I think the premise of your question is wrong. My reading of OP's comment is not that people have no agency, or that willpower is not a learnable skill.
My reading of OP's comment is that for some people, it is easy to lose weight. For others it is hard. I agree with this (while still saying that I believe that people have agency over their own weight and that willpower is a learnable skill).
There is no doubt that being fat or not fat is absolutely a function of how much you eat (and to a lesser extent, exercise), and that how much you eat is a function of willpower.
The question is the other parts of the functions. For some people, they can eat as much as they like without getting fat. Others get fat eating less than average.
For some people, it takes a lot of willpower to eat less. For others, it takes less willpower. Someone who's 5'5" will have a harder time becoming a pro-basketball player than someone who's 6'5". Doesn't mean they can't do it with a lot of effort and willpower.
So no changes of mind are needed, the answer to your question is 'no', because I already believe that willpower is learnable (and if I understand correctly, so does OP).
If you believe willpower is a skill, and you believe that deciding to eat or not eat is a conscious choice, then you must therefore believe a person can train their willpower to prevent them from making the choice to eat.
There are no other ways to see this. You don’t subconsciously eat, that’s not really a thing.
I don't agree with that reasoning, even with your premises. Willpower could be a skill, but some people could learn it better than others because of innate ability. Piano is a skill, but some people learn it much better than others.
A person might be able to learn some level of willpower but still lack a sufficient amount to prevent them from eating.
Why assert that everyone is equally capable of learning willpower? There are upper limits to skill acquisition, regardless of how much someone practices.
I’m not convinced willpower is highly trainable either. Your citations don’t claim that.
There’s no need to be snide. Use your willpower to resist the urge to be provocative and have a discussion in good faith.
If you actually go into those citations you’ll find they aren’t very definitive about the malleability of impulse control, especially over the long term.
“Our findings suggest that self-control is potentially malleable and the practice of inhibiting impulses may help people lose weight, eat healthier and increase their physical activity,"
And I think you’re posting studies that extoll the virtue of discipline, which is nice but it doesn’t disprove willpower has a chemical and genetic basis. Some of these are just about children studying in school and having less willpower when one is tired or stressed. Most of them only provide generic and non profound advice.
>”Also, "Doesn't disprove" is not, fundamentally, how any of this works. I'm honestly surprised you think that's a viable argument here...”
In a response to me elsewhere in this topic you said, ”the science is firmly against you” and I’ve yet to see anything in your citations that backs that up, much less “firmly”.
And you still couldn’t resist the temptation to be snide…
I’m going to appear snide to you for the remainder of this conversation because you don’t have good faith in mind. You’re in the “seeing ghosts” phase of this chat, paranoia seems to have you.
That’s demonstrated by your refusal to accept the basic truth that there’s a lot of strong evidence to suggest that willpower is a skill that can be grown and applied to weight loss.
> then you must therefore believe a person can train their willpower to prevent them from making the choice to eat.
Yes. But for some people, that training will be very easy, and for others, the training will be hard. My point does not contradict yours, it adds to it.
My reading of OP's comment is that for some people, it is easy to lose weight. For others it is hard. I agree with this (while still saying that I believe that people have agency over their own weight and that willpower is a learnable skill).
There is no doubt that being fat or not fat is absolutely a function of how much you eat (and to a lesser extent, exercise), and that how much you eat is a function of willpower.
The question is the other parts of the functions. For some people, they can eat as much as they like without getting fat. Others get fat eating less than average.
For some people, it takes a lot of willpower to eat less. For others, it takes less willpower. Someone who's 5'5" will have a harder time becoming a pro-basketball player than someone who's 6'5". Doesn't mean they can't do it with a lot of effort and willpower.
So no changes of mind are needed, the answer to your question is 'no', because I already believe that willpower is learnable (and if I understand correctly, so does OP).