I wonder if part of it is because food is less nutritious than it used to be. So we eat more to unconsciously fulfill our nutrition needs, inadvertently also eating enough to help increase weight. I'm not saying this is the answer, but it may be a contributing cause.

Since nobody in any government seems to have thought up a working solution

What do you mean by that? There have been measures against obesity, the sugar tax in the UK for example.

People eating unhealthy food is partially related to their situation, it could be mental, it could be physical, or simply convenience.

The main thing is to have some form of exercise that people can do and that caters to their energy levels. Granted not everyone can, not everyone wants to. And sometimes, it's not feasible.

I wrote this in another post; growing up I would eat 5000-10000 (spring vs winter) calories a day and never could get past 125, but I also had gym and track in school, swimming practice, martial arts classes, and a military style torturous daily workout... every day. And I would still go ride bikes with my friends on the street or play tag or whatever. In the winter I would shovel the snow, which would probably be considered child abuse these days. Now I'm not saying do everyone should do that. I even toned down how much I did when I started college but I still practiced to be able to do a triathlon. It's a shame I broke my leg before being able to try one.

I would eat breakfast, two school lunches, have snacks, eat when I got home, and have second supper. I could easily eat a dominos pizza to by myself (probably did a number on my gut since I learned I can't eat wheat) and wash it down with some soda.

Now I bring this up because I worked in education briefly and ate lunch with the kids during lunch duty; I can tell you if anyone was as active as I was, I would need at least four lunches to make through the day. Sure it was the healthy lunch implementation, but I the result that I saw was that kids were lethargic and sure it made the classes easy to do since everyone was so docile but I think that was a terrible way to go about it. And I tried their "healthy" lunches out intentionally; if it we're not for drinking a whole pot of coffee a day, I wouldn't make it through the 14 hour day (school, after school, and commute).

Also, it's been so hot this year that my only exercise was mowing the lawn before feeling cooked. I wouldn't mind going to a pool but it's more of a hot tub. YMCA has an inside pool but I can't afford $95 a month. I can't run anymore because of the metal. And my two bicycles collect dust since I have to go to a trail or a park for biking unless I want to be roadkill, even then I can only do that maybe two to three months out of the year because of how hot it gets.

Even recognizing that people have dietary restrictions is a great start. I can't eat wheat or lentils, and certain fruits.

Quality, cost, and availability of food is very high on the list. And I'll be honest, food in America is some of the worst I've eaten and it's even worse lately; I've had MREs that tasted better than frozen food that I used to eat as a kid in the US. Mmmm, textured soy protein and emulsifiers.

I felt great and lost weight in Japan, Korea, Ireland, European countries. I was 165 pounds when I got back from Japan. I'm back to 200ish. Sigh. I don't eat out much and generally cook at home. The issue for me is that meat and dairy have become expensive. And eating rice and beans and vegetables barely gets me by to do daily tasks.

And none of the countries I've mentioned are perfect by any means but there is a bigger focus on food health and safety instead of spin the wheel for today's recall! It's like I can eat all the raw fish, beef, eggs, raw pork in Germany lol, shellfish and so on but this last year has been wild for food recalls. I mean ice cream? Can't even trust lettuce or a pepper.

• Cheap access to fresh fruit and veg

• Education for healthy eating starting in childhood

• Public outdoor spaces that are enjoyable to exercise in

• Cheap, frequent public transit to allow everyone to access food and public spaces

If those don’t take care of most of it we can keep going from there.

mandatory meth

One of the best available interventions is mandatory cooking classes in high school. Cut the necessary time out of other classes and do it.

People don't realize* that processed food is engineered to make you eat more of it. You'll also feel like shit for at least 3 days if you start eating fresh foods and you will crave the junk (cuz it's made to be that way), but it's worth it. The price is about the same to eat if you make it from scratch, but it's so much easier than you think. Your body will thank you. Also, if you're craving something sweet, drink water.

Examples:

Soup

• boil a bunch of veggies and you get veggie stock.
• Boil the bones of your rotisserie chicken and you get chicken stock.
• Microwave a potato and put it in a pan with your sauteed veggies, then add milk. You now have cream of type soups

Grill

• veggies
• meat
• seafood

Baking

• cut up your veggies and put a whole chicken in there. Cook for awhile, then you have 3 or 4 meals of different varieties. Here's an example recipe, but you can do any herb or veggies you like. https://simply-delicious-food.com/oven-roasted-whole-chicken/

These are just few.

There's not a single, one-size-fits-all solution, there's a lot of factors going into this

In no particular order, off the top of my head, a couple things that would need to change

1. Better nutrition/health education- a lot of people have almost no idea what eating healthy means
2. Better labeling requirements, there's a few weird loopholes in how food and such can be labeled, and companies get away with using some pretty misleading labeling, and we need to be tightening that down so that people can actually make better informed decisions about what they're eating.
3. Better pay and work/life balance- Planning and preparing a healthy diet takes time and money. Same with going to the gym. We need to free people up to be able to make those better, healthier choices for themselves
4. Addressing food deserts- In some places people just may not have easier access to healthy food. If you don't drive and public transit is spotty around you, and the only stores within walking distance of your home are gas stations and convenience stores, it's going to be hard to eat a healthy diet.
5. Pedestrian and bike friendly infrastructure- In a lot of cases, people don't walk or bike places because it's just not safe for them to do so. If you provide that opportunity for them, a lot of people will actually use it, they'll get more exercise, and save money on gas that can in turn be used for other healthier choices.
6. Healthcare- In some cases it may mean getting things like glp-1 drugs or surgeries to aid in weight loss, in other cases it might just be checking in with a doctor or nutritionist to come up with a weight loss plan to make sure you're going about it safely and effectively. Maybe you need blood work or other tests to identify other underlying health problems, maybe you have depression or anxiety that are making it difficult for you to be motivated to go to the gym or some sort of trauma you need to work through to address an eating disorder. Whatever the person's specific needs are, they need to be able to access them.

What worked for me was living somewhere I could do a lot of outdoor labor. So I say replace all excavators with manual labor.

As long as people have cheaply available high-calorie, great tasting food, enormous portions and free will, you will not solve the obesity crisis.

To change any of those, you'll have to be incredibly patient and do it by tiny, tiny increments or else you'll create a revolt somewhere in society.

Eating the rich has been shown to have a positive impact on weight loss and health in general.

Seriously though, this is the answer. Obesity is a systemic problem.

Firstly, BMI only really works for people of otherwise average height and musculature. A bodybuilder could be seen as obese for example. So just fixing for that would help.

But more importantly, and perhaps unpopularly, I think people have gotten too used to feeling full all the time, and that the slightest feeling of hunger signals red alert. I see people constantly grazing throughout the day the moment they get even slightly hungry, sometimes without evening noticing it themselves, then they'll still eat big meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Unless you're regularly getting a good amount of exercise from work or your personal lifestyle, then of course you're gonna put on weight cause those calories have got nowhere to go. Now while there are other factors that can tip the scales into or out of your favour, ultimately:

Daily Energy Input < Energy Output = Weight Loss

Now some will say they can't not eat, because they can't concentrate otherwise, it gives them the shakes, or something else. But for 99% of people, that "need" is all psychological, and can be shaken off with time and patience.

I would know, cause I experienced this when I was younger changing my diet to help lose weight. Being purposefully intermittent about eating will suck at first as your body and mind adjust to the new status quo, but stick with it and your body and mind will be healthier for it.

((Just to be clear, I'm not promoting any kind of eating disorder or crash dieting. Losing weight sustainably is about small changes that you take with you into the future, not making huge changes that make you sick/depressed, or throwing your body around like a metabolic ragdoll. But I do mean it when I say putting more planning and restraint into when and what you eat will do you a world of wonder))

To solve it we'd need to start with horrific public execution of every living member of the last 40 years CEOs and whole boards of the food industry...

Kill corn subsidies.

Ban all cell phone chargers except for human-powered generators. If you want to use a cell phone, you have to work for it by generating the power with your muscles.

Home / office hamster wheels, treadmills, etc - these would be the only things with a phone charger cable under my brilliant plan.