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Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

Both things are true.

There was a far more vicious shaming culture 50-70 years ago about things like being obese. And culturally it's still looked down upon to be obese, it's just not as acceptable to be vicious about it (and of course sometimes people still are).

Today however there is a lot more "always on" pressure: social media is a huge component to social, social acceptance, socializing, social learning & sharing, getting to date people, et al. That's a form of individually focused media pressure that didn't exist back then. And sure you can turn it off, not partake, but there are usually serious consequences especially for younger people.

That's the context.

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I didn't say it isn't true that people were shamed more often in the past, I said it has little to no explanatory power of the current health crisis because obviously there is no lack of desire from people to be slimmer.

I think it's a little bit of a silly thought to think that just because people want to be slimmer now, they want to do so just as much as they would have facing harsher social pressures in the 1950's.

How big were the health food, gym, and fitness industries in the 50s?

Answer: literally non-existent.

How big were the 'crash diet' and 'smoke cigarettes to stay thin' and 'use amphetamines to stay thin' industries?

Indeed, we have the inception of Weight Watchers at the start of the next decade, replacing far crazier things like the cabbage diet being used en masse.

Yes, it was easier in some ways to live a healthier life; one reason why was the rampant social policing of each other's weight.

The prevalence of dedicated dieting or weight loss efforts has increased over time. The success of those efforts has decreased over time.

> The prevalence of dedicated dieting or weight loss efforts has increased over time.

Perhaps, perhaps not. But you'd expect that if there's many different causes making weight gain more common and only one is changes in social pressures (as I've already stipulated in each post).

And, likewise, as stipulated above: overt social stigma is not the only reason why people might prefer to be of a lower weight.

> The success of those efforts has decreased over time.

Well, one reason for this is that we've reduced the use of obviously harmful but effective weight loss techniques like cigarettes and stimulants. The 1950s were the era of the rainbow diet pill clinic, where you'd walk in and get a personalized cocktail of amphetamines and thyroid drugs and laxatives and diuretics to help you control weight.

Non sense... There were not a particularly big stigma about being obese 50 or 70 years ago. Socially stigma were more about gender roles, sexuality etc...etc...

There was a huge stigma about being obese 50-70 years ago. It was wholly unacceptable for children, young persons and women in particular. Exclusively older men were allowed to be obese culturally without being shamed about it.

As recently as the 1980s movies were overloaded with jokes about fat people, it was extremely common. That's stigma in action culturally.

The 80's were 40 years ago... I am not sure where you get your reference from... Jokes about fat people and stigma about being fat aren't the same thing

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