A quite big YouTuber who goes by the nickname "Nikocado Avocado" has been quite controversial over the years, mostly caused by his self-destructive behavior, with some of his fans defending him while others have criticized him for said behavior, how he is ruining his own life and giving a bad example to others.
Many years ago he was a very skinny and healthy-looking guy doing random YouTube videos, who one day tried making a so-called "mukbang" video, which is a video were the author just eats an enormous amount of (usually very unhealthy) food. To his surprise that video got millions of views, way more than the vast majority of his other videos. So he did it again, and again, and again... And you can guess where it went: He became addicted, both to food and to making these videos. Over the years his weight doubled, if not even tripled, and he started suffering from all kinds of conditions due to his weight and his overeating. And, unsurprisingly, once you get addicted to junk food, it's extremely difficult to stop and reverse course (food addiction causes both physical and mental symptoms that just keep you hooked.)
One particular thing I would like to comment on is his response to a particular piece of criticism: That is, he has several times responded to allegations that he "used to be so fit and healthy, and he has ruined his health" by stating that he wasn't actually healthy when he was skinny, that he was suffering from all kinds of problems and ailments that went away when he started eating more.
I completely believe him. Why? Because he was a vegan before he started making "mukbang" videos. All the symptoms he describes are very typical of veganism. Symptoms that go very quickly away when a vegan starts eating animal products.
This is a particularly twisted and sad situation in the sense that he went from one unhealthy self-destructive life style to the complete opposite unhealthy self-destructive life style, and from many of his videos he doesn't seem to either understand or accept it. He is using this "I suffered from all kinds of problems when I was skinny" as a justification for his overeating (or at least has used it many times; I haven't checked what his situation is at this moment.)
Rather obviously, the correct solution to the effects of vegan malnutrition is not to jump to the absolute opposite extreme. It shouldn't even be stated that it's, quite obviously, starting to eat traditionally healthy varied food that contains both plant and animal products, in reasonable amounts.
In a sense, overeating is more dangerous than veganism. That's because the effects of veganism are extremely easy and very fast to reverse: Quite literally most if not all symptoms will go away within a couple of weeks of starting to eat normally, maybe even just a week.
Not so with morbid obesity and junk food addiction. Both weight loss as well as getting rid of that addiction are extremely hard, difficult and laborious. It can take literally years of hard work, and a commitment to continue that path for the rest of your life, and like with all addictions, it never quite goes away. Like with all addictions, relapsing is extremely easy and dangerous.
If there's anything positive to say about veganism, at least its dangerous effects are very easy and fast to reverse, and there's little danger of having an urge of going back, once you are out of it.
(Although, admittedly, veganism can sometimes go hand-in-hand with anorexia, which is a real and also very difficult condition to get over. Veganism in itself is easy to cure and does not really cause an addiction, but if it's paired with anorexia, that can be a much more serious condition.)
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