3 ms·
Something started in the 70s and I’ve never seen a good explanation of what it was. But you can see in the stats that obesity hit an inflection point in the mid
by kgin 5y ago
Something started in the 70s and I’ve never seen a good explanation of what it was. But you can see in the stats that obesity hit an inflection point in the mid-1970s, started going up and has never looked back. Now we’re at 80% overweight and 40% obese and still rising.
Pinning it on willpower or individual choices seems way off base. Something system-wide happened here and it’s crazy that we don’t know what it is.
- rubyist5eva 5y agoIn the middle ages, only royalty and elites were fat because they were the only ones who had access to the abundance of food that made it possible. It was seen as a good thing to be fat. Hell, in today's society the "Health At Any Size" movement portrays morbid obesity as no big deal at best, and a good thing at worst. > But you can see in the stats that obesity hit an inflection point in the mid-1970s This is about where mass production of hyper-processed foods hit critical mass of cheapness and availability. Americans have easier and cheaper access to nearly infinite amounts of food that middle age kings could only dream of.
- 0_____0 5y agoMy bet is that a significant chunk of this is the push of populations out of cities and into car-focused suburbs. Matches up quite well timeline wise as second-order effect of the post-war suburban boom.