Pills And Perseverance

Why today Jane Austen would have been well advised to write a book about obesity

It is a truth not at all universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of excess body fat is in need of more adequate lifestyle choices.

Instead, in today’s victim-centric world, nothing is ever our fault. We are obese because of plastics and other chemicals, or because of genetics, or perhaps because Saturn has occluded Neptune in the night sky. The fact that national obesity rates closely track the consumption of junk food is, surely, the purest coincidence.

Not surprisingly in a world in which nearly everyone abdicates personal responsibility for their actions, few people consider making changes to their habits and even fewer possess the motivation actually to do so. We are, instead, endlessly attracted to whatever quick-fix is currently fashionable. Now that smoking and amphetamines are no long the go-to options for rapid weight loss, and gastric bypass surgery has somewhat fallen from fashion, a new generation of appetite-suppressing drugs is the modality of choice for those too indolent and weak-willed to be capable of more adequate actions. Popularized by flabby halfwits like Elon Musk and countless empty-headed social media “influencers” as well as some typically vacuous celebrities, a great many people…