Increasing amounts of data suggest that obesity is enormously more complicated than "willpower." I feel like studies like this are a strong indicator of that: t

Increasing amounts of data suggest that obesity is enormously more complicated than "willpower." I feel like studies like this are a strong indicator of that: the entire generation doesn't just, you know, lose willpower overnight. Nor is it likely to be genetic; a species doesn't flip a switch like that. But point out the amount of endocrine-disrupting chemicals we stick in our environment, the amount of processed food we use to replace real food, the way our built environment actively pushes people away from fresh produce - well, duh, but who would ever do anything about that? I went back to school for a masters in public health at one point. The very first day of behavioral psychology our professor chose to discuss food deserts - the phenomenon in which grocery stories target high SES enclaves, leaving most lower SES folks without access to fresh groceries. The campus was situated, like most urban campuses are, in a so-so type of area. This was a major northeastern city, not some obscure nowhere. He cut the class into quarters, gave each quarter a $15, a short shopping list (banana, lettuce, milk, chicken breast) and a cardinal direction. Go forth, my children, and return unto me within two hours. Not a single one of us managed it. Three groups managed to find a bodega or something and came back with, say, milk and a shitty banana. One group managed to make it to a fancy market on the edge of the hood where it's beginning to gentrify - but couldn't afford the full list. (Never mind how unrealistic it is to walk almost an hour in each direction to come back with a full load of groceries.) I actually lived near campus. I lived that experience. I had to pay a premium for peapod so that I could have, you know, fresh produce. If I'd run out of food and couldn't wait for peapod, my only reasonable choices were a bodega full of crap and a 7/11. Meanwhile, when I was in Europe, there were tiny hole-in-the-wall shops stocked with fresh nearly-everything nearly everywhere. In London I could always swing by on the way back to my apartment without going more than five minutes out of my way to grab some fresh salad vegetables; in Madrid the same. In Athens I had to go almost ten minutes out of my way. Of /course/ we're fat, and getting fatter.