The claim that losing weight won't make someone happier always surprises me. To be sure, there are those who have deep seated issues that won't be solved by losing weight, or for those who lose a little it won't make a big difference, but I can state with confidence the fact that I am happier and my quality of life is better for having lost weight. Just getting better sleep (and not needing a CPAP to do it) has made a world of difference for me. Anecdotal, I know, but still.
I think that point needed to be deconstructed (by the author of the article) in a lot more detail. It strikes me as both obviously true in many ways but also obviously false in many other ways.
It is obviously true that losing weight won't make you feel any better about being stuck in a shitty marriage, or a job you hate, or being estranged from your parents, or any number of other things that can cause deep-seated unhappiness.
It is also obviously true that losing weight will make you feel better physically, and probably result in you being treated better by most of the people you interact with face-to-face on a daily basis. Being treated better by people definitely makes me feel happier.
On that note, I should really go to the gym more often.
It's common, though, for people to feel guilty about not working out enough even if they do it quite a bit (perhaps even more likely). That can lead to less happiness. The endorphins are great... but I feel there is still a hedonic treadmill effect there with that.
> It's common, though, for people to feel guilty about not working out enough even if they do it quite a bit
ha, I'll bet. almost anything where there's a notion of "leveling up" or some kind of progress over time can lead to this treadmill feeling.
in my case though, I mean, I'm at like once or twice a month at the gym. I'm pretty sure that's just objectively not enough, regardless of whatever treadmill effect is going on there.
