Ask Lemmy

What needs to be done and what will be done are unfortunately never going to align as long as someone stands to get rich on it.

What needs to be done:

• Healthier food options
• Healthier work/life balance
• Education on what is healthy and unhealthy
• Encouragement to daily physical

Why this will never be done:

• Too much money to be made on "tasty" premade meals, which "tasty" and "profitable" require lots of flavor enhancers and preservatives, both very calorically imbalanced / dense and also toxic in large quantities (toxicity is how preservatives work). If you don't flavor enhance, your competitor will for cheaper and people won't buy your option. Also each growing industry insisting their food in solo is the healthiest when it is not. I'm pointing at you corn and grain industries.
• 40 hr 9-5 8/5 work week is only office workers. Servicemen and retail sales often work 10-12+ hours per day or have all hours on call.
• points at every part of the American education system and its exported policies other countries sometimes take up
• Point 2 is the reason a lot of people don't exercise. There is no time to do so.
• Healthcare is expensive. When there is money to be made, it is always in healthcare. If you can't afford a consumer product, you don't buy it. If you can't afford a surgery or medicine to save your life, you die. This simple fact makes it nearly impossible to have any say in how much a treatment costs.

This is not just an American problem. Other western countries have this issue as well, and I hope people in other nations see the danger and keep themselves healthy.