Here as well

- Healthy food is absolutely not a luxury item. I'll accept the argument that the time to prepare healthy food is a luxury, but in almost every corner of the US you will find basic ingredients (eg rice, beans, carrots, celery, corn, potatoes, pasta) are way less expensive than the pre-prepared slop in boxes in the middle aisles of the store. People are addicted to that sugary shit and actively choose it
  
  You just used addicted and choose it in the same sentence.
  
  "People are addicted" and "actively choose it" are contradictory statements. Addiction is a disease, not a personal failing.
  
  almost every corner of the US you will find basic ingredients (eg rice, beans, carrots, celery, corn, potatoes, pasta) are way less expensive than the pre-prepared slop in boxes
  Someone never heard about food deserts.
  People are addicted to that sugary shit and actively choose it
  Way to victim-blame both addicts and people with little to no healthy choices available.
  
  I know about the uk but not USA. Food inequality is quite a big problem for low-income households.
  https://www.turn2us.org.uk/T2UWebsite/media/Documents/Communications%20documents/Living-Without-Report-Final-Web.pdf
  (Millions of Britons live without a freezer or oven)
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8976549/
  (A large number of britons who dont own a car live over a mile from an outlet selling healthy food)
  Etc
  
  Many people in the US also live in food deserts where easy access to healthy food IS a luxuary due to simply not being able to buy it where they live or work.
  
  I was also reading an article about nutritional quality of food itself has been declining over the last 50 years. So to get the same nutritional amount, you need to eat more food period.
  There’s also bigger systemic issues about food access that is driving people to “choose” it. Lack of time, cost, availability, transportation all factor in that are beyond a simple idea if a person having a pure choice between two equal (or even somewhat equal) options.
  
  "potatoes and rice and corn and pasta" HEALTHY INGREDIENTS
- Maybe it’s a bit of both though. People still have free will. You can eat unhealthy shit and not become morbidly obese.
  
  Free will is a lie we tell ourselves.
- Sounds like an excuse to me
- Healthy food is very cheap.
  Time to prepare and access may contribute, but the food itself is not a luxury item.
  
  This little bit of news has been hitting the media circuit this week: Americans are eating a meal's worth of calories in snack foods every day
  ...the average American had between 400 and 500 calories worth of snacks a day, which is typically more than what they ate at breakfast. Even worse, the snacks usually carried little to no nutritional value
  All food has gotten expensive due to inflation/greedflation, but (at least in my area) snacks, desserts, and some sugary drinks got hit especially hard. Except maybe for people living in food deserts, snacks are way more of a luxury good than "whole" foods are nowadays.
- Why is it either or? I can see a world where computer enthusiasts tend to be a bit more physically inactive than the median
- Can be either or both
- Yeah but they fuck their food so there is none left to eat
- Also fucked up is that fat doesn't = bad. I dunno when this came about but you can be unhealthy and skinny as well, and you can be unhealthy and jacked. I won't say that, kind of along the lines of a bodybuilder, it's easy to be healthy and be fat, but you can do it. Sumo wrestlers. You want that subcutaneous fat, and not that visceral fat, and you wanna have good cardio and heart health.
  Part of the reason why people become super fat is because they enter a kind of death spiral where they don't believe they'll ever get better, and then they eat more, because what's the point if you'll never get better at all. Part of the reason why they think they'll never get better is because people are constantly telling them that's the case, and that they're at fault for being the way they are, when usually people get really fat through some childhood trauma or mental disorder. I'm not gonna blame someone for that, or demand they "take responsibility" for it. Especially if them "taking responsibility" for it just ends up making them eat more slop.
  It's really not that complicated. Positive reinforcement and active help is a lot better in these situations than demanding that people be held accountable for being so fat, or that it's their choice, or whatever. I don't really care to argue the semantics of philosophies of "free will" or whatever, I'm just saying people need to not be dicks to fat people, because that's more productive to making them be healthy.
  
  Hear hear. And it wouldn't matter to me even if being fat were automatically a death sentence and the only reason people got that way was laziness. Even if it were a simple choice that someone made, it's still none of my business, y'know?
- I think you have great points, but I also don't want to absolve personal responsibility entirely. I think I saw Boogie for on the Financial Audit and spends $900 per month on fast food? There's definitely food deserts and busy people with busy lives and bad education. Absolutely. I also find that healthier living was easier in the UK as grocery stores had ready-made meals easier to access with better options. However, I do think there's also a component of personal accountability for those that know the right thing to do and choose not to.
  
  Both things can be true. People can be addicted or have limited access to food, but still choose poorly from their limited choices. It's a "diminished capacity" to make and choose healthy food.
  Yes, premade food has gotten more expensive and worse nutritionally. So choose better among your limited choices. There's no one who actually has no options for fruit, vegetables, or meat. It just takes time to shop and cook.
- I don't disagree with you, but one aspect I think people overlook is addiction. Food has become a cheap form of entertainment for people who don't have time to actually do anything fun, and food has also been formulated to be as addictive as possible through both chemistry and psychological trickery.
  No one wants to talk about this because it asks uncomfortable questions about free will.

The reality is probably that kernel developers don't get any younger nowadays. And believe me, when you get older, have children and less free time, your waistline suffers a bit. Or even a bit more than a bit.
- kernel developers
  Fancy word for a tree
  
  what's all the fuss about a corn?
- A lot of people laugh at this, but it's painfully true.
  Hell, I do Brazilian Jiu-jitsu three times a week, and lift/run on the other days. At a certain point for many, you just can't outrun a bad diet, and maintaining anything other than a dad bod requires all that exercise AND a strict diet. Good fucking luck doing all of that with a screaming baby at home!
  I never thought I'd be fat, especially since back when I was 18 I could smash a meal at McDonald's and exercise right after, while keeping a six pack. Now, it requires double the exercise to not have tits...
  
  I was in the same situation. I started to walk and longboard every day and track my calories without exception.
  Eventually, you can see changes and it becomes easier over time, but oh boy I never shame anyone for their body size, because it's hella hard, and if you're coping with other problems like depression or addiction, it's gotta feel damn near impossible.
  
  You don't need a lot, or even any exercise, to prevent overweight. Diet is everything. The amount of extra calories you can eat for a run is easily outweighed by the extra hunger.
- Man I used to think there was no relation between what I ate and my wardrobe size, but eventually it really does catch up with you, especially if your day job is sedentary.

Linux is growing
- This is good for Linux.
  
  Is Linux growing up or out?
- Earths Linux biomass is reaching sustainable levels, good.

Oh my god, Linux makes you fat.
- Maybe they got super jacked?
  
  Since I like geeky boys, they can come over and get jacked anytime
- Or getting old makes you fat
  
  They did a bad job of getting more young people interested in Linux? Because you're implying it's the same people who attended both symposiums.

Nice weve all been lifting.
- Damn shrinkflation the T shirts just keep getting smaller
- Lifting burgers and cupcakes

By now, Arch and Rust fans have probably corrected this 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
- Linux Symposium Statistics - Sock Length

It's all the bloat in those distros that is transferred to the waistline, back in the day we used WindowMaker. Not all that fancy Gnome and KDE stuff.

The one advantage of being significantly ill this year is that I can finally fit into large shirts and medium pants after years of XXL and XL of the former and latter.
I mean the rest sucks, but that's pretty nice.
- I wish you well for whatever remains of recovering from the illness, it sounds like you've had a rough time.
  
  I don't want to go into it, but yes, it's been rough. I'm hoping surgery on Thursday will fix it.

I'm xxl but I'm also built like a forklift. When I was younger I could throw rolls of vinyl flooring over my shoulder. I wish I took better care of my knees though.
- I'm xxl but I'm also built like a plastic bag filled with mashed potatoes. When I was younger I was last in the pacer test.
- I read "foreskin" first pass.
  
  "Dude was built like a foreskin. Loose, and wrinkly."

not me! woohoo. same XL then as now.
of course, back then when i was younger i favored oversized shirts. now they just fit.
- Yea, you could only really buy band tshirts in XL back then as big and baggy was the style. Now it's my actual size.
- I've technically gone down from XL. Seems L often fit me better now. But I've not changed.
  Seems like sizes have shifted higher. Only evidence I have for this are souvenir t-shirts from 20 years ago that say XL. Which are roughly same size as L shirts I've bought recently.
  
  Vanity sizing is very real.
  
  shrinkage? it's been pretty cold lately

Ha! All you Linux nerds are fat.
I mean I'm fat too but you guys also.

This says nothing about how tall they are. I wear XL, for being 190cm and 95kg
I am definitely not qualified as being "fat"
- Yes, statistics generally teaches to not worry excessively about outliers.
- So your suggestion is that there has been a marked and measurable increase in the average height of Linux users? That's what you're going with?
  
  yes.
- Bear in mind, in the us and UK, I'm a medium (size). In France I'm XL
- The larger shirts never give as much length as width so I always look for the tall ones.
- according to BMI bodybuilders are morbidly obese lol
  
  You have to be ~a top 1% individual for BMI to not work for you and that's literally just what an outlier is lmaooo.
  
  Tall people are often calculated as being obese as well. BMI has me at 30.8 because I am 6'2" and weight 240lbs. I have a 34" waist however and constantly moving.

Dog eat dog. All the big nerds are the little ones.

Feel bad for all my tall bros. Hard to find a shirt that fits, always gotta be to short or too tight, gotta go larger.
- The struggle is real :( pants are the same way... either super wide and short or long and not wide.

"Mr. Chambers! Don't get on that ship! That OS, it's...it's a COOKBOOK!"
- To serve kernel is a cookbook! 🍿

To be fair, I'm still a large in my old shirts but an xlt in new shirts. Not always us getting bigger, but the cuts getting smaller
- Bro, you just stretched out your shirts

So, why are penguins shrinking shirt sizes?

from twinks to hell yeah

Well I'm the only Linux nerd I know nor have I ever met another one in person and I'm a medium, could probably get away with a small if I had a touch more self confidence.

They're too busy ricing their WMs to get exercise
- And as we all know, rice is all carbs!

I could imagine this to be mich similar to the 1999 one in 2023 again

The shirt supplier may also be a factor. An American/EU size M is like an Asian L or XL. So if they changed the supplier then that's a possibility for the change.

Those twinks found out about oversized tees