You know they have Starbucks in other countries without an obesity crisis?
No one is forcing you or I to order a particular drink at Starbucks; they literally put the number of calories directly next to the menu item. The blame is 100% on the individuals making their own health decisions.
If you put a pile of junk food on the floor, your pet will eat it until they make themselves sick.
We are smarter than many animals and have more discipline. But we are still animals and do not have unlimited executive function. The people who architect the environment of incentives that surround us bear some amount of responsibility for the behavior those incentives create.
Denying that is denying that we are living beings subject to all of the same limitations as any other mortal animal. We are not spherical rational actors in a vacuum.
The idea that we should completely cede the environment and public space to corporations and give them total autonomy over the incentives that surround us is crazy.
On a macro scale, yes I agree that we should revolt against campaigns designed to exploit our animal nature. However on a personal basis, I do believe we owe it to ourselves to take radical responsibility over our own reactions to those things.
My initial comment was disagreeing with the claim that any systemic problem foisted on the world is solely the fault of our individual wills to resist it.
This isn’t to say Starbucks is causing obesity, of course. Most likely they are showing up together as the economy develops.
I do think it is worth noting that obesity is a pretty widespread problem, not uniquely American or anything like that.
Then again, free will is an illusion, so...