Stress is a leading cause of inflammation. Financial insecurity causes stress and lack of free time to exercise or prepare meals. Hard to separate the variables

Stress is a leading cause of inflammation. Financial insecurity causes stress and lack of free time to exercise or prepare meals. Hard to separate the variables. The drive to eat and what is strongly influenced by gut biome. Fecal transplants have created new food preferences. Even saying diet and exercise are the proximate cause may be an oversimplication. We know that the same level of activity and food intake can produce different results in different people. That doesn't violate thermodynamics. There are caloric expenditures that are not measured in such studies, like incomplete digestion and thermal regulation. People shouldn't eat what they are eating, and they should have alternatives that are healthy for them (which also varies by person, but is almost never equal parts transfat and fructose with a petroleum based dye to make it pretty and to cut the sweetness, enough salt to cure a whole pig).