"I'll just drink and eat heavily in my 20s and worry about exercising later"

Or you could... not?

To what benefit? In my (early) twenties, I could do that without consequence. But what benefit is there to not doing it while you can? (I mean, assuming you're doing so at a non dangerous level)

> In my (early) twenties, I could do that without consequence

I mean, maybe for you, anecdotally. Anecdotally, I had a friend at 23 who almost died due to his unhealthy drinking and his body basically shutting down. Doctors told him he couldn't drink anymore. And studies have shown that any amount of binge drinking/eating is bad for health outcomes long-term.

You're actually proving my point... people just hand-waive away warnings about future problems, using cherry-picked "evidence" like "hey my friend binge-drank for 30 years and he's fine", or "my father smoked two packs a day for 50 years and he's still around".

Similarly, (ab)use of technology for the wrong thing sets you up for problems later on. Don't do that and you avoid the problems later on.

But nobody wants to listen to the doctor telling them to drink less or give up smoking. Just like nobody wants to listen to good advice from experienced technologists. Sigh.

I'd ask what's the benefit in drinking, but most people see brain destruction and increased risk of doing something stupid as "fun".

Alcohol also reduces the level of social awkwardness quite a bit that many people in the software engineering field exhibit. Which can be quite helpful in making new friends or finding a partner. I'd expect a significant percentage of people would not have been with their current partner without alcohol.

You know people drink and exercise at the same time right? :)

Agreed. Way easier to optimize this one thing than redesigning your application every few years...