Far more people in the past, say pre-1980, seemed to be able to deal with these phenomena and avoid obesity. 'The average weight for men rose "dramatically," in

Far more people in the past, say pre-1980, seemed to be able to deal with these phenomena and avoid obesity. 'The average weight for men rose "dramatically," in the CDC's words, from 166.3 pounds in 1960 to 191 pounds in 2002. Women went from 140.2 pounds in 1960 to 164.3 pounds in 2002.' [0] Advertising is no doubt a factor in the obesity epidemic, but I'm not sure that's among the primary causes of it. It seems to me that food portion sizes have increased tremendously over the past four decades. Purveyors of food often seem to peddle the sheer size of portions as features. Additionally, foods that once might have been thought outrageously decadent, such as "coffee" covered in whipped-cream and loaded with caramel (basically a dessert in a cup), and pizza with crust infused with cheese, are now perceived as normal things to consume, quite possibly on a daily basis. My non-scientific observation is that the normalization of consumption of huge portions of calorie-dense "foods" is directly correlated with increases in obesity. Since we're not willing to de-normalize the former as far as I can tell, the emerging societal trend is to normalize the latter. [0] "http://www.livescience.com/49-decade-study-americans-taller-fatter.html http://www.livescience.com/49-decade-study-americans-taller-...