Having a discussion about -many things with a friend over a coffee today, he mentioned that rather than focus on some of the health care they do, he would rather effort put into combatting the obesity epidemic, which is undoubtedly, one of the largest health factors we face as a society. Whilst we went into how there is no centralized incentive to fix the problem due to it being a consumptive and therefore a revenue-earning issue, it reminded me of part of the conversation from an article I wrote last week, on the socio-economic factors that impact obesity figures in Finland.
What I was then thinking about is that in a place like Finland where opportunity is largely available to all, higher education is likely correlated with higher earnings, but also likely with higher intelligence. Or perhaps, a different kind of "mindset" when it comes to learning.
And, just as a very quick exercise, I raised the conversation where perhaps it is possible that our thinking also impacts on our ability to lose weight at a more physical sense also. After all, our brains take up 20% of our energy reserves (under "normal" conditions), and a person thinking hard will burn a bit more, which might not be that significant. However, what about not thinking more, for instance, whilst watching TV which requires close to no thought at all?
It seems to be a doubling down on our inactivity, where not only are our bodies still, but our minds too. And, it also likely has some kind of compounding effect also, where the more we consume, the stupider we get, and the stupider we get, the more we will consume - because we aren't going to do the mental work ourselves. Then, because we aren't doing the mental work, we are going to be increasingly influenced by what we are consuming, which is essentially messaging to consume more of something, speeding up the spiraling into oblivion.
And then, there are the other factors that play into this, where the people who "think a lot" are also likely to be the ones who will actively search for new thoughts, which will often give them chance encounters that bring in randomization of information. This not only requires additional thought, but can also lead to alternative action. However, when we can pick and chose, curate our content lives to keep us comfortable, we are surrounding ourselves with information that signals we are doing the right thing and encourages us to stay the same.
I strongly believe that the challenge to address growing health issues isn't too big to overcome, but it is too valuable to fix. There is far more being made from sick people than the healthy over a lifetime, so the drive is to maintain illness, not promote health. Part of this come through the messaging, where people are influenced to "love themselves" no matter what condition they are in or what activities they do. However, the better message would be to love yourself enough to improve yourself, right?
Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.
Agent Smith [The Matrix]
None of us are perfect by design. Humans are made to improve. So, even if we did have a perfect world, our humanness would reject it because static isn't enough, and that is what perfection is - the point where change is no longer possible. Effective death. We shouldn't be working out ways to consolidate and accept ourselves no matter what we do or the results we get - we should accept ourselves as imperfect and try to do something about it, act toward perfect - even if we inevitably fail because perfect as an endpoint is a moving target that is impossible to reach.
This is likely why we push things like forgiveness and perfection out to a magical god of some kind, because humans are incapable of achieving these things. They are not part of our nature and never truly will be. Those who think they are, just haven't yet been pushed hard enough by the conditions to prove them wrong. We might believe ourselves pacifists, but we are all capable of violence under the right circumstances.
So, instead of encouraging ourselves to be better, we are being conditioned to consume what is available, to eat what is served us, unthinkingly, endlessly. It is far cheaper to produce engaging content for the mindless masses, than it is for the thoughtful minority, because the minority will keep changing, keep growing, keep pivoting away from the trends, because they will grow. The masses however evolve more slowly, because they are products of their environment too.
If we are looking at it from a type of nutritional makeup, we can predict that poor nutrition will stunt our growth and affect everything from our IQ to our emotional wellbeing. And, good nutrition will affect in the opposite direction. However this is the same for the content we consume too, where there is a difference in nutritional value between different kinds of content, because they encourage our body, our brain, to think in alternative ways.
But, if you are running a business on volume, you don't want alternative thinkers, you don't want healthy people, you want the masses to consume what is cheap to produce and easy to distribute. You don't want divergence, you want homogeneity.
And, this world is driven by supply and demand - it is driven by economics and the value is counted in money, not in health. If the currency generated was wellbeing, we would have fundamentally different business models across the board. But, instead of building business to make health, we build them to make money and then say, being healthy is too expensive and is therefore, not available for all.
Thinking more doesn't burn significant amounts of calories, but thinking about the right things can help us change our behaviors to align our actions with our goals. We become more resource efficient, evolving through the actions that lead us to where we want to be as a society, rather than spending the majority of the resources we have, convincing us to stay the same.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Once upon a time people thought the exact same thing about people who liked reading (even regardless of what they read), these days it's apparently a good thing to be seen as "well read" XD
though apparently now you don't even need to read to be well-read, just have Blinkist or Headspace or one of the other similar things which helpfully summarise books for you
And it was kind of funny to read the Matrix quote in here when I had just asked namiks if they'd seen the Animatrix in a completely different post about a completely different thing XD
I really enjoyed Animatrix.
to be seen as well read, no matter what is read! :D
People read and listen to podcasts to satisfy their consumption needs. Better than video I think, but if there is nothing applicable?
Well you know "everyone" has very strong opinions on what books "should" be read annd everyone is totally and completely correct and everyone who disagrees with them is quite simply wrong, no other option will ever be considered never mind accepted XD
I don't think any medium is better or worse than any other one as long as the information is accurate. Applicability is relative.
Oh you have stepped into one of my favorite rant subjects with this post. Here goes!
We are told that loving ourselves is the end all be all of happiness, and concurrently told that there could be a zillion things wrong with us (mental illnesses galore, cancer, ibd, heart disease, obesity etc etc etc) and we must be on the lookout for these likely problems at all times. Look for the flaws in yourself, look for the flaws in others, look for the flaws in your children, your pets, your finances, your motivations. Ask professionals to look for the flwas in you. There are lots of instruction manuals to find mental illness flaws, so that we are now all lay diagnosticians regarding mental differences.
If looking for flaws, you will find flaws, sometimes creating them just by looking for them. You will be encouraged, and in some cases, forced, to fix those flaws. This all feeds us relentlessly into the medical system, forcing us to consume medical products.
Health should be the norm. As it is, healthy people are few and far between. What is causing this, if all of us are seeking medical care every few months, as told to do?
It's absurd. Modern psychiatric and medical "care" is largely to blame for our ill health, obesity included.
The best thing we can all do for our health is to stay away from medical services, if you can. Sometimes that is a hard call to make, sometimes it's easy.
I think that you are right and also potentially wrong. You are right now, because the medical services are geared towards generating profit, not wellbeing. But, if there was some kind of utopia where health was the focus instead, perhaps medical services would do a good job. Obviously, this is not going to happen in an economy anything like what we have now though, as the incentives are all out of whack.
I do mean now, yes. I think even just a dozen years ago I would have said something very different, but recently the medical industry has gone too far into one-size-fits-all, and anyone who is not that "size" will be ill-treated. They no longer tailor care to the person in front of them, but rather to the dictates of the insurance companies.
No really, I do. The ACA, Obama Care, made that "care" far worse. I don't know how that affected care in Finland. Have you seen a difference of late?
If I go to doctors, I like them to be OLD. The old ones think differently. Actually, the younger ones, for the most part, don't even think.
Is this part of a global conspiracy? Yes! In fact, that is the control of the minds of the world community that is desired by crooked capitalists and politicians who carry out "contract marriages" to reap many benefits for both.
On the one hand, diseases are created and hospitals are provided, but the causes of most global diseases (for example, the obesity pandemic that you use as an example) are growing like mushrooms in the rainy season.
How many "sick food industries," such as junk food or fast food, are heavily capitalized and heavily backed by regulatory power? On the other hand, people's mental health is becoming increasingly weakened, so that they are unable to think about how to maintain good health.
Imagine, for example, that the content industry's attacks on social media are so intense and the direction is also to deceive and damage the mind, no matter how sick a person's mind is, when they are consciously willing to pay to watch and expand the pornographic film industry.
If they find you with your posts discussing this, then you too will be made sick because you went against them, believe me.
I am not sure if it is conspiracy or just incentive alignment. I think incentive alignment allows for collusion, without colluding.
"Mental health" is another business model.
One day. We will all be put on trial.
Intermittent fasting and replacing the sugar cravings with the vegan consumption has worked out for me. Not for all that would be possible. I don't think obesity issues can be handled with one template. As each of us have different life problems. And things can be difficult in that case.
However I feel that its high time that sugar substitutes need to be invented in such way that they can't hurt us in another side effect or so. Which is kind of case with stavia.
I virtually only ever use green leaf stevia powder for sweetness.
Wouldn't it be awesome to have an "oof switch" for sugar cravings. Turn it on for an hour sometimes, the rest of the time, leave it disabled.
Sad fact of reality. It is a constant struggle to try to align value that provide for the common good as well as the capitalism controllers.
I know it won't happen any time in my lifetime, but I do think that value should be derived from common good in wellbeing areas, rather than whatever makes the most money. It is like charging for energy. Ultimately, we should be looking to have clean, free energy. Instead, we say that clean is too expensive, so we can never have free.
There is a new tv show on netflix about Blue Zones, places where people live more than 100 years. What I learn in terms of food:
-nuts peanuts and seeds add +3 years to life
-sweet potatoes adds +3years to life
-switching from white bread to sourdough bread - adds extra years to life.
Bonus - black lentils and other black fruits and veggies - add years to life
I wonder if there are issues with eating too many nuts. Asking for a friend.
I haven't watched the series, but I have seen the advertisements for it. Might have a look. I don't care about living longer - but living better is important.
I think it does not always work the same in my country. Higher education might result in unemployment, immigration, doing a different job or being paid less than deserved.
Being paid less than deserved possibly, but more than the uneducated probably. If that makes sense.
You're stepping into territory that's become rather tricky. Jordan Petersen was recently "sentenced" to go to a "re-education facility" for social media sympathy/empathy training. Why? Because he tweets things that go against the grain like not agreeing with a facebook post of an overweight woman claiming that that is the new beautiful. Well apparently you're no longer allowed to have an opinion in Canada anymore, unless it agrees with whatever the latest "thing" is.
It seems like society has gone way off in the other direction again. Remember a few years back there was a big outcry about Barbies and how they are anatomically incorrect in terms of proportions and as a result we were "teaching our children to have an unhealthy self image" by being too skinny and so on? The pendulum has gone full swing now and obesity is now considered ok? I don't get it. There's never a happy medium it seems.
Perfection is not a bad thing to want to try attain as long as you don't drive yourself mad in the process, but perfection is different from person to person too.
I don't interact much with Jordan Peterson or others, however, they also make money from drama. If he speaks at only a general level, than he should be fine, but they tend to pick a target of some kind.
I don't care if an individual is over weight or believes themselves to be healthy, but there is plenty of data on the averages and outcomes of these groups. It is important to recognize probabilities.
These days, there are outcries that fitness models who eat well, sleep enough, exercise and the like - are unhealthy. Usually by people who barely can walk a flight of stares, loving their condition.
Perfection doesn't exist from person to person, it is always transient. Once one trait is satisfied, there will be the next step to take.
Yes I agree with that, bad news has always sold and drama is no different these days. The world is very weird at the moment and it's hard to see through the nonsense that goes around in the viral circles when so much gets taken out of context or misconstrued, as you so rightly pointed out in your post, it takes effort to see beyond whatever is being thrown at us and sift out what is true and most importantly useful. Most people don't do that these days though.
This topic made me remember a phrase from one of the series I watched before: "Healthy is Beautiful". It's not about being fat, skinny, buff, or sexy. Being healthy, no sickness and problems, is beautiful.
It's interesting that you brought up the relation between the brain and weight. I have read some discussions that our weight is the result of what our brain thinks is our ideal form. I don't fully agree with it, but I can see some merit in it. As soon as I start packing on some weight, my brain feels the difference, from mobility, flexibility, and other senses, and I tend to lose weight afterwards. Of course I can just ignore it and keep on eating more, which would invalidate that notion.
As for the keeping everyone ill, but not dead for financial gain. I do believe in this. Just looking at the US healthcare system and the insane prices of their medication, a lot of people are making a lot of money from people being sick.
Our brain is a physical thing too, so it should be obvious it interacts with the rest of our body. Yet, because that is where we imagine thought, we disconnect it from the outcomes of our body, as if we are two (or more) people. It is strange, isn't it?
To your last point:
Wow. That is a lot of money. And a lot of it coming from the back of suffering citizens.
I guess I should that Finland is still better in the aspect of education and others.
Here in Nigeria, getting a high and standard education is based on your money and it is very expensive
That is why so many people lack proper formal education
Up until the end of year 10, everyone is supported. It is still free all the way through university too.
it always turned out that having a conversation over a coffee brew an opportunity to have an endless conversation. As you discussed about health issues with your friend, i can say we have different perspective about what to consider as health challenge, your friend felt obesity is something he has to deal with as far as health related issue is concerning.
i don't think so, since we are likely to feel the pain of the character in the movie and be emotionally attached
That fact that human is not a perfect being or should i say the ephemeral nature of everything in this world make me think that we should just take good care of our mental health and focus on what is important when we are still breathing.
I am not so sure about that. I think it feeds so much of the information, that we don't actually have to put anything together ourselves. It is the lowest form of thought possible.