in less than half an hour while you're on your phone. Stores 5 days in the fridge or months in the freezer. Can be a great breakfast or dinner multiple times a week.
There's just tons of these options that are delicious and easy, cheap and quick, enjoyed by billions. Obese people just need better education and mentorship in my opinion. I could never be fat because my parents and environment showed me normal food culture, without it I'd probably be fat. I truly believe in the power of mentorship here, which isn't properly institutionalised or commercialised, which is why so many people lack it.
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.
> 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.
Eh there was no comparison at all in attractiveness, but purely in price per calorie / nutrition. I don't see the issue in the comparison?
OP said processed foods are cheaper per calorie than healthy, i.e. eating healthy is more expensive and more difficult.
Nothing at all was said about 'processed foods are more tasty, thus eating healthy is more difficulty', so I didn't reply to it.
Then OP provided Doritos as an example. And I countered by showing that the worlds staple foods eaten by billions, non-processed, are much cheaper than eating processed foods like Doritos example OP gave. That's all.
Now as for your point on taste: try eating a nice daal at your local Indian restaurant and tell me you'd rather eat bags of doritos every day for breakfast, lunch or dinner. If you prefer Doritos then I don't know what to tell YOU.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You're in the faux enlightenment that everybody gets during weight loss. Everybody I've ever known losing weight starts discovering the wonders of healthy eating and nutrition as they lose weight, vowing never again to go back to their old habits. Then they slip further down the line and 1-2 years they're back to their original weight, plus some.
Weight loss isn't the challenge. Maintaining it for the rest of your life is.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
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.
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The answer applicable to individuals is to leave the suburbs and move to a city.
The answer applicable to the government is to build better cities.
The answer is never stay in the suburbs but take drugs the rest of your life and spend the end of your life miserably unhealthy. You’re free to do that if you want to, you just can’t pretend it’s healthy.
Ya, if you look at the propaganda being thrown around today '15 minute cities' are a communist trap meant to imprison you... don't expect change in the US.
I’m not in the US but in the Netherlands. Bananas are indeed pretty cheap kilo wise, currently about €2,50. Apples and pears are next at about €3,50. Strawberries in season are about €10/kg. Green kiwi is €5/kg, gold kiwi is €10/kg. Mangos are extremely cheap now at €1,39/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 <€1 or <€2 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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).
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.
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...
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
Been following a whole food diet for a few years now, with one simple rule: avoid anything pre-made that has preservative or additives.
Everything is made as much as possible from scratch with fresh, frozen or dried ingredients. The only downside is most fresh ingredients need to be used within a few days (lack of preservatives/additives) - which means often making a stew using anything left-over that needs to be eaten. But throwing a whole heap of ingredients in a pot for 2 hours is a very quick/easy meal.
There are some carve-outs as we don't have unlimited time/space so items like cheese, yoghurt, anything fermented we don't make our own - but we stick to organic and preferably low-salt.
We never eat out or buy takeaway; if we feel like pizza we make and bake our own bases, and the toppings are all fresh. Bread is particularly something we never buy and have reduced our consumption: baking your own is less convenient but we eat a lot of rolled oats instead.
We don't limit snacks like chocolate (organic, no added vegetable oils) or nuts and go through an insane amount of honey.
This is the most sensible attitude I've seen people express that has led to meaningful weight loss, maintenance and as far as we can see across large timespans, lifestyle change.
It's incredibly hard to gain weight by eating whole or minimally processed foods. The destruction and recombination of foods (and their food matrix) into ultra processed foods is one of the driving causes behind people eating more because the artificial textures and softness is one of the main drivers of over-eating, especially of high calorie foods.
I'd wager that people could replicate the same satiety induced weight loss (to a slower, but safer extent) through minimising ultra processed foods than GLP drugs.
It reduces your supermarket shop to about 10% of the store. Almost anything packed and transported is out of the question, as are entire rows of capitalism-driven junk food.
It is very hard to gain weight when paired with some daily cardio and/or weights, even when you are eating to build up more muscle mass.
Eating healthy snacks through the day: handfuls of oily nuts (peanuts, cashews, macadamias), full fat smoothies and a lot of protein doesn't shift the scales.
We still end up buying some packed and transported food: Frozen blueberries from Chile, Spanish olive oil, dried herbs like tumeric, paprika etc but most meat/fruit/vegetables is sourced locally.
> 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.
>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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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
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).
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Meanwhile, tracking consumption involves error bars that span a factor of 2. Go figure out how many calories are in an avocado. Is that per gram figure amortized for the weight of the pit, or is this just for the flesh?
Counting calories precisely was invented by the processed food industry.
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.
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
> 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?
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.)
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
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].
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
"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'.
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.
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)
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.
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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.
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.
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)
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.
> 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"?
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.
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.
> 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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
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.
lol, Alnatura is the worst. I’d prefer any Netto, Späti, 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
> 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.
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.
Exercise to the extent that obese people will do usually does not a very sizable impact on weight compared to the effect of proper diet, and weight loss is very achievable with zero exercise.
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.
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.
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.
Agreed, but thermodynamics (calorie in/out) still holds. If you actually eat healthy (say 2500 calories), you will lose weight if you're obese and need >3000 to maintain weight, period.
Sustaining that healthy diet is harder insulin resistance, agreed!
But you said you ate healthy for a decade. To me that's not eating obesity-maintenance level amounts of otherwise healthy foods, but rather eating healthy foods at a normal (say 2500 kcal daily) amount.
In other words, under your statement the behavioral impact of insulin resistance was already overcome, you were eating properly, and still didn't lose weight. And that's just not conform the science, which states that you lose weight even with high insulin resistance, as long as you're eating healthy (i.e. in a caloric deficit vis-a-vis obesity level maintenance).
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
>> 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.
> fact that you put too much food in your mouth (and probably the wrong kind of food)
I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes five years ago. I radically changed my diet to a hard keto diet with a cap of 50g of net carbohydrate per day (carbs - fiber = net carbs). My caloric intake quadrupled due to fats being high calorie. My weight dropped by 48 pounds. In every measurement, I'm healthier despite being older. My diet is also expensive and difficult:
Most foods in the us are high in carbohydrate. Cereals, added sugars, fake sugar free (sugar alcohol instead of sugar), and foods that have lots of integrated carbs... sandwiches, tortillas, etc. There's a huge preference for bad foods baked into the culture. It's hard to eat well. So culture is as much of a problem as any other factor.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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].
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :/
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).
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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?
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).
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
>> 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.
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
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
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
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).
Diet is important, but if you think that a handful of peanuts is leading to your issues I'd first task writing down _everything_ you touch to eat.
IMO, especially when one has snacks fully stocked, it's easy to 'forget' that you ate something.
One big breakthrough for me was reading Arnold S. "encyclopedia of body building". There's a lot of physiological tips and also very practical advice.
I'm sure you can get it from anywhere, but for me this was a big change. Sizing the reps, the workouts, the weights helped a lot in trying to make progress. Additionally endomorphic bodies need different excercise and I was doing too much ineffective cardio for months with few results.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The exercise is probably not that large an input compared to the baseline calorie consumption that added muscle has.
I guess I have pretty defined eating times and don't really think about food until I am hungry.
One thing that has changed a lot is that my lunches use to be either plain sandwich (like cheese meat and bread) or whatever I bought from a local restaurant.
I hated the sandwich days. I don't like mayo but the sandwiches always left me hungry and scavenging. Adding some hummus spread was a pretty huge change in the satisfaction that I got from that meal, and it doesn't leave me hungry.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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?
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?
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.
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.
> 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
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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
> 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.
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.
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
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?
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But that's what happened. I mean, it doesn't mean that proposing public transit is pointless, but if someone in 1930 heard about a trolley track being run in town and another person said "it's only a matter of time before the car companies try to sabotage mass transit", they would've been right. That's what actually happened.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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)?
You're right and AFAIK it wasn't primarily developed for weight-loss either. Still, there's something not quite right with the way this band-aid would be required at non-trivial scale in the first place. I guess there really is a level of commerce that is too excessive.
> 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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
That’s crazy cheap, I pay close to 400€ (!!!) monthly for Tirzepatide (GLP-1) and close to 50€ 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.
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.
> 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.
- 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
“users who stop taking it gain the weight back” is not a baseless claim.
Most of the people on GLP will come off the drugs and regain the weight back to their original weight, if not heavier, just like people who temporarily restrict eating in any other way (discipline). You need real lifestyle change. Even the people shilling the drugs tell people that.
Personally, I hope all of these business fail. Screw the fast food industry, dieting companies (they don't want customers to actually succeed), and the pharma companies that are restricting access to people who actually need GLP drugs.
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.
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.
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.
I don't think this is based around GLP drugs. I've noticed the gym, swimming pools, running and cycling routes I usually frequent have been lower every year for the past 5 years or so (the spike in January is smaller every year).
I think new years resolutions are dying out, or people are doing non-fitness based resolutions (eg. Dry January) more often now.
> 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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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…
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
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)
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.
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.
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
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%.
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
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"
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
If you could sit with the authors of this paper and let them know this valuable insight, what do you think they would change about their paper and its conclusion?
I'm not sure they are able to disentangle it from general lifestyle changes someone on a new weightloss drug might want to make?
(However, you can probably compare it to other lifestyle changes people on previous weightloss drugs did. If we presume that going on a weightloss drug at all is roughly the same impact on associated lifestyle change choices.)
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!!
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
I haven't been in a place in the US where you can't easily do that, and I don't live in a particularly urban environment.
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.
For all the effort we put into science education, cooking is applied science we do every day. We should start in elementary school and keep at it through high school, in my opinion.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Or they weren’t actually that nice and people were being polite.
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.
For a site chock full of logic-worshippers, we do seem to forget Occam's Razor too frequently.
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
That's true of any human. It's just particularly bad for tech bros because they base their entire personality on their supposed hyper-rationalism.
Maybe that's the reason but the cook also ate less and should be able to compare the taste.
Yes because people are famously good a judging their own work accurately
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.
> 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.
> Just because Dunning–Kruger exists does NOT exclude the fact that people are good at judging some things.
I dont think this is about Dunning-Kruger, i think this is about the emotional attachment you build to something you created and how it clouds your judgement.
for example, if i recall correctly people liked their ikea furniture more, even tho its more work and of lesser quality, because they build it themselves and thus feel better about it. Same thing probably extends to most things you can do yourself: Cooking, Growing plants, building a dirt hut in Minecraft
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.
Sugar, salt and fat in the perfect combination makes _anything_ tickle an ancient part of your brain, making you crave more of it.
> engineered so that you want to eat a lot of them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperpalatable_food
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.
also remember it's pretty much the only addiction you are compelled to partake in even when "cured". No other addiction are you biologically compelled to do it (that i can think of) but for those with addiction issues and food as one of them it's often the hardest to shake because shaking addiction is easiest done simply by never touching it. Don't have that option with food. Even healthy food can be eaten in excess.
This didn't happen in a vaccum.
The tobacco companies like RJR, packed with scientiests researching how to make cigarrettes more addictive, were trojaned into mass food companies like Nabisco [1]
It should not be a surprise that there's been a relentless pursuit of addictive food ever since.
[1] https://legalclarity.org/inside-the-rjr-nabisco-leveraged-bu...
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...
You mean Opiod Antagonists? They already exist
Do they get prescribed for gaming addiction?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oklahoma is a shithole, that's what we learned from this post.
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.
Less fresh food? Or a similar amount, in a larger building?
Fresh food spoils quickly and often goes around the perimeter as a draw to get people to navigate the whole store.
Shelf stable and frozen foods last much longer, and are what they try to fill the middle of the store with. This can be deceptive in terms of feeling equivalent - all stores are going to have ketchup, but one may have room for two kinds and another has room for 20.
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’?
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.
And huge selection of frozen meals. These I actually found better than expected.
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.
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.
> In Europe
Isn’t a monolithic place. I don’t think there is a non micro-state country in Europe where the absolute majority of people don’t commute by car.
Living outside of dense urban areas without a car is still generally tricky. In quite a few cities there are no large supermarkets in the densest parts and you have to drive further from the center to find one. So not having a car might be tricky
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.
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.
>I grocery shopped like an American - filled up an entire cart with a week or two worth of groceries
Is that really how the average American shops though? The majority of shoppers these days are in the self checkout or "15 items or less" lines with only a single basket of stuff, at least in the stores I frequent. Granted, I'm close to a city center but the store I go to is not very walkable
You seem to be talking about a small subset of Europe. I’m sure people in New York have rather different lifestyles than many other Americans.
[shrug]
Your mileage varies, I guess. I used to live with easy walking distance of an upscale supermarket, but yet I did most of my shopping by driving to a different one farther away. Buying groceries with a car is simply more convenient.
Even after I moved out of that neighborhood, it wasn't unusual for me to stop at the grocery store every afternoon on my drive home.
Makes no sense IMHO: produce can last more than a week in the fridge
Alcohol is no joke. It can take hold of families and persist for generations. Kudos to you!
> 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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Same here.
Except that even the smell of alcohol makes me want to puke.
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.
Thanks for commenting on it.
> 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.
Yea, me too. Holy shit. I have this too on certain things but not on alcohol.
> And getting sober means having to learn to want whatever is left of your life.
That's a good/harsh lesson for any addiction I think. Thanks for formulating that so clearly.
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.
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.
It’s a fact that drugs affect people very differently. There’s a big difference between “I must drink” and “I want to drink more”. My affliction is the latter and a far, far lesser burden than the former. Though one that can still fuck you up.
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.
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.
> to address a willpower problem, not a nutritional problem
I think those are one and the same.
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.
Time will tell. I have experience losing weight but could never lose 10lbs - my goal is at least 20. And I have experience taking and tapering off other medication.
I also play sports and work out and am making time for those pursuits - literally calendering workouts as opposed to maybe sometimes doing it.
In years prior the stakes were pretty low. My last bloodwork was a wake up call. I’m optimistic I can stay where I want to be once I get there.
I’m more concerned about alcohol, and falling back into the habit of saying yes to that weird desire to have a drink at 6pm on a Tuesday that turns into a few more.
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”.
> 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)
Ozempic: Weight loss at a breakneck pace.
yes thanks for clarifying.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
> Processed food is easy, tasty (in a shallow way) and more available than the alternatives.
Fiber is also removed so you can eat faster (less chewing) and don't feel satiated.
What does are you on that brings you these effects? I take 5mg weekly and find the effects mild but appreciable.
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)
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.
> 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/
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/
> 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.
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.
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
That study was on untrained subjects. Steroids increase your baseline musculature, but only to a point.
You're not going to accidentally an Arnold by injecting testosterone and sitting on the couch every day.
Your spell checker made wonder what ghosts are doing with steroids.
"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.
That position does not appear to be supported by clinical evidence. [This study](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
Do we know what the reason is for the limits of around 10-20%?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
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
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.
these are amazing numbers -- how long did this loss take?
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.
Just over 2 years from end to end, the majority towards the end when I finally got onto the right GLP-1 medication.
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.
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.
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.
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?
GLP-1s are a fairly strong proxy for having enough discretionary income to justify luxury expenditures like eating out or whatever.
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.
How can eating at a restaurant be cheaper than at home? Could you give examples?
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.
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 £10 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 £10 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 £8
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.
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.
> 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).
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.
> 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.
Sure if you put a cash value on opportunity cost.
In that way hiring a cleaner to come clean your house is cheaper than cleaning yourself, because they're professionals and take less time than you would yourself.
But if you don't pay yourself an hourly wage to cook and clean (which is true for most people), then paying someone else to do it will require you to spend more cash.
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.
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.
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…
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.
cigarettes are an explicit part of the diet...?
Cigarettes surpress appettite. That's why pretty much all models used to smoke.
Fortunately we have much healthier alternatives (like Ozempic) now.
Nicotine is a fairly potent appetite suppressant
Tackle one addiction at a time a wise sage once said to me.
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.
> 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.
A common reason people quit is that they miss the pleasure that eating previously gave them.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
That's not actually what the evidence says, overwhelmingly.
Share to share any of it?
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.
Then how does ozempic, whose primary mechanism of action is to decrease appetite, work for obese people?
Yes, your body will compensate somewhat for caloric deficit, and yes, when you gain enough fat mass your adipocytes will divide, creating more/stronger hunger signals that encourage weight gain moreso than someone who was never obese.
But your body is not magic. If you feed it a sufficiently low amount of calories, it has to break down energy stores, e.g. fat, to make up the difference in energy requirements.
> Then how does ozempic, whose primary mechanism of action is to decrease appetite, work for obese people?
That is a very interesting question.
> your body is not magic.
But it is a complex, highly adaptable system. The simplistic formula of calorie input = output is highly misleading.
> If you feed it a sufficiently low amount of calories
Sure, if you starve yourself, you'll start transitioning to dust pretty soon.
Somewhere between obese and dust you'll eventually hit a healthy weight.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2495396/
That's a report on one person under direct medical supervision. The general consensus, afaik, is that starving yourself doesn't work, at least not more than short term - the weight comes right back.
It is a disease as in “your metabolism is slow” so you need to cut food even more. It is a disease as “you have problem with controlling your impulses and therefore crave food”
Psychological diseases are not better or worse from psychical/metabolic ones. They are real, and for some of them we have or we develop medicine.
Nobody is claiming that obesity can’t be a result of a disease, but under the hood it always ends up as: calories surplus is stored as fat.
Slow metabolism is a bit of a myth. By that I mean that it's not strictly wrong to say someone has a slow metabolism, but metabolism is an expression of your activity level so what you're really saying is the person is sedentary. If the person starts being more active their metabolism will necessarily increase.
So, slow metabolism is not a disease, it's not a genetic disorder, it is simply a result of the fact that someone is spending too much time on the couch.
I think this gets lost a lot when people talk about "slow metabolism", they turn it into this thing they're just helpless to influence, like they're just cursed with a slow metabolism and that's that. It's not like that at all, which is why I don't like the term. It just hides the reality of the situation.
What is all that based on?
Knowledge and understanding.
So nothing.
I don't know where you get your science man but I'm about 100% sure what you just said is completely false. Not even remotely controversial just flat out wrong.
What I said is commonplace if you look around.
Yeah, beliefs commonly held by people who would rather make excuses than improve their lives.
It's just baseless nonsense. Doctors and researchers say otherwise.
And you still haven't found the time to show me any of them.
Show us a basis for what you say.
I asked first. You're the one claiming all this scientific and expert consensus. I'm just talking common sense stuff that pretty much everyone agree on. This is simply the basics of how the body works. I could take some time to find some sources but so could you and you aren't so why should I?
It's pretty clear that you're thoroughly convinced of your own bullshit anyway, if you had any interest at all in finding the truth you'd do some light googling and find that pretty much everything I'm saying is true. I'm not interested in wasting my time finding arbitrary sources for common knowledge that you're just going to ignore anyway.
You don't have to find sources for me, I know they don't exist and if you find anything it's going to be obvious bullshit anyway. There are no serious doctors, nutritionists nor researchers who have any doubt whatsoever regarding what the roles and relationships of food and fat are in the human body. You're obviously just delusional. So good luck with that, I hope you can get past your issues and improve your life some day.
You admitted to me a few days ago that you are so fat that it makes you miserable. If direct, personal experience with it not working doesn't convince you, nothing will.
Are you juggling two accounts?
Yeah I said I find it miserable to be moderately overweight. I never said being more active and eating less doesn't work. It works great when I do it. I was under 90kg last year after just a few months of being active and eating better. And when I stop being active and start eating too much food, I gain weight. Which is literally exactly what I'm saying. So, I have direct personal experience with my advice working exactly the way I'm telling you it does.
At this point I'm just saying the same shit I said in the other comment already. The fact that I find it hard to follow my own advice, which I just told you because I thought it might help get my point across, is completely irrelevant to whether the advice works.
Anyway I'm over this whole conversation at this point. Do and believe whatever you want. I've said what I wanted to say. If you don't believe me that's fine, I don't care.
Methylmercury cysteine is an extra amino acid, and obesity is indistinguishable from mild kwashiorkor.
You are simply wrong about how everything involved works. It's a diseased, swollen tissue, not "energy storage".
Lol you guys are unbelievable. Go to Google, type in kwashiorkor, go to images and tell me that's indistinguishable from your average fatass.
Let's say there is a new discovery tomorrow - there is a virus that lives in your mitochondria, and makes them unable to produce energy. We can make a vaccine against it, and nobody will ever get fat.
Would you be against the vaccine?
Why would I be against that? I'm not against ozempic either.
I'm just against people who throw their hands in the air, say "my fatness is a disease" and continue eating 4000 calories a day while hardly moving at all. And just to be clear I'm not against the fatness - if you want to be fat that's fine, I don't care. It's your life. And if you want to say it's a mental disorder that's fine too, addiction is real and I know first hand that it's hard to resist good food and get off the couch.
Just don't claim there's nothing to be done about it. There is. I and many people I know have successfully lost weight by eating less and moving more. I've also gained weight by eating too much and moving too little. Because that's literally how it works, for everyone in the entire world. Sure it's possible to have some disease or disorder that prevents you from gaining weight by preventing you from utilizing the calories in your food. Or parasites can steal your calories. But if you aren't eating, your body still needs energy. It can't just choose to not use energy, energy is required to live. Without energy the heart doesn't beat, the lungs don't breathe, the brain doesn't brain, the muscles don't work. It's not like the body's just wasting energy, it uses as much as it has to. It's a fine tuned machine. So it can't just use less - the only way to use less energy is to spend less by moving less. Maybe the body can reduce it slightly by adjusting organ activity and such, but not much.
This is why we breathe oxygen and exhale CO2. Oxygen is literally used to burn calories, CO2 is the product of that combustion. Just like in a fire. When you exert yourself the body is spending more energy so it needs more oxygen and produces more CO2, that's why we need to breathe faster and our heart beats faster to get the oxygen to where it's needed and get rid of all the CO2. When you relax, your pulse and breathing lowers because you're burning very little.
Now, with this understanding of basic body functions it's obvious that moving more and eating less is how you lose weight. There is no question about it, it's just clear as day and absolutely indisputable.
All right. I guess you're right then, and the entire world is lying and everybody wants nothing else than to eat more.
Entire world? Everybody? No, I think most people are completely aware of the link between overeating and overweight. If everyone around you agree that food intake and weight are entirely unrelated things then maybe you're just in some kind of echo chamber. Or maybe people just don't care enough to challenge your ideas. I don't know, but I do know for a fact that what I said earlier is true and that it is the overwhelming scientific consensus.
That's why common remedies for obesity are things like dieting, stomach reducing surgery to reduce capacity for food, and ozempic and similar drugs that reduce appetite. See how the common denominator here is less food? Diet for those who can do it that way, more drastic measures for those who struggle with self control. And of course all of these solutions work better when coupled with regular physical activity. Simply taking a daily walk for half an hour is a great way to burn some extra calories and get the heart pumping at least a little, this has many benefits beyond burning calories.
Trust me I know it's hard. I'm not in the shape I wish I was. It's a lot easier to order a pizza than go to the store, figure out what to make, buy ingredients and cook a heathy meal. And it's so nice just crushing half or more of a large pizza in one sitting. The amount of junk food i can eat before I feel full is way more than I should have. It's a lot easier to spend all day in front of the computer or on the couch than getting out and doing some exercise. It's hard to do the things I know I should do, when what I should do and what I want to do are so different. I know from experience that when you get going it's easier to keep it going but I've also fallen off the wagon a lot. And it's not like you just do it for a little while and you're good, it's a permanent lifestyle change. It takes months or years of dieting to get down to a normal weight, it's a huge task.
But if you don't even believe that this is the solution, which it unequivocally is by the way, then you're either going to waste your time and probably money on things that don't work or more likely just keep eating yourself into an early grave while telling yourself you're just unlucky.
And I think it's worth some negative social points for saying things that might upset some people on social media, if I can maybe influence someone to get their shit together and work towards a better life.
This isn't opinion, I am 100% sure about these things and I'm not paid to say them. I just want to help. Trust me, you can lose weight and eating less and moving more is the way to do it. Ozempic and similar drugs can help with that and there's no shame in using them. The only thing that matters is getting healthy.
Obesity is a deadly condition and it's miserable. Trust me I've been in great shape I know exactly what I'm missing. And I'm not even very overweight, I'm about 100kg and it's already miserable. I can't imagine what it must be like for someone to weigh 150+. Struggling to breathe, getting winded just from getting off the couch. It's no way to spend your limited time in this world.
Oh and I forgot to mention a cool fact in my previous comment: that CO2 you're breathing out - that is your fat. That's where your fat goes when you burn it, you literally breathe it out. And the carbs of course. Your body turns the food you eat into energy and CO2. Unless you eat too much, then it turns it into fat to store it for later.
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.
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
I get a lot of side effects on it, and during those side effects, yoghurt is about all I can stomach.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Frankly, it should be considered fraud.
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.
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.
> We can see that with clothing and appearance: people started to dress slovenly, preferring comfort to being presentable and well-put together.
I know a 21 year old dude who dresses like he's from the 50s, suit, hat and all. He looks extremely presentable and is the biggest compliment machine that I know!
I live in a beach town and dress almost always in trousers and sports coat, occasionally in a suit, sometimes casually in jeans and shirts and desert boots, but always with intention.
Well, what can I do? I am terribly vain and don't see myself going out in flip-flops when not at the beach.
> Most people, left to their own devices, without cultural pressure, are lazy, unproductive, and slovenly.
I disagree strongly. I think most people do the best they can. When they are emotionally overwhelmed, they withdraw.
Doing things you dislike, such as dressing certain ways, is not slovenliness. Your opinion is meaningful only to you (and those who choose to share it), it's not a standard. Also, what data is there of a problem? When people started dressing more casually (which I guess is your objection), the economy boomed, freedom boomed, Silicon Valley - famously casual - boomed, etc.
We could say that your thinking is slovenly, too lazy to try to understand that others have very different thoughts, perspectives, and priorities which are just as valid as yours. Too lazy to try to look at evidence. Much easier to take the egocentric path and judge everyone else, and repeat misinformation that's appealing - and all especially easier when it's culturally enabled.
Of course I judge, and I expect other people to judge me. It is what we do every day: we assess, evaluate, and draw conclusions. What people have problems with is not to be judged per se, but judged negatively: "oh, please stop judging me as a brilliant, awesome, good-looking person!" is something that, in fact, nobody never said.
The way that the comment I am answering comes across is quite reactive in nature and too forceful in tone. Nowhere I said that people should dress in a suit or sundress or that they should have visible abs. I do, but that is just my preference.
I just expressed my opinion that, when left to their own devices, people are often apathetic. Or maybe, as the writer of the comment suggested, they (some, to be clear, but in my opinion, too many) choose to be 400 pounds, not showering, dressing in PJs, or doomscroll, because that's the way they are happy.
Good for them, they surely live a life of fewer preoccupations.
> Of course I judge, and I expect other people to judge me. It is what we do every day: we assess, evaluate, and draw conclusions.
Not 'of course' - it's a choice, like the other ones you talk about. This choice isn't a meaningless subjective preference like clothing, but one that results in errors and harm to other people. We are responsible for our errors and for preventing them - claiming the error is inevitable is to make yourself a victim.
I don't judge people unless I have to - it's not hard to learn, especially if you learn from and are responsible for your mistakes; I didn't have to make that mistake many times. And that has been the approach of most wise people I know. There is no other way to prevent those errors: Lacking godlike omniscience, we can't read minds or observe more than a very little; we are prone to serious errors. There's a reason courts and science require objective evidence and strict process; truth is very hard. 'Judge not' goes back a couple thousand years.
When I have to judge - for example, when evaluating job performance - I am very aware of my own limitations. Otherwise misplaced confidence causes even more mistakes.
Bullshit. We built a world that constantly exploits human limits, then act surprised when people hit them. No one has infinite willpower.
A most surprising remark.
Dressing with intention does not require any particular willpower, just some desire, intention, a bit of time, and a taste that may develop over time.
Avoiding doomscrolling is not that hard. The first few days are usually hard when we want to break a habit that's hanging around like a terrible smell, but after that, it is smooth sailing.
One can play victim not forever but for a long time: we have seen that in particular between 2010 and 2015, with people claiming to be abused by the most absurd things. But those abusers remain absurd, and the alleged victims--of food, social media, celebrities stealing their attention like a bully steals candy from a nerd-- pathetic.
These are all empty claim, including a grand social theory. I'm not even sure what you're talking about for 2010-2015. You really need to be drowning in yourself to believe it all and then, on top of it, to judge other people.
People don't share your priorities or beliefs. Maybe that's why they act differently.
> Avoiding doomscrolling is not that hard.
If you mean addiction to social media, that's empirically not true. You can see how many people are addicted, and the research about it. Typing a few bytes into HN doesn't change or establish any facts.
What are the empty claims?
It is simple logic that dressing with intention is not hard. But let's define 'hard' with an example: running a marathon under 3 hours is hard for the general population; that is, it is an activity that, despite desire, planning, and effort, is beyond reach for many.
Dressing appropriately, such as not going out in PJs or with a mangled, overused, stained T-shirt or in flip-flops (apart from the particular cases I need to include, otherwise I am marginalizing people who don't have the resources to buy a 3 dollar shirt or refuse to clean due to some disorders included in the DSM-5) is not hard.
Avoiding doomscrolling is certainly not hard; one, given sufficient desire and a recognition of their inability to stop looking at other people's lives, could just delete IG, snap, X, or whatever.
Finally, people can do what they want, like going out semi-naked and without showering for 3 weeks, farting in public, which has become an unfortunate common circumstance, doomscrolling until their eyes are a bright red, or eating until they explode because sugar is "addictive".
But I like encouraging people not to live their lives like defenseless victims of circumstances.
> What are the empty claims?
Almost all of them - you have no evidence, just your subjective beliefs stated as facts. There is a great, wide world outside your head.
> It is simple logic that dressing with intention is not hard.
I don't see logic in it. For many people, such as those on the spectrum and those emotionally exhausted by other demands, it is hard. We have emotional limits.
> appropriately
You are defining appropriately. You are free to follow your own ideas, and others are free to follow theirs. Many think your 'appropriate dress' is a waste of time and money, and an attempt distract from merit - putting lipstick on a pig. If someone does good or bad, works well or not, many think dress is irrelevant.
> Avoiding doomscrolling is certainly not hard
See my prior comment, which has an objective factual basis.
> farting in public, which has become an unfortunate common circumstance
huh? That's a pretty wild claim.
> I like encouraging people not to live their lives like defenseless victims of circumstances.
They are not doing that; they are living their own lives their own way, for the most part.
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...
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.
> 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...
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...
How can they measure individual grocery spending habits? People buy groceries for their whole household.
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.
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.
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.
> “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?
After discontinuation of Ozempic, people start to gain the weight again (and buy again more food), that’s why the spending changes again.
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!
> 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?
> 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.
>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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
It's entirely discipline and motivation. Just because only a select few people carry it through and maintain it doesn't change that. Just very few people in this world are truly disciplined and self-motivated.
You can see it all around you in one form or another:- overweight/obesity, alcohol consumption, smoking/vaping, people spending 5+ hours staring at glowing rectangles.
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.
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.
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!
>This comes down to individualism versus collectivism.
All fun and games until it costs every individual a massive amount.
Weight gain/loss is not a matter of motivation and discipline.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
From what you just wrote, it appears you misunderstood what I said. Just to be clear:
Red kidney beans (50g): PDCAAS = 0.88, Protein = 11.25g Basmati rice (50g): PDCAAS = 0.7, Protein = 4.5g
Red beans + rice (50g, 50g): PDCAAS = 1.0, Protein = 15.75g
Milk (500g..): PDCAAS = 1.0, Protein = 15.5g
So, from a protein perspective (according to PDCAAS), 500g of milk will give you the same amount of usable protein as the 100g rice and beans meal. There is nothing left on the table.
So, just eating kidney beans, PDCAAS would say that you aren't really getting the full benefit of the "protein on the label". But once you combine it with rice, you are getting the full benefit (according to PDCAAS).
You can't look at the digestibility of the two foods in isolation to make the calculations.
As long as you are eating a varied diet, PDCAAS is pretty pointless. If you have an eating disorder, or food scarcity issues, then it might become important.
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.
I just want to clarify that I'm obviously not suggesting to eat 3500 calories of beans daily, and that's it. Just like I did not straw-man OP by claiming he was arguing that we should live on 100% doritos.
I just made a simple comparison between two food types, on the one had the example OP gave (doritos), and on the other hand the most common staple foods eaten in the world, like grains and legumes.
Again if I have to repeat that, the most common staple foods in the world.
That I hope does enough to dissuade you from making the argument that eating these ingredients is a ridiculous endeavor. It's actually what the majority of healthy humans eat on this planet for centuries, the standard, the norm.
It's for anyone obese to figure out why they don't apply this norm.
Take legumes for example, cooked as a Daal it is eaten by more than a billion people all the time. 20 to 30 different types of pulses are cooked, and hundreds of recipies exist. If you walk into your local Indian restaurant, you'll experience a wide range of intense flavors. To say these are the blandest ingredients is incorrect, virtually everyone would prefer to eat such food daily compared to doritos for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The idea that ultra-processed foods are a staple in my diet, is insanity. I'd be disgusted. I love ultra-processed foods as an occasional snack, not as a diet. My diet is healthy, affordable and tasty. Google and youtube are full of examples of affordable, tasty meals.
Minimal processing is completely fine by the way. There's little wrong with a good canned bean for example, great shelf life, minimal salt, maximal convenience, good nutrition, good price. Thrown into a salad with a simple dressing of olive oil and lemon juice, with some cut vegetables, gives a complete meal. Not more expensive than doritos, healthy, full of vitamins, calories, low glycemic index, protein, and 'cooking' is a matter of throwing the ingredients in a bowl and mixing, childs' play.
Same with the daals I mentioned, mostly a matter of throwing ingredients into a pot. Cooks itself with no supervision in less than half an hour while you're on your phone. Stores 5 days in the fridge or months in the freezer. Can be a great breakfast or dinner multiple times a week.
There's just tons of these options that are delicious and easy, cheap and quick, enjoyed by billions. Obese people just need better education and mentorship in my opinion. I could never be fat because my parents and environment showed me normal food culture, without it I'd probably be fat. I truly believe in the power of mentorship here, which isn't properly institutionalised or commercialised, which is why so many people lack it.
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.
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.
Eh there was no comparison at all in attractiveness, but purely in price per calorie / nutrition. I don't see the issue in the comparison?
OP said processed foods are cheaper per calorie than healthy, i.e. eating healthy is more expensive and more difficult.
Nothing at all was said about 'processed foods are more tasty, thus eating healthy is more difficulty', so I didn't reply to it.
Then OP provided Doritos as an example. And I countered by showing that the worlds staple foods eaten by billions, non-processed, are much cheaper than eating processed foods like Doritos example OP gave. That's all.
Now as for your point on taste: try eating a nice daal at your local Indian restaurant and tell me you'd rather eat bags of doritos every day for breakfast, lunch or dinner. If you prefer Doritos then I don't know what to tell YOU.
Indians and Chinese would like a word with you...
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.
> You are SO SO wrong if you think
I don't.
> Please actually go to east asia
I'm posting from east-Asia.
I know Asians also eat crap. That's why I said 1 billion, not 5 billion Asians eat nutritious staple foods.
> Also white rice
I didn't mention white rice. -- Not a great staple, but even if I had to play devil's advocate for rice, it's easy competition against doritos.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
"let me meet your fat fruit friends" https://youtube.com/shorts/Cp4093Dzt4E
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You're in the faux enlightenment that everybody gets during weight loss. Everybody I've ever known losing weight starts discovering the wonders of healthy eating and nutrition as they lose weight, vowing never again to go back to their old habits. Then they slip further down the line and 1-2 years they're back to their original weight, plus some.
Weight loss isn't the challenge. Maintaining it for the rest of your life is.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
Citation? Sounds dubious
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."
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.
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.
I don't think it's natural (in the sense of defining health) for adequate homeostasis to require special rituals and constant attention.
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.
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.
>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...
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.
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..
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.
>I don't think it's natural
Natural is a fair part of your population starving every winter.
So what do you suggest instead?
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?
> 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.
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/#:~:text=S...
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The answer applicable to individuals is to leave the suburbs and move to a city.
The answer applicable to the government is to build better cities.
The answer is never stay in the suburbs but take drugs the rest of your life and spend the end of your life miserably unhealthy. You’re free to do that if you want to, you just can’t pretend it’s healthy.
Ya, if you look at the propaganda being thrown around today '15 minute cities' are a communist trap meant to imprison you... don't expect change in the US.
I’m not in the US but in the Netherlands. Bananas are indeed pretty cheap kilo wise, currently about €2,50. Apples and pears are next at about €3,50. Strawberries in season are about €10/kg. Green kiwi is €5/kg, gold kiwi is €10/kg. Mangos are extremely cheap now at €1,39/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 <€1 or <€2 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.
Well, some fruits are cheap. But there's plenty of expensive fruits that people might want to eat, too.
There are plenty of expensive snacks.
Why is fruit the example of a healthy snack? Fruits are full of fructose, which is enemy #1 for weight loss.
Not so much when you consume it along with the fibre which is typically also included in the fruit.
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.
> In the US, bananas average $1.68/kilo:
That's definitely not something I expected to be cheaper in Canada than the US.
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.
I can buy a bag of apples for less than what a pack of Little Debbie snacks cost.
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.
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.
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.
Apples last much longer than 1 week, even if stored at room temperature.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1 box of snack cakes still has better shelf life than 1 bag of apples.
A pound of dry rice or beans keeps just as well, provides more food, and is cheaper unless you're buying basmati.
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.
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.
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.
I buy 3-pound bags of dried fruit all the time.
Dried fruits are not as good as fresh fruit though (and can be less palatable)
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.
Now I'm picturing someone peeling their Zebra Cakes and cutting it into slices.
Calorie wise you'd need to 2-3 apples to equal most Little Debbie snacks, but in terms of satiation the opposite is true.
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.
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.
> 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.
I think you completely misunderstood what I 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.
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.
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).
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.
> 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!
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...
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%.
> 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?
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.)
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Protein, to combat the well-publicized muscle loss that can occur.
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?
Yeah, I found out the hard way about that about two weeks into my journey and it was not a pleasant experience.
protein
Probably that it's a soft food and so is easier to eat when you have no appetite. Protein isn't that relevant.
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.
Been following a whole food diet for a few years now, with one simple rule: avoid anything pre-made that has preservative or additives.
Everything is made as much as possible from scratch with fresh, frozen or dried ingredients. The only downside is most fresh ingredients need to be used within a few days (lack of preservatives/additives) - which means often making a stew using anything left-over that needs to be eaten. But throwing a whole heap of ingredients in a pot for 2 hours is a very quick/easy meal.
There are some carve-outs as we don't have unlimited time/space so items like cheese, yoghurt, anything fermented we don't make our own - but we stick to organic and preferably low-salt.
We never eat out or buy takeaway; if we feel like pizza we make and bake our own bases, and the toppings are all fresh. Bread is particularly something we never buy and have reduced our consumption: baking your own is less convenient but we eat a lot of rolled oats instead.
We don't limit snacks like chocolate (organic, no added vegetable oils) or nuts and go through an insane amount of honey.
This is the most sensible attitude I've seen people express that has led to meaningful weight loss, maintenance and as far as we can see across large timespans, lifestyle change.
It's incredibly hard to gain weight by eating whole or minimally processed foods. The destruction and recombination of foods (and their food matrix) into ultra processed foods is one of the driving causes behind people eating more because the artificial textures and softness is one of the main drivers of over-eating, especially of high calorie foods.
I'd wager that people could replicate the same satiety induced weight loss (to a slower, but safer extent) through minimising ultra processed foods than GLP drugs.
It reduces your supermarket shop to about 10% of the store. Almost anything packed and transported is out of the question, as are entire rows of capitalism-driven junk food.
It is very hard to gain weight when paired with some daily cardio and/or weights, even when you are eating to build up more muscle mass.
Eating healthy snacks through the day: handfuls of oily nuts (peanuts, cashews, macadamias), full fat smoothies and a lot of protein doesn't shift the scales.
We still end up buying some packed and transported food: Frozen blueberries from Chile, Spanish olive oil, dried herbs like tumeric, paprika etc but most meat/fruit/vegetables is sourced locally.
>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.
> 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.
>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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
>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.
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.
>> 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.
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.
> 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
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).
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.
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.
Hm, good point
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.
If I throw away 500 calories of food, I'm not eating an excess 500 calories. Let's not engage in equivocation
If you don't read the main part of my reply, why do you even reply with snarky nastiness.
> 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.
Also need to account for restaurant spending.
> 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
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...
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
More subtle as in still not a healthy diet with exercise?
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.
Meanwhile, tracking consumption involves error bars that span a factor of 2. Go figure out how many calories are in an avocado. Is that per gram figure amortized for the weight of the pit, or is this just for the flesh?
Counting calories precisely was invented by the processed food industry.
10 calories a day is like the BMR difference between 20 and 30.
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.
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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
> 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.
> 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?
> 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'
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.
1 in 12 is wild. That means about 50% of all obese germans are on GLP-1s.
It also likely includes T2 diabetics, where these meds are more or less best-in-class treatment now.
Are overweight but non-obese people unable to get GLP1s in Germany?
Yes, anyone is able to 'get' GLP1 analogs, but your BMI and comorbidities (as well as purchasing power) determine the 'how' and the cost.
You need a BMI >30 or a BMI >27 + some risk factor like high blood pressure.
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.
> 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.
Nobody did, please don't derail the conversation. I did even acknowledge that Germans aren't that slim.
Ah but you see that's unfair, because Europe has much better beers than Asia.
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).
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.)
> the variety and quality of beers we have to choose from in America is pretty astonishing
That feels like a 2000+ change though.
I think most europeans wouldnt mind agreeing to that most Asian countries are eating healthier, and their bmis will reflect that.
Well said, to add though they do make you crave certain foods differently - fruit more, processed foods less.
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...
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
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].
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[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.
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_trends
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.
According to [0] the overweight rate looks stable, but obesity went up.
[0] https://www.obesitefrance.fr/lobesite-cest-quoi/les-chiffres...
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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).
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.
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.
Fair points
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.
> 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.
> 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.
"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'.
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.
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)
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.
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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.
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.
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)
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.
> 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"?
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.
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.
> 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.
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
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.
This is narrative ignores consumer preference. A salad can be delivered as easily as a pizza.
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.
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.
Sugar free soda?
... is an exception, and not the rule.
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.
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
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
Maraconi and potatoes are cheaper, I grant you that.
> 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.
The premium is surprisingly small (primarily because chopped goods ship better and need less protection than whole ones)
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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...
> 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.)
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Vegetables are pretty terrible for caloric sustenance. Low density and high price.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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).
The average American spends five hours a day watching television. They could find the time if they wanted.
Not poor people, they are too busy to watch TV.
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.
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.
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.
I’m pretty sure this has reversed in recent decades. Wealthy people are far more likely to work long hours than the poor.
You are correct. I should have added /s
Humour is wasted here.
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.
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.
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.
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).
> 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.
People do not want to be accountable for what they put in their body. "Cooking is hard. Eating healthy is hard."
It's shocking.
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
Also price. What percentile of income do you need to feed a family of 4 on Whole Foods?
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.
lol, Alnatura is the worst. I’d prefer any Netto, Späti, 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
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.
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.
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_media_doc...
This sounds like an interesting proposition, do you happen to have the numbers to back it up?
[dead]
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.
That doesn’t seem to be working in the UK. We are nearly as bad as the US for obesity.
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.
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.
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
> 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?
Meanwhile, YUM foods is probably working overtime trying to find a way to work around the effects of GLP-1.
I saw a Taco Bell ad for new "luxury" meal boxes. So perhaps their solution is to move up-market and high-margin
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.)
> 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.
Most out of shape guy I know is German fellow who likes "healthy food".
Food is wayyyy better in America than Europe, are you kidding? Why do you think we're so fat?
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.
> 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.
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.
Exercise to the extent that obese people will do usually does not a very sizable impact on weight compared to the effect of proper diet, and weight loss is very achievable with zero exercise.
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!
Awesome, happy for your father!
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.
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.
Agreed, but thermodynamics (calorie in/out) still holds. If you actually eat healthy (say 2500 calories), you will lose weight if you're obese and need >3000 to maintain weight, period.
Sustaining that healthy diet is harder insulin resistance, agreed!
But you said you ate healthy for a decade. To me that's not eating obesity-maintenance level amounts of otherwise healthy foods, but rather eating healthy foods at a normal (say 2500 kcal daily) amount.
In other words, under your statement the behavioral impact of insulin resistance was already overcome, you were eating properly, and still didn't lose weight. And that's just not conform the science, which states that you lose weight even with high insulin resistance, as long as you're eating healthy (i.e. in a caloric deficit vis-a-vis obesity level maintenance).
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.
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.
> 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
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.
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
> 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.
>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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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".
> 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
> 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
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.
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.
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
Wow, you have solved all mental illness. Just change the way your brain works so its normal. Brillant!
“Again I don’t really care”. Yet you keep coming back saying your way is the only way.
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
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?
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
Yes. What's wrong with that? There are large portions of the population that already do that for other health related issues.
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.
natural selection. you can only cheat it so far.
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.
This is loser thinking: you are skinny because of luck. You are successful because of luck. You are rich because of luck.
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.
Not remotely weird: people were poorer and food was more scarce across the board pre-WWII.
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...
> 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.
“Eating disorders didn’t exist one century ago” is indeed some take.
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.
Many people pre ww2 were perpetually hungry. Now they can afford as much food as they want
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
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?
Or that it happens overwhelmingly in specific places with a very broad genetic mix.
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.
>> 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.
> fact that you put too much food in your mouth (and probably the wrong kind of food)
I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes five years ago. I radically changed my diet to a hard keto diet with a cap of 50g of net carbohydrate per day (carbs - fiber = net carbs). My caloric intake quadrupled due to fats being high calorie. My weight dropped by 48 pounds. In every measurement, I'm healthier despite being older. My diet is also expensive and difficult:
Most foods in the us are high in carbohydrate. Cereals, added sugars, fake sugar free (sugar alcohol instead of sugar), and foods that have lots of integrated carbs... sandwiches, tortillas, etc. There's a huge preference for bad foods baked into the culture. It's hard to eat well. So culture is as much of a problem as any other factor.
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.
I’m sure in 5 years all processed microwave meals and fast food will be “fortified with GLP-1”.
Historically, this is called "fiber", and has already been regulated to be required in European breads
> and has already been regulated to be required in European breads
Source needed.
I find this humorous but I’m also genuinely curious what the analogy is between fiber and GLPs?
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.
"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.
In most developed countries people eat lots of fiber. Like just unbelievable amounts of meat, more than ever before in human history and prehistory.
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.
Sorry, that was a mistype, I mean lots of meat, very little fiber.
Probably simply "makes you feel full longer".
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.
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
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.
Do you seriously think that you’re not in a minority of people taking GLP-1 drugs for IBS and not weight loss?
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?
>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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
These ideas make a lot more sense once you realize some people just enjoy being cruel.
I don't think "medication stops working when people stop taking it" is really a terrible thing.
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...
Processed foods are easier to modify. Hence, given corporate greed, they are addictive and unhealthy.
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.
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.
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/
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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?
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...
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.
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
> 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.
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.
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.
No you can’t say that. Fat people don’t get fat on eating vegetables and water.
French fries are vegetables ;)
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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
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.
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.
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!)
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!"?
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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)
> 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.
... and that "bad" food in the US is frequently cheaper and easier to find than "good" food.
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.
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?
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%.
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.
> 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.
But obesity rates are going up there, too, they are just lagging behind the Anglo world.
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.
Your friend circle in Germany probably doesn't have many members who were a proud big boned 5"7' 300lbs (~140kg).
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/
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
> 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?
Worse food and less fat shaming.
The US population (~350m) is about 4 times that of Germany (~85m)...
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
Several studies conducted during the last 50 years have shown that lower intelligence is associated with a higher body mass index.
So this is why SE Asia is kicking the crap out of the US and Europe?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
Yeah that could be - I don’t know many 300lb people well enough to talk about that.
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.
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
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."
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.
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.
> 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.
this is the remains of the moral outrage that was online and in the media a few years ago when ozympic was first mediatised
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.
Where is that? I'm pretty sure in France you can't just walk into a pharmacy and buy it, you need a prescription.
Yes, she has a prescription. I did not think it was relevant to the supply.
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/antidiabetiques-a...
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.
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
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.
There is until they're packaged because they're the same drug. Only the label is different.
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.
In Spain you can't. You need to be authorised by a doctor to buy those drugs.
This is also true in the US -- these are prescription drugs.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
It is for sure expensive (~300€ / month) but from my understanding nothing like the prices you see in the US (+2'000 $)
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.
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 :/
Wegovy tablets are $299 now.
that's good to hear, the sticker prices are insane
Wtf, is that just for original trademark GLP? Generics cost like <$30/mo in Russia.
It's $66CAD including taxes where I am after insurance. I save 3-4x that on less groceries.
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).
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.
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.
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.
There may be, but I haven't seen anyone lose significant weight either since this started.
Or, you know, just less obese people
We have quite a few obese people. Not as many as the US, but not few either.
> France [...] 2020 [...] excess weight was 47.3%, with 17% of subjects being obese
https://presse.inserm.fr/en/obesite-et-surpoids-pres-dun-fra...
Many of my not obese friends started using it out of pure laziness. But in general I believe that obese factor too :)
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 :)
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?
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).
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.
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.
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...
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
Maybe it's just not as talked about. Why would anyone bring it up. I can already sense the condescension in your statement.
Perhaps they are less forthcoming about taking it. I wasn't aware my father was on it until I saw his medicine cabinet.
> 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.
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.
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.
Nobody telling you because you have only judgements about it instead of empathy
Look he's doing the "we are not like that in Germany" meme
> 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I live in the US and I don't know of anyone taking this drug. But if they were, why would I know?
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.
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...
> 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
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.
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
>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."
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.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iM103vKdI5E
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.
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.
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
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.
>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?
Title is misleading, it’s “[Among households with an ozempic user], grocery spending reduced by 5.3% on average. It’s not overall
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.
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?
>> 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.
That's not uncommon in New York either.
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.
> 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?
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.
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
You need to include more info about your one meal, height and your actual weight. If your 5'2 this is alot less interesting
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
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.
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
Yes but US portions are anything but small
One of the heaviest people I worked with only ate one meal a day.
> 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.
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!
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).
Diet is important, but if you think that a handful of peanuts is leading to your issues I'd first task writing down _everything_ you touch to eat.
IMO, especially when one has snacks fully stocked, it's easy to 'forget' that you ate something.
One big breakthrough for me was reading Arnold S. "encyclopedia of body building". There's a lot of physiological tips and also very practical advice.
I'm sure you can get it from anywhere, but for me this was a big change. Sizing the reps, the workouts, the weights helped a lot in trying to make progress. Additionally endomorphic bodies need different excercise and I was doing too much ineffective cardio for months with few results.
Weights changed my results within a few weeks.
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.
I must’ve missed when peanuts became a bad dietary choice. What’s the evidence for this?
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.
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.
A handful of peanuts is roughly the amount of excess calories burned in a 30 minute cardio workout (I'm assuming).
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.
But GP literally said
> (like a handful of peanuts or a single large cookie).
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.
The exercise is probably not that large an input compared to the baseline calorie consumption that added muscle has.
I guess I have pretty defined eating times and don't really think about food until I am hungry.
One thing that has changed a lot is that my lunches use to be either plain sandwich (like cheese meat and bread) or whatever I bought from a local restaurant.
I hated the sandwich days. I don't like mayo but the sandwiches always left me hungry and scavenging. Adding some hummus spread was a pretty huge change in the satisfaction that I got from that meal, and it doesn't leave me hungry.
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.
> 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.
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.
They are probably still eating processed food just less of it...
They wouldn’t tell you that they are on it
I got the poison, I got the remedy.
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.
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... )
You really don’t know what you’re talking about and should not make inflammatory comments.
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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.
Germany is simply further from the origin of the Maize incident.
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.
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.
"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?
There is no way approximately one-sixth of a population are taking GLP-1 strictly for legitimate health issues.
Obesity is a legitimate health issue.
I would rephrase it as "lacking high sense of self-control leads to legitimate health issues".
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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?
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.
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.
> 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
You don't actually know the definition of empathy, do you?
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.
> 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.
I suspect if you verbalized that to people they would find you equally repulsive.
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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.
... do you have any evidence to back up this claim?
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.
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?
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.
bowl-slop is getting smaller and is now cup-slop
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.
>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.
> 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.
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
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.
It's more typical of that country and especially the balkans.
> 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.
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.
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
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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?
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.
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
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.
They'll be hard pressed to find something that isn't running into medical regulation territory.
But will medical regulation be an obstacle? All sorts of laws feel like they aren't the protection they used to be.
The figure isn’t 5% of all grocery spending, it’s a 5% household change after one member starts GLP-1.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
But that's what happened. I mean, it doesn't mean that proposing public transit is pointless, but if someone in 1930 heard about a trolley track being run in town and another person said "it's only a matter of time before the car companies try to sabotage mass transit", they would've been right. That's what actually happened.
It IS OK. You're on.
Wanting evidence for random claims is arrogant? I'd say magical thinking is whats arrogant.
A prediction is not a claim.
Predictions operate on events that will happen in the future.
Proofs typically operate on things that already exist.
As meta as this comment is, I can't help but note that parent may simply be engaging in pattern recognition.
it’s actually true and they’re trying to develop GLP-1 resistant foods by using other sensory channels: https://archive.is/N0whF
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.
> 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.
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.
The evidence is the future event/state/action that proves or disproves the prediction.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
That's fair. If one follows the path of least resistance, you'll end up eating crap.
...in the USA. On the path of least resistance in Europe, you can still eat healthy. And you don't have to take the car.
What kind place were you eating at the puts sauce on steak? Are you complaining about a BBQ restaurant, they are notoriously unhealthy.
> 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...
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.
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.
This is true for A1 or ketchup.
If you order a steak au poivre, it’s gonna have sauce.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
All the ingredients you get in Europe you can get in the US easily
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.
Truly spoken like someone who's never been out of their region.
Name an ingredient and I guarantee I'll be able to find it in either walmart or walgreens.
You can't even get half the cheese ww have here
Again, name an ingredient. If it's not in walmart it'll be in whole foods.
Additives already added to food exist to circumvent natural protections. Small leap to extend this to bypassing glp.
What natural protections?
Natural protection against overeating.
Such as?
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.
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Why bother when the junk food industry can just lobby hard and make these drugs illegal
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.
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.
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.
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
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.)
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.
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%.
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)?
Ozempic is not a product of US though
You're right and AFAIK it wasn't primarily developed for weight-loss either. Still, there's something not quite right with the way this band-aid would be required at non-trivial scale in the first place. I guess there really is a level of commerce that is too excessive.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
> "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. £114.50 for a Prepayment Certificate covering all prescriptions for a year: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/help-nhs-prescription-costs/nhs-pr...
That’s crazy cheap, I pay close to 400€ (!!!) monthly for Tirzepatide (GLP-1) and close to 50€ 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.
Genuinely asking, why not getting plane ticket somewhere generics cost 10+ times less?
This happened when I started Adderall, but eventually appetite came back after a few years.
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.
> 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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
>Try to think about food less, it starts in the mind.
It starts in the gut. That’s what we are learning with GLP1s.
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?
I would bet big bucks that the people not on SNAP are healthier than those on it.
SNAP is supposed to be about nutrition.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
Easier said than done.
Snacks could also be healthier. The bread we are sold could be less like pound cake. Easier said than done.
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)
Poor people can stop being poor by just earning more money.
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
Happened as such on my home as well. And, although i wasn't expecting it, cut off lots of money on booze and beer.
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
Good thing the FDA is fighting back by suggesting people eat more pork, beef etc
That’s an astonishing number. Wouldn’t that be more than enough to cause a decrease in grocery prices?
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.
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.
Do you think we get our little Debbie snacks from Paris?
No but the wood pulp for the cardboard boxes and the parts to keep the manufacturing lines running come from abroad.
Your assumption of the existence of a grocery market competing on price might be wrong.
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?
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.
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.
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.
“users who stop taking it gain the weight back” is not a baseless claim.
Most of the people on GLP will come off the drugs and regain the weight back to their original weight, if not heavier, just like people who temporarily restrict eating in any other way (discipline). You need real lifestyle change. Even the people shilling the drugs tell people that.
Personally, I hope all of these business fail. Screw the fast food industry, dieting companies (they don't want customers to actually succeed), and the pharma companies that are restricting access to people who actually need GLP drugs.
Regaining the weight quickly after stopping taking the drugs seems reasonably well substantiated? https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj-2025-085304
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.
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.
I think it’s not ozempic, it’s people not able to afford as much as before
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.
True, but another factor is that the families where someone is taking a 300$-per-month medication have less money left to spend.
It’s not cheap, especially in the US. That extra expense has to come from somewhere
Maybe? Although it sounds the study was able to differentiate between families where people were taking a GLP-1 vs families who were not.
Read the article or just the headline?
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Anyone else notice the lack of crowds at their gym post new years?
I don't think this is based around GLP drugs. I've noticed the gym, swimming pools, running and cycling routes I usually frequent have been lower every year for the past 5 years or so (the spike in January is smaller every year).
I think new years resolutions are dying out, or people are doing non-fitness based resolutions (eg. Dry January) more often now.
No, I quit the gym last year.
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!
Prediction, the food and/or restaurant associations will start a campaign to claim ozempic causes autism (etc...)
> 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.
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
> 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!
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.
> 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.
Strange to think that the whole obesity epidemic was essentially people buying 5% more calories than they should have.
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.
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.
Thank Christ. Grocery’s been a tip in the US for almost 20 years. Pendulum swinging back way overdue.
This matches with another study that found that Ozempic reduced people pooping by 4.2% on an average.
For Ozempic to "change the foods Americans buy".
Just how many Americans are on Ozempic?
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!
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.
"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."
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…
But why is a Danish product being accused of something that an American product also does
Interesting to consider the effects of GLP-1 drugs on the environment then
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
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)
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...
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.
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.
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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
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%.
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%.
That's not "a touch" misleading. It's very misleading.
Unless the title was changed, it says "average" which to me pretty clearly means it's measuring individual or household consumption
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
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"
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.
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.
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)
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.
> 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.
> 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.
You are spending a fraction of $350/mo on food? I'm actually interested in learning more...
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.
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.
> 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.
Cheers. This is great advice, thanks.
Thanks for sharing, I am also a Canadian. I'll read and digest (no pun intended) what you wrote.
While you might be right in what you have presented, your calculation of the total savings is not including reduced medical spending.
I mean considering most drugs don't result in any cost savings on routine household spending, that's still pretty welcome.
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If you could sit with the authors of this paper and let them know this valuable insight, what do you think they would change about their paper and its conclusion?
Yes, but this is literally a study trying to determine whether correlation is causation.
I'm not sure they are able to disentangle it from general lifestyle changes someone on a new weightloss drug might want to make?
(However, you can probably compare it to other lifestyle changes people on previous weightloss drugs did. If we presume that going on a weightloss drug at all is roughly the same impact on associated lifestyle change choices.)
So, the body positivity campaign was a psyop.
The "fat influencers" either died or awakened to reason thus abandoning their unhealthy lifestyle.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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?
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!
Heal yourself; get off the psychedelic treadmill.
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.
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.
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.