I feel like there's a hundred other issues higher on the list of things Americans aren't covered for...
Such as retirement, in general.
Roughly a quarter of the population has a significantly negative net worth (more debt than assets) and another roughly quarter has a zero to slightly negative net worth.
Basically that means a quarter of people will have to survive off of Social Security alone, while making interest payments on their debt. There are not many parts of the country right now where anyone can actually rent an apartment or afford a mortgage payment off of SSI alone, so better hope you already own a home, or you are in a rent controlled apartment.
The significantly indebted quarter of people will basically have to sell everything they own and borrow money from friends and family while still having to make debt payments, all on only Social Security and then they /might/ be able to afford a crap apartment or a spot in an old folks home. Realistically a lot of them wont be able to pull this off and will try to move in with their children or go all in on an RV. Or just become homeless and die.
Oh. Right. Social Security is projected to go bankrupt in about 10 years. And the Republicans might manage to just eliminate it before then.
So uh yeah. The other roughly half of people either have stock market based retirement plans that are sufficient for some kind of actual retirement, or are basically financial try hards who have /some/ ability to comfortably retire based on stocks, but if the stock market does not go up forever, continuously, they will basically join the group of people with functionally zero net worth.
Probably about 70% of the people with any ability to possibly comfortably retire are in the -tenuous- category and 30% range from -confortable- to -have more net worth than many small countries-.
This -tenuous ability to traditionally retire- segment of people will ultimately betray any purported moral or ideological positions they claim to have had their whole lives and do basically anything to ensure that their retirement ability doesnt diminish or disappear, including any kind of austerity / public benefits cutting / tax lowering policy / legalize usury and debt based imprisonment or forced labor / type policy they can find to juice the stock market, which will further fuck over the already less well off group.
The actually well off will continue to laugh a the poors as they historically always have.
America: Fuck you, I got mine. Go off and die now.
So great how we'd rather pay for new mass use of experimental drugs than addressing our nations problems with mental health, accessibility of healthy food/lifestyle, and poverty
We can and should do both.
Besides, being overweight contributes to a lot of other things that are worse. These drugs may contribute to a significant decrease in health services needs.
I didn't list those specific things because they're more important than obesity, I listed them because those are the root cause of a tremendous amount of our obesity and it would be much healthier to address those causes than to medicate.
Why not both?
Get out of here with that empathy -- there's profit to be made!
What a great system.
People shitting on your comment but the majority of Americans should eat less food overall, and change the type of foods, exercise etc. the weight loss drugs do just that, make you eat less and you can do that for free with a little mental discipline
I'm sure obese people have never heard of that before
I'm sure obese people haven't tried hard enough.
Even on "My 600 lb Life," the doctor gets on them hard about actually fixing their eating habits before bothering with surgery.
That's because it's dangerous to have weight loss surgery if you can't change your behavior even a little.
The bariatric surgery helps keep them on the right track.
The diabetic drugs help stop the food cravings in the first place, it appears to be a good option for people who have overwhelming signals from their body to eat.
Those are two completely different reasons, and medically they should be treated differently.
there are ways to do this which are probably better than taking drugs. ancient methods with prehistoric origins lost to time
Pretty sure famine isn't ancient.
Life hack: Eat less food to lose weight rather than spending $1300 a month on weight loss drugs.
The problem is appetite control is not something you can simply will yourself to have. Being hungry all the time is pretty awful. I'm not saying this is a good alternative, but the whole "just stop eating so much" sounds a hell of a lot easier than it is for many people.
As someone trying to get insurance to pay for one of these drugs, you've pretty much listed the reason. I spent so long trying to find a pattern but have given up, going back to my childhood I've never felt satiated. I never feel full, so I have to rely on other cues. I can eat a huge meal, of any variety, and I'll still feel hungry after (and during). The only modes my appetite has are "hungry" and "if you don't eat you'll die". I've had various meds "help" in one way or the other but none lasted, and none have changed the sensation of hunger. The thought of not feeling hungry makes me want to cry, it sounds so surreal.
They work with doctors and insurance companies. I'm not associated with them, FYI.
Exactly. To make a comparison, it's like telling a person with depression to just stop feeling sad.
There are other problems. Margaret Cho has talked about how the "just don't eat" thing being told to her constantly while she was on a TV show eventually caused her to have an eating disorder which basically destroyed her kidneys. When she finally got over being hungry all the time, she had an eating disorder.
This is also true. Nothing good ever comes from body shaming, and I mean nothing.
That's why you can't fix the problem without exercise.
You can justify eating more when you're burning more calories.
When I burn 4000 or 5000 calories in a day, I can eat an unlimited amount of food, and often don't make up the deficit. So, it becomes all-you-can-eat with weight loss.
Also, it's important to note that "being hungry all the time" is a symptom of poor eating habits and undernutrition. A lesson in how to eat is going to help someone more than pills.
I think the credibility of the argument that "it's not easy to just lose weight" goes down when the contenders for solutions are "more pills" vs. "Lifestyle change".
Its always better to try the non-pill option before deciding the pills are needed. American policies and support structures need massive overall. Even things that seem totally unrelated like more mixed use and walkable city Zoning policies will make Americans more active and less dependent on meds.
But just saying 'lifestyle change' as if it's some simple thing is the problem. You wouldn't tell a heroin addict to just stop taking heroin. A lot of people are addicted to eating (psychologically, not physically), which is why they feel hungry all the time. Just expecting them to change that like it isn't an addiction is not the way to do it and trying to shame them into it is certainly not the way to do it. There has to be a way to get people to make those changes in a way that eases them out of the addiction. And, of course, like any other addiction, they have to want to change.
Recovering from an addiction is not easy it's one of the hardest things, but it's not impossible.
And, of course, like any other addiction, they have to want to change.
"No, I don't want to stop eating just give me the magic pills".
I never said it was impossible and I specifically said I didn't think the medications were the way to do it, so I'm not sure what the point of your response is.
I feel like there's a hundred other issues higher on the list of things Americans aren't covered for...
Such as retirement, in general.
Roughly a quarter of the population has a significantly negative net worth (more debt than assets) and another roughly quarter has a zero to slightly negative net worth.
Basically that means a quarter of people will have to survive off of Social Security alone, while making interest payments on their debt. There are not many parts of the country right now where anyone can actually rent an apartment or afford a mortgage payment off of SSI alone, so better hope you already own a home, or you are in a rent controlled apartment.
The significantly indebted quarter of people will basically have to sell everything they own and borrow money from friends and family while still having to make debt payments, all on only Social Security and then they /might/ be able to afford a crap apartment or a spot in an old folks home. Realistically a lot of them wont be able to pull this off and will try to move in with their children or go all in on an RV. Or just become homeless and die.
Oh. Right. Social Security is projected to go bankrupt in about 10 years. And the Republicans might manage to just eliminate it before then.
So uh yeah. The other roughly half of people either have stock market based retirement plans that are sufficient for some kind of actual retirement, or are basically financial try hards who have /some/ ability to comfortably retire based on stocks, but if the stock market does not go up forever, continuously, they will basically join the group of people with functionally zero net worth.
Probably about 70% of the people with any ability to possibly comfortably retire are in the -tenuous- category and 30% range from -confortable- to -have more net worth than many small countries-.
This -tenuous ability to traditionally retire- segment of people will ultimately betray any purported moral or ideological positions they claim to have had their whole lives and do basically anything to ensure that their retirement ability doesnt diminish or disappear, including any kind of austerity / public benefits cutting / tax lowering policy / legalize usury and debt based imprisonment or forced labor / type policy they can find to juice the stock market, which will further fuck over the already less well off group.
The actually well off will continue to laugh a the poors as they historically always have.
America: Fuck you, I got mine. Go off and die now.
So great how we'd rather pay for new mass use of experimental drugs than addressing our nations problems with mental health, accessibility of healthy food/lifestyle, and poverty
We can and should do both.
Besides, being overweight contributes to a lot of other things that are worse. These drugs may contribute to a significant decrease in health services needs.
I didn't list those specific things because they're more important than obesity, I listed them because those are the root cause of a tremendous amount of our obesity and it would be much healthier to address those causes than to medicate.
Why not both?
Get out of here with that empathy -- there's profit to be made!
What a great system.
People shitting on your comment but the majority of Americans should eat less food overall, and change the type of foods, exercise etc. the weight loss drugs do just that, make you eat less and you can do that for free with a little mental discipline
I'm sure obese people have never heard of that before
I'm sure obese people haven't tried hard enough.
Even on "My 600 lb Life," the doctor gets on them hard about actually fixing their eating habits before bothering with surgery.
That's because it's dangerous to have weight loss surgery if you can't change your behavior even a little.
The bariatric surgery helps keep them on the right track.
The diabetic drugs help stop the food cravings in the first place, it appears to be a good option for people who have overwhelming signals from their body to eat.
Those are two completely different reasons, and medically they should be treated differently.
there are ways to do this which are probably better than taking drugs. ancient methods with prehistoric origins lost to time
Pretty sure famine isn't ancient.
Life hack: Eat less food to lose weight rather than spending $1300 a month on weight loss drugs.
The problem is appetite control is not something you can simply will yourself to have. Being hungry all the time is pretty awful. I'm not saying this is a good alternative, but the whole "just stop eating so much" sounds a hell of a lot easier than it is for many people.
As someone trying to get insurance to pay for one of these drugs, you've pretty much listed the reason. I spent so long trying to find a pattern but have given up, going back to my childhood I've never felt satiated. I never feel full, so I have to rely on other cues. I can eat a huge meal, of any variety, and I'll still feel hungry after (and during). The only modes my appetite has are "hungry" and "if you don't eat you'll die". I've had various meds "help" in one way or the other but none lasted, and none have changed the sensation of hunger. The thought of not feeling hungry makes me want to cry, it sounds so surreal.
You might want to check into Sequence:
https://www.joinsequence.com/
They work with doctors and insurance companies. I'm not associated with them, FYI.
Exactly. To make a comparison, it's like telling a person with depression to just stop feeling sad.
There are other problems. Margaret Cho has talked about how the "just don't eat" thing being told to her constantly while she was on a TV show eventually caused her to have an eating disorder which basically destroyed her kidneys. When she finally got over being hungry all the time, she had an eating disorder.
This is also true. Nothing good ever comes from body shaming, and I mean nothing.
That's why you can't fix the problem without exercise.
You can justify eating more when you're burning more calories.
When I burn 4000 or 5000 calories in a day, I can eat an unlimited amount of food, and often don't make up the deficit. So, it becomes all-you-can-eat with weight loss.
Also, it's important to note that "being hungry all the time" is a symptom of poor eating habits and undernutrition. A lesson in how to eat is going to help someone more than pills.
I think the credibility of the argument that "it's not easy to just lose weight" goes down when the contenders for solutions are "more pills" vs. "Lifestyle change".
Its always better to try the non-pill option before deciding the pills are needed. American policies and support structures need massive overall. Even things that seem totally unrelated like more mixed use and walkable city Zoning policies will make Americans more active and less dependent on meds.
But just saying 'lifestyle change' as if it's some simple thing is the problem. You wouldn't tell a heroin addict to just stop taking heroin. A lot of people are addicted to eating (psychologically, not physically), which is why they feel hungry all the time. Just expecting them to change that like it isn't an addiction is not the way to do it and trying to shame them into it is certainly not the way to do it. There has to be a way to get people to make those changes in a way that eases them out of the addiction. And, of course, like any other addiction, they have to want to change.
Recovering from an addiction is not easy it's one of the hardest things, but it's not impossible.
"No, I don't want to stop eating just give me the magic pills".
I never said it was impossible and I specifically said I didn't think the medications were the way to do it, so I'm not sure what the point of your response is.