> That's the most ridiculous point I've heard in a long time.
How is it ridiculous? It's not a personal slur on you. Do you deny that people from lower socio-economic backgrounds generally suffer more from overweight issues and obesity? Wouldn't you say that people from this type of background are less likely to consume their mass media in the form of the New York Times?
> Being overweight is in no way equivalent to a crime.
That's not what I said. Read again what I wrote. Another example. I smoke cigarettes. Should I not take responsibility for this? If I can't stop smoking is it "out of my control"? I'm not making a binary choice out of anything, I'm just contesting the following comment elsewhere here (I should have made a separate comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7762934
> The food and quality of food that is available to many people is a factor, which is could be said is generally out of their control. I don't think it's helpful to blame the individual as we are all part of systems.
There is nowhere in the developed world where you can't buy decent fresh food. At some point along the way some of the responsibility must lie with the person who is choosing to buy one type of food over another because perhaps its pre-made, pre-packaged, hits their pleasure centres, whatever. I guess it relates back to my first point in that I imagine that people like this may not be as informed about nutrition as you or I. And if they are informed then what?
Because you're taking a correlation and eliminating the lower data point. Yes, people with better educations tend to eat better, but not by much. In fact, for adult males there is no correlation between education and obesity prevalence. [1]
I, and the many other overweight NYT readers, certainly exist. We could also benefit from this article. Should we not get access to it because of your faulty moralistic viewpoint?
> Should I not take responsibility for this? If I can't stop smoking is it "out of my control"?
Of course it is partially in your control, but you totally missed the nuance. It would probably be much harder for you (as a smoker) to choose to not smoke a cigarette today than for me (as a non-smoker). That doesn't make me better than you, it's just an acknowledgement of addiction as a phenomenon. Acknowledging it helps us to build better for strategies for helping people to make good choices.
Also, two individuals who have the exact same diet and exercise can weigh very differently depending on their genetic makeup and background. How is that their fault?
> The food and quality of food that is available to many people is a factor, which is could be said is generally out of their control. I don't think it's helpful to blame the individual as we are all part of systems.
What the fuck? I didn't even say that. Way to put words in my mouth.
I know you didn't say that. Which is _why_ I said, "I'm just contesting the following comment elsewhere here (I should have made a separate comment)" and then I posted the link to the comment which said it. I'm not arguing with you, I'm arguing with that comment so you need to go read it if you want to debate that. I probably shouldn't have rolled two viewpoints into the one post as it seems to have totally confused the issue.
The opening paragraph of the piece you linked to says, "People with higher levels of education and higher income have lower rates of many chronic diseases compared to those with less education and lower income levels, according to Health, United States, 2011 – the government’s annual comprehensive report on Americans’ health." which seems to back up my viewpoint,
Which is all that I've been saying. I'm sorry if it offends you but I'm going to stick by what I've said - (in general terms) the type of person who might most benefit from this article in the New York Times is less likely to be the type of person to read the New York Times. Note that I am _not_ saing that overweight people do not read the New York Times, if you got that from what I said I'm sorry I didn't word it better but I'm not taking it back.
Mixing replies and quotes from two different comments completely muddles the waters and confuses the issue of authorship. Please don't do that.
If you looked a little closer at the report I linked to, you would find that "obesity prevalence among adult males did not vary consistently with level of education." Which is in fact exactly what I stated.
Sure, NYT non-readers might on average be fitter than NYT readers. But that's hardly a reason for it not being beneficial to or interesting to NYT readers. By that logic, we should never post intro coding tutorials to HN because on average they'd be more helpful to the general public than HN readers.
How is it ridiculous? It's not a personal slur on you. Do you deny that people from lower socio-economic backgrounds generally suffer more from overweight issues and obesity? Wouldn't you say that people from this type of background are less likely to consume their mass media in the form of the New York Times?
> Being overweight is in no way equivalent to a crime.
That's not what I said. Read again what I wrote. Another example. I smoke cigarettes. Should I not take responsibility for this? If I can't stop smoking is it "out of my control"? I'm not making a binary choice out of anything, I'm just contesting the following comment elsewhere here (I should have made a separate comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7762934
> The food and quality of food that is available to many people is a factor, which is could be said is generally out of their control. I don't think it's helpful to blame the individual as we are all part of systems.
There is nowhere in the developed world where you can't buy decent fresh food. At some point along the way some of the responsibility must lie with the person who is choosing to buy one type of food over another because perhaps its pre-made, pre-packaged, hits their pleasure centres, whatever. I guess it relates back to my first point in that I imagine that people like this may not be as informed about nutrition as you or I. And if they are informed then what?