From an individual-level analysis, I agree that adopting personal responsibility is the way to go. The problem is that it doesn’t seem to work en masse.
(I added the following to the main text of this post.)
Research suggests that “~80% of people who shed a significant portion of their body fat will not maintain that degree of weight loss for 12 months” and that “dieters regain, on average, more than half of what they lose within two years.”
Obesity and related chronic diseases are systemic issues. They’ll likely only be solved through systemic means rather than via the determination of individuals trying to stand against the system that’s intent on keeping them fat and sick.
My point is not that individual people shouldn’t try to improve their health. It’s that, ultimately, people are a reflection of their environment. And the environment we’ve created over the past 100 years is killing us.
From an individual-level analysis, I agree that adopting personal responsibility is the way to go. The problem is that it doesn’t seem to work en masse.
(I added the following to the main text of this post.)