No one has a perfect, comprehensive explanation for why so many people today are overweight and obese. I believe, and I am far from being the only one, there is

No one has a perfect, comprehensive explanation for why so many people today are overweight and obese. I believe, and I am far from being the only one, there is a cultural component and a caloric component. Real life is not black and white, and it is more accurate to see the evolution of norms and diet as a shift in statistical distributions. The caloric component is easy to explain. Today, it is very easy to overeat without realizing it from the point of view of hunger. A Frappuccino, or whatever they call it, can provide 1k kcal, with no impact on satiety. On the contrary, because of the combination of sugar and fat, one may feel hungrier than before when swallowing that Mocacchino. For my grandparents, who were born before World War II, it was much more difficult to take in calories. Even if they wanted to, it was hard to overeat (for a historical overview on the availability of calories, you can read the book "Escape from Hunger and Premature Death" by Fogel). The cultural component may seem more difficult to explain, but I think we can easily see how cultural relativism has strengthened in the last 3 or 4 decades. "Am I fat? Who cares, whatever. Haha." "Do I go out in pj for a "grocery run"? Who cares, as long as I'm comfortable." And this is particularly evident in the United States. If you go to some of the more European parts of South America, Europe or some Asian countries, you see far fewer obese and overweight people. They could certainly gain weight from the standpoint of caloric availability, but they tend not to. Because certain cultural and religious norms are still strong, and people who gain weight are frowned upon. Although I am concerned, from a cultural point of view, about the rotundity of the current pope. Times are changing. Third, there is an issue of self-esteem. The man or woman of the current times see themselves as unworthy, as spectators of the real life lived by other people. When they go from pants size 32 to 34 to 38 to 42, they are not shocked, they are not horrified, they are not concerned for themselves, for their families, for their ancestors, but they take it with the word that best characterizes the philosophy of our times, "Whatever." Judging was bad, but is not judging better? The atomization of the modern human being, lonely, mistreated at work, by partners--whether true or false, and also thinking that a bit of all of us are victims and victimizers--who realizes that he or she will be forgotten the first weekend after they die, leads to having little incentive to dress "properly," to be (reasonably) athletic, strong or fit, to be virtuous. One takes more pride in the new car one has bought than in the body one has built, living "on the rebound" the lives of celebrities who ignore our existence. But all our lives are important, especially to ourselves, and this is the first realization we should have when we start losing weight, or when we decide it is time to put the fork down.