Imagine if there was a weight gain pill that you could buy at the checkout at stores like a gas station or Walmart.
Always accessible. Always available. Cheap and in a pack of 1. Say it adds three pounds to your frame (1.4 kg). That wouldn't be noticeable on its own. Do it once, and no one would know except you. You'd probably be able to feel it if it came on fast, but it wouldn't change anything, not really. But how often do you go to the store? I figure most people stop by a store, perhaps the drug store or the gas station or the supermarket, two or three times a week. Some go even more. How long would you be able to resist the temptation? How often would you do it?
Say you keep up with your gaining lifestyle, eating junk food and sodas, in a constant calorie surplus, and then you add that. Once. Twice. Then before long you are taking one every two weeks. Every two weeks shakes out to 78 lbs (35 kg) in a year. That's huge. That's more than most adults gain in their whole adult life. More than any adult *should* gain in their adult life, but you like that, don't you? And of course, that isn't all you gained. No, you were still eating.
Then we have the fact that 78 lbs is a lot for your body to adjust to in a short amount of time. You would, of course, be covered in stretch marks. That's a given. But your muscles would also have a hard time keeping up. So you sit at home more. Then you burn less calories. Suddenly a third reason you're growing. But that's just you.
How quickly would this availability of such a drug change public health? How quickly would the overall population see an impact? The baseline would inch up faster than ever, because people wouldn't be subject to plateaus anymore. People would try it for all kinds of reasons. People would hear that it's a quick way to boost your cup size. Fill out your curves. Others would try it out of curiosity. Little scrawny guys wouldn't want to be seen as wimpy and would have a quick solution. Then before we know it the baseline size for an adult person would have gone up a couple pounds.
But we know it doesn't stop there, because loosing weight is so much harder than gaining. So the standard shifts. The baseline moves. Models and celebs will begin to reflect that. Then to keep up with trends, more peoplewill try it, and of course that will be permenant. Their new body shape. Their new reality.
But we both know you won't be part of the curious cround or the one that wants to do a one time gain for a specific reason. No, you'll get addicted. How long do you think you'll be able to stop at one every two weeks. How long till it's every week. Over 150 lbs in a year. That's doubling a healthy body weight in 365 days. How much would you change the trajectory of your own life? How much would you alter your future?
How long until your options have shrunk to the confines of your home? How many years of monthly or weekly pills? Or would it be a matter of months for you? You can no longer do manual labor. You have to work from home. How long till even that is hard?
To shrink your own world, all these changes, these losses, at the mercy of your impulses. Your addiction. But who needs choices, who needs mobility. You gave it up willingly. One shopping trip. One pill. Three pounds at a time.
But you have more self-control than that, right?
