Asklemmy

After I got diagnosed with some weight related shit, I turned my entire life upside down, am at a much healthier 150 lbs (68ish kg), and feel so much better, both physically and mentally.

Something disillusioning from the field of psychotherapy research: Our best, most interdisciplinary, low-threshold therapeutic strategies allow people to, on average, lose and hold the loss of up to 7-10% of the weight they've started with. Which isn't even enough to get most people out of the obesity range. What you've been through is exceptional. By far most people will never manage to lose that much, not even with professional help.

To put it this way: If we look at obesity like a mental disorder it's one of the hardest to overcome, harder than depression or anxiety.

I get why so many people share your opinion on this, I just feel like it's missing context. Because sure, physiologically its possible for a depressed person to "just go out more" or an anxious person to "just stop breathing so fast" or an overweight person to "just eat less and move more", but this is such an oversimplified way to look at how humans work and why they do what they do that is simply stops being correct. Every now and then you'll meet someone who managed to do all this just like that, but for the vast majority it's an unrealistic and unfair thing to ask.

Obesity is a chronic disorder and will continue to be until we get better treatments.