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>How do you explain the obesity epidemics which is a very recent phenomenon, if not through perverse market forces? When you put it that way, I feel like askin
by savanaly 8y ago
>How do you explain the obesity epidemics which is a very recent phenomenon, if not through perverse market forces?
When you put it that way, I feel like asking how could the obesity epidemic possibly be blamed on perverse market forces? It's not like the food markets of the past were any less competitive, greedy or unregulated than they were when the obesity epidemic took hold.
I will weakly float two hypotheses that I've heard to explain it: technological change that made certain types of food cheaper (the bad ones), and government regulation that subsidized corn production which of course subsidized corn syrup based foods.
- pygy_ 8y agoYou are correct that the market forces were there before, and that the epidemics couldn't have occurred without industrial food transformation. Before that, how fattening food was was limited by biology and I suppose that it was slow enough for human populations to adapt. Also, the "artificial = good" meme mid-20th century probably helped bootstrap the whole thing by disrupting otherwise conservative feeding habits. Corn syrup is a positive factor, but the obesity epidemics also occurred in other industrialized countries where it is far less prevalent. Thus the driving force is growth seeking beyond reason (through both the market and (corrupt?) subsidies). Technology just gave it leverage.