Dogman wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote:

The principle anchors the comforting American belief that personal
responsibility explains all of our ills.

If personal responsibility worked you could go to the mall and not see
fat people.

I don't know exactly what you mean by that, Doug. How does "personal
responsibility" not work? On the other hand, either you accept
personal responsibility for your actions, or you don't. Those who do,
don't usually have these problems.

It's the same as when people say moderation always works. I reply with
the same mall comment and ask if they think there's even one fat person
at the mall who has failed to try moderation again and again and again.
The usual response is they should try harder. And harder. And harder.
Until it does work. My response is that's not what moderation means.
They never seem to get how much effort they actually mean nor what
moderation means.

Humans instinctively crave food that is carby, fat and salty. The carby
part is addictive so products stress carbs. Chemicals other than sodium
chloride can be added to alt to increase appetite. Companies don't even
have to have a deliberate plan to take advantage of these instinctive
cravings. All companies need to do is make more of the products that
sell better, make less of the products that sell worse, keep trying
variations on products to continue development to incrase profitability.
Any product that hits the instinctive human cravings will sell better.
Any product that triggers addictive behavior patterns will sell better.
The market will tune the rest until we have vast numbers of fat people
even wtihout any intent for that to happen.

Well, you've identified the problem, but...

On the one hand "It's not my fault. I'm powerless in the face of
corporate greed and propaganda" is a failing strategy. On the other
hand "It's my responsibility. All I need to is become a hermit so I am
not immersed in the endless media and peer messages to eat the wrong
way" is also a failing strategy. The gripping hand is we all know that
the law suit against Nuttella for claiming to be a health food is legal
harassment.

The fact of the matter is we get both messages that it's all personal
responsibility *and* messages to do the wrong thing. In endless
streams.

With both margarine and low fat the people who started pushing them
sincerely believed they were doing the right thing. Vast propaganda
engines were created to push those ideas even though they were
objectively harmful. In time the propaganda engine turned against
margarine as it's bad for everyone. Low fat is good for probably more
than a quarter of the population. It's a far harder sell to stop
pushing it so the roll off of that propaganda engine is much slower.
Worse there's the temptation to push low carb as the next all
encompassing solution for everyone because people really do want the
magic one size fits all solution for everyone.

Personal responsibility *can* *not* work in the face of endless pressure
to do the wrong thing. People jumped on the low fat bandwagon in droves
and got fat.

But it's worse. There is the profit motive of business that pushes fast
food. That message can't and won't change based on better knowledge
about what actually works in diet.

It validates all that wasted
time on the treadmill that people like Kolata and others endorse.

Exercise is beneficial for other reasons.

You bet. But it doesn't really help anyone lose weight, and can even
help to increase your weight, chance of injury, etc. Better to lose
the weight first, primarily through diet and very moderate (safe)
exercise, then, once the weight is lost, decide on what kind of
exercise is right for you.

Better still to start including some exercise any exercise from the gate
and build appropriately as you lose.

It's a different topic for how to deal with the fact that there are zero
physical pleasure in exercise to most of us. Who here has ever felt any
of that endorphin thing even when in peak condition for high school
sports or whatever? Motivation is easy when there's a drug effect from
doing the exercis eand that does happen for some people. For some
people who've never gotten fat in the first place. Motivation is a lot
harder for those of us who have never experienced that in our lives.
The focus is different. Pride in accomplishment. The very indirect
pleasure of better health. Very much a different topic.

It leaves the door
open to low-calorie, high-carbohydrate food products that make the
economy hum, are portable, do not require we learn to cook, make
children stop crying, and taste good. Any efforts at reporting science
to the contrary will always have a rough road."

And all that industry need do is observe what sells well, make more of
it, and advertise it. No ulterior motives othe than profit are needed.

Yep. GREED kills.

But it's duty not greed. At least for some. Businesses have a duty to
profit. Businesses hire greedy folks to implement the process or they
just plain hire professionals who do it.