"But the real reason [married people gain weight] is moral hazard, or the tendency to take more risks and behave more irresponsibly when there are no consequences."
I'd never equated being overweight as behaving irresponsibly. If everyone thought this way, would we all be thinner? If my spouse can't nag me to lose weight (see #1), is there anything she could do to encourage it, or is it all on me?
Funny, I can't imagine being overweight as anything but irresponsible (mod specific health issues). And it is pretty much all on you.
One thing that can be very helpful is to schedule exercise with other people (e.g. spouse). It's easier to get going with a group, it's more fun, and there is a social cost to canceling. You don't even have to do the same exercises -- just go to the gym or pool or park or whatever and do your thing.
i.e. don't nag against bad activities, but support and encourage wholesome ones in their place.
In regards to equating being overweight and being irresponsible, I think you're right. I just had never seen it that way, and hopefully this can start a paradigm shift for me.
What this implies is that overeating/under-exercising should be taboo just like smoking cigarettes. These things aren't considered taboo by some people, but maybe that's the reason people aren't healthier.
I agree that in the end it's personal responsibility that determines whether you're overweight or healthy. But it has to be said that it has become more difficult to be thin (at least in western societies) given the ease with which most of us can obtain high energy/fat foods. Add to that the fact that most food producers have profit margins as their motivators instead of the population's health, and you can see why it's getting harder.
Agree completely. The point is that food producers are playing (wittingly or not) into the fact that our human biology is geared towards the storage of fat. Your body's primal survival mechanism is a hard thing to overcome. In more scarce times, people spent most of their energy in the pursuit of finding something to eat. Now you use about 8 calories to reach out your car window, grab your 1500 calorie supersized meal, and set it on your passenger seat.
Actually in some ways it is getting easier (for the geeks, anyway):
* adblock - no stupid commercials for fastfood places, etc
* Downloaded tv (whether brought from iTunes or downloaded from thepiratebay.org) doesn't contain commercials.
Add that a personal mp3 player means you are less likely to hear radio and it becomes that much more difficult to sell you stuff.
Recent research shows that obesity is caused more by the types of food that we eat than the amount that we eat. (And the types of food that surround us these days are increasingly the wrong kinds).
I would suggest that you and your wife do some research into obesity/nutrition and form a meal plan together. It is much easier to eat the right foods when you're doing it together. It's also fun to cook together. At least, that's working for me and my partner.
I suggest Gary Taube's or Mark Sisson's books for research.
I'd never equated being overweight as behaving irresponsibly. If everyone thought this way, would we all be thinner? If my spouse can't nag me to lose weight (see #1), is there anything she could do to encourage it, or is it all on me?