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It could just have gotten more calorically dense. Nearly half of our increased caloric intake since 1961 is in the form of vegetable oils which are very caloric

It could just have gotten more calorically dense. Nearly half of our increased caloric intake since 1961 is in the form of vegetable oils which are very calorically dense, and you might not even notice when you're eating them. Portion sizes are probably a factor. Anecdotally they're a lot bigger than they used to be. Calories are cheaper to produce and restaurants put bigger plates in front of their patrons because it's a competitive advantage to serve bigger meals. If I had to guess the big culprits are the increases in portion size and availability of cheap calories (corn syrup, oils, flours, etc.). You don't have to infer any major changes in individual behavior - people still finish what's on their plates, and still gravitate toward brightly colored boxes of junk in the supermarket (which are a higher % of shelf space than they used to be).

pmarreck 4y ago
vegetable oils are a fat, and no one who only eats fats, gains any weight; in fact they lose weight, which is the whole principle behind Atkins and keto. The idea that people gain weight from fats, is thus false. if all you did was eat fat calories, you would lose a ton of weight, because ketone bodies cannot be stored inside fat cells, only glucose fructose, etc. can. If all you did was eat protein calories, then yes, you could gain weight via gluconeogenesis (conversion of protein to glucose, again for fat storage and energy needs), although it would probably take more calories than carb calories to do so (since conversion likely results in molecular and energy losses); there is no such biochemistry available for ketones from fat