> Or it could just be that we're bad, bad people and should feel bad.
Why is there always a value judgment assumed? Why are you creating a false dichotomy between "it's out of my control" and "I'm a bad person"?
Why is there always a value judgment assumed? Why are you creating a false dichotomy between "it's out of my control" and "I'm a bad person"?
Perhaps you're simply not as sensitized to it as me, since it is becoming rather a raw spot with me. Go back and read the article again, carefully. Note how all the explanations of difference are assumed to be essentially moral failings of westerners, to eat "properly" [1] or exercise. Note the ingrained assumption that if there's a difference between the isolated primitive and the Westerner, the Westerner is automatically in the wrong, be it in behaviors or gut biomes, which they actually have to remind themselves may not be true, though they don't actually come up with any other possible explanations.
Mind you, I don't disagree that there are dietary issues in the Western diet or that there are exercise issues, but it's still bad science to presume in advance those are the only explanations to be considered, be it explicitly assumed or implicitly assumed. There's a world of variables out there and we've barely begun to shine a light.
[1]: Can't resist scare quoting since a lot of the people telling us what is "proper" in the past 40-50 years have also been dead wrong and quite possibly the dominant reason we're eating wrong in the first place; if not the dominant reason then certainly a huge one.
You are missing my point. Failure to eat "properly" or exercise is not a moral failing. The article never says that; you interpret it as such. I have failed to eat properly and exercise for most of my adult life. That does not make me a bad person. "Immoral" and "wrong" are not equivalent concepts; the former is a subset of the latter.
> Note the ingrained assumption that if there's a difference between the isolated primitive and the Westerner, the Westerner is automatically in the wrong, be it in behaviors or gut biomes, which they actually have to remind themselves may not be true, though they don't actually come up with any other possible explanations.
That's a problem in certain circles across all of medicine. Just look at the irrational support for "traditional Chinese medicine".
> Mind you, I don't disagree that there are dietary issues in the Western diet or that there are exercise issues, but it's still bad science to presume in advance those are the only explanations to be considered, be it explicitly assumed or implicitly assumed. There's a world of variables out there and we've barely begun to shine a light.
I agree, with medical science in particular suffering from this.
Only at the end of the article, someone else other than the author is quoted as saying that negative health outcomes can't be blamed on just your gut biome, but poor lifestyle choices as well.
Somehow this guy took this one statement, which is wholly correct and only points out the obvious, and turned it around to interpret the entire article as fat-shaming, and somehow misses the article's main purpose which is the lack of diversity in current data comparisons in this area of research.