If obesity is 100% self inflicted, the fast food, snack food, and ancillary advertising industries should pack up and go home. They obviously do nothing.
Instead we have a system where these companies are allowed, even encouraged to make food that's terrible for you taste amazing, and market the shit out of it to increase shareholder value. But when they succeed at their jobs it's because you, the individual, fucked up. Well which one is it? Both can't be true.
We're setting up a battle of will between people and companies so we can feel good about our own self-control when some (most, in many countries) individuals lose that battle. What's the point?
Cigarettes are interesting because we recognized that running society like a car with accelerator and brake smashed down is sub-optimal. There are restrictions on tobacco marketing, consumption taxes, public health campaigns.
No one is saying personal responsibility doesn't exist. But what's the point of a system that rewards people who lure others into making poor personal choices around food? Just so those who don't make those bad choices can feel superior?
Is it a bad thing that cigarette companies can't advertise their poison anymore?
Instead we have a system where these companies are allowed, even encouraged to make food that's terrible for you taste amazing, and market the shit out of it to increase shareholder value. But when they succeed at their jobs it's because you, the individual, fucked up. Well which one is it? Both can't be true.