We all know what ordinary body obesity is, but there is a new and fast-growing obesity on the block - mental obesity. So let's briefly remind ourselves of the causes, consequences, and solutions to body obesity, and then have a look at the parallels of mental obesity. There is work for society - individuals and government - to do here.
The causes of the obesity crisis facing the western world are well-known. They are bad diet, lack of exercise, and sadly the poor decisions people often make for themselves or, worse, their children...
The Bad Diet is precipitated by the food industry finding ways to make food simultaneously addictive, un-satisfying, and unbalanced. It is made addictive by unnaturally hitting many "bliss-points" at once. It is un-satiating - so that food no longer makes you feel full, and you come back for more. And it is unbalanced - so we have to eat too much of this to get enough of that.
And Lack of Exercise. You can't out-exercise a bad diet but you can under-exercise a good one! This, combined with modern transport and warm houses, means we simply don't burn up the calories we used to. And lack of exercise means our metabolisms run slowly, so even at rest we burn fewer calories.
The consequences are dire and obvious: a growing (in both senses) population of unhealthy, unhappy, short-lived people who may be or become a burden on themselves, their families, and society.
The solutions are obvious too: educate people to avoid the bad food, and outlaw the manufacture of addictive un-satiating unhealthy food. Encourage and enable exercise and active life-styles. And, for individuals, take responsibility.
Mental obesity is the analog of body obesity, and as a society, we are nearly there. It has the same ingredients: bad diet, lack of exercise, and sadly again the poor decisions people often make for themselves or, worse, for their children...
In our Mental Bad Diet we "consume" (read or more likely watch) too much low quality mental food. The worst culprit is of course social media, which is specifically engineered with clever manipulative algorithms to be, yes, addictive, un-satiating, and un-balanced.
We all enjoy that buzz, that dopamine hit, when someone (or now maybe something?) "likes" our post. We want more! But it is also un-satiating - it's never enough, is it? I had one "like" but I want another! I saw one video on my interests, but I want another! So I won't - I can't - stop scrolling and it's really late and I ought to go to sleep.... And it's unbalanced - everyone else appears to living the high life, and only I am knee-deep in adversity.
Many have a Lack of Mental Exercise. We are all being taught to think less... We are happily allowing "AI" to think for us, deliberately avoiding the obvious probability that soon, in the work place, it will be used to think instead of us. We are losing the need to think, but accepting unquestioningly AI's "what most people seem to say", no matter how synthetic. As the education system teaches what to think, rather than how to think, critical thinking is neither valued nor taught at school or University. We must all think the same way as the new orthodoxy, or face being cancelled, losing our jobs, or worse. In short, thinking is bad for you. So with thinking needed less, done less, and valued less, our thinking abilities will diminish, atrophy, and disappear. We wil be mentally obese.
The consequences are the same: a growing population of unthinking, unhappy, tired, unproductive dull people who are poor at relationships and will be a burden on themselves, their families, and society. The potential implications on future rates of digital dementia don't bear contemplation.
The solutions are similar: outlaw addictive un-satiating social media and similar. How? Simply make big-tech liable for any harms arising out of its use, including the errors (aka "hallucinations") from Large AIs. Oh, and as before, take individual responsibility for our choices.
So, mental obesity is the new threat to well-being, and society needs to be aware, which is a substantial objective of this short article.
As individuals, we need to avoid both mental and physical obesity by taking responsibility for our own decisions in what we consume on-line as much as in the kitchen, and that we exercise both our minds and our bodies.
Government has a responsibility to act too, no longer letting both the food and on-line industry deliberately manufacture addictive, un-satiating, and unbalanced products. The "simple" solution is to make big food/tech financially liable for the harms its' products cause.
Andrew Lea, March 2026
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