As a default it is. And that's what it became. We stopped trying any other methods. Come in the door, have a set of symptoms that check all the boxes, walk out in 30 minutes with a prescription, doctor's office gets a bonus. Institutional psychiatric treatment is drugs first actual treatment later.
This is a _social_ problem. It should be discussed and addressed as such. You should not attempt to pervert this concern into an _individual_ issue in an effort to invoke a needless moral defense.
If it's a social problem then the non-pharmaceutical cure is obviously not white-knuckling a diet and exercise regimen individually. It needs a holistic, society-level solution. More time off work, less car-dependent suburbs, more bike lanes and subsidies for bikes, more agricultural subsidies for healthy food and less for corn. Realistically we aren't going to get those things.
> not white-knuckling a diet and exercise regimen individually
Obesity rates have not been constant. There are clearly multiple modes to this problem and history suggests that this class of people is the minority of the visible issue.
> more bike lanes and subsidies for bikes
You don't need this so much as you need roundabouts and actual _human_ scale infrastructure in cities. Some smaller towns in the midwest got the memo from Europe and are starting to adapt easily.
> more agricultural subsidies for healthy food and less for corn
I think the amount of subsidy overall is a problem. I think we could to take another page from Europe and start banning food additives. We can stop classifying highly processed foods as foods and instead as desserts and tax them appropriately. A lot of this is already in motion.
> Realistically we aren't going to get those things.
We used to have these things. I don't understand your position of social excuse couched in social pessimism. So instead of addressing the problem just accept that pharmaceutical and insurance companies will now enrich themselves off this created problem?
You know, we can solve _two_ problems at once, if GLP-1 has some short term benefit then great, but to plan on it existing in the long term for weight management is utter madness.
Are chemical interventions designed with the best outcomes for the patient or the best outcomes for society? I suspect it's the latter. It's cheap and if you're lucky it's effective. When it goes bad it can ruin lives and families. As a _default_ it's a moral weakness.
Is this a solvable problem? Yes, but it's monumental, encompassing everything from the way we structure our civil society and work life from the forms of food and entertainment that we incidentally or directly subsidize.
We accidentally built something gross. It moves really fast, though.
Just some notes. This would be a lot easy to take this seriously if it wasn't seeped in moral purity. It is rhetorically unappetizing.
Re-wording it so that you say your end goal was better outcomes for people and restructuring society to achieve that is a noble goal. It's easier for people to want to agree with than being a moral policeman.
As a default it is. And that's what it became. We stopped trying any other methods. Come in the door, have a set of symptoms that check all the boxes, walk out in 30 minutes with a prescription, doctor's office gets a bonus. Institutional psychiatric treatment is drugs first actual treatment later.
This is a _social_ problem. It should be discussed and addressed as such. You should not attempt to pervert this concern into an _individual_ issue in an effort to invoke a needless moral defense.