Bryan Johnson argues that diabetes and obesity stem not from junk food availability but from deeper psychological forces we can't see. He describes his own mind as a nemesis that sabotages his long-term interests at every opportunity, a battle of self-control he can't win through conscious effort alone.
And so we can talk about top line things like what's the rate of diabetes, what's the obesity rate and these other stats, and we can try to diagnose the availability of junk food, but what if it's much deeper into our psyche and so deep we can't even see it in the code anymore? What if we are blind to the real causes that are driving us to be who we are? I know in my situation, my mind continually a nemesis. If I give my mind the slightest opening to behave in a way that is contrary to my best long term interest, it will.
