Marketing Takes Off and Obesity Soars 

Marketing Takes Off and Obesity Soars 

The unprecedented rise in the power, scope, and sophistication of food marketing starting around 1980 aligns well with the blastoff slope of the obesity epidemic. In the 1970s, the U.S. government went from just subsidizing some of the worst foods to paying companies...
Do Taxpayer Subsidies Play a Role in the Obesity Epidemic? 

Do Taxpayer Subsidies Play a Role in the Obesity Epidemic? 

Why are U.S. taxpayers giving billions of dollars to support the likes of the sugar and meat industries? The rise in calorie surplus sufficient to explain the obesity epidemic was less a change in food quantity than in food quality. Access to cheap, high-calorie,...
Processed Foods and Obesity 

Processed Foods and Obesity 

The rise in the U.S. calorie supply responsible for the obesity epidemic wasn’t just about more food, but a different kind of food. The rise in the number of calories provided by the food supply since the 1970s “is more than sufficient to explain the US epidemic of...
Cutting the Calorie-Rich-And-Processed Foods 

Cutting the Calorie-Rich-And-Processed Foods 

We have an uncanny ability to pick out the subtle distinctions in calorie density of foods, but only within the natural range. The traditional medical view on obesity, as summed up nearly a century ago: “All obese persons are, alike in one fundamental respect,—they...
Are We Polar Bears in a Jungle? 

Are We Polar Bears in a Jungle? 

Rather than being some kind of disorder or a failure of willpower, weight gain is largely a normal response by normal people to an abnormal situation. It’s been said that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” The known genetic contribution...
What Is the Role of Our Genes in the Obesity Epidemic? 

What Is the Role of Our Genes in the Obesity Epidemic? 

The “fat gene” accounts for less than 1 percent of the differences in size between people. To date, about a hundred genetic markers have been linked to obesity, but when you put them all together, overall, they account for less than 3 percent of the difference in body...