Americans have long blamed the overweight. That might be about to change

It's so easy to overeat though. 1700-2300 calories is so little food. It's no wonder people are becoming obese when even a small dessert has 400 calories or 300-500 calories for mocha. Or 500-700 calories for a burger, no fries or soda. I tried to lose weight and was taken aback by how little food I was allowed to eat compared to before. You're stuck with salads, some slices of bread, black coffee, and maybe a single decent meal, all while resisting the temptation to overeat. Somehow this is supposed to be scalable for the general population to solve obesity.

I don’t think blaming overweight people for being overweight is any different or worse than blaming anyone for doing anything else that has a bad outcome.

The fact of the matter is that consuming less calories will make you lose weight (unless you’ve got a serious condition which makes you retain a ton of water or something). Counting your calories works, in cases where it doesn’t people are either:

a) Counting wrong, not including oils, small snacks etc

Or b) Wrongly estimating the amount of energy they’re expending.

There seems to be a stigma about saying that being overweight is because of the person that there doesn’t seem to be for most other things. If someone smokes cigarettes, loses their money gambling or gets fined for doing 120 in a 50 zone they will be held entirely responsible for their own bad choices, despite smoking, gambling and risk-taking all being often more addictive than overeating.

I think this is because there are a lot more overweight people than smokers, problem gamblers or compulsive thrill-seekers. Thus there are a lot more people who can read and agree with an article that says overeating isn't their fault, but someone who writes an article about how there shouldn't be speed limits because they're unfair to street racers would be ridiculed by the 98% of people who don't do that.

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