Funny how obesity accelerated with the decline of smoking. Sure lots of obese people smoke, but my anecdotal experience with my immediate family tells me that a

Funny how obesity accelerated with the decline of smoking. Sure lots of obese people smoke, but my anecdotal experience with my immediate family tells me that a decline in smoking is a factor. Everyone who quit smoking in my family replaced it with food (except for one, who replaced it with alcohol, and then later replaced alcohol with food when they realized they were becoming an alcoholic). Instead of reaching for a cigarette they reached for a snack. It hit my grandparents the hardest because they quit smoking in the late 80s when there was also a war on coffee/caffeine with wild studies blaming it for a ton of health problems. Boom - they lost two appetite suppressants in one fell swoop. I am not advocating for smoking, which has worse or comparable health effects to obesity, but I do think it is a factor in a multi-factor phenomena.