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Prior to the 20th century, it was pretty routine for average people to have inadequate access to nutrition. The rise in obesity corresponded with sweeping chang
by tootie 4y ago
Prior to the 20th century, it was pretty routine for average people to have inadequate access to nutrition. The rise in obesity corresponded with sweeping changed in agricultural policy that backstopped the prices of staple foods with subsidies and improved land and water management to prevent dust bowls. The result is everybody has enough food available cheaply all the time. Rolling any of that back is likely to replace obesity with malnutrition which is a much worse problem. Pandemic years notwithstanding, life expectancy has increased almost hand-in-hand with obesity rates. Obviously that's correlation, not causation.
- krona 4y agoObesity rates started rising in the 1980's in the US, not the turn of the 20th century. This corresponds with poor diet, not abundant nutrition.
- rootusrootus 4y agoThey were going up before the 1970s, there was a momentary blip in the mid/late 70s before they started going up steadily again.
- insane_dreamer 4y ago> Rolling any of that back is likely to replace obesity with malnutrition Based on what evidence? There are plenty of countries where people are not suffering from malnutrition and yet obesity rates are low compared to the U.S.