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Unfortunately, it's not clear that we know what to retool in society even if the will were present. Everyone has their favorite "obvious" cause of Americans get

Unfortunately, it's not clear that we know what to retool in society even if the will were present. Everyone has their favorite "obvious" cause of Americans getting fat, but few of those hypotheses actually make any sense of the data (in particular the years that most of the increase occurred, the breadth of regions and demographics affected, and the sudden onset compared to the timescales of potentially related trends). The rest usually fail to replicate at different scales and locations that should show a correlation.

vundercind 2y ago
Absolutely, it’s not like that’s even a straightforward thing to try to address. Is it food prices? Food regulations? Our food culture? Advertising? City design and zoning? Smart money’s on the answer being “yes—plus some other stuff”. Where do you even start?
- no_wizard 2y ago
  >City design and zoning More than any one factor, this is one of the biggest, if not thee biggest one. Get people out of cares and walking around to do daily things like going to work, or shopping for groceries etc. and you naturally get more movement (and interaction) in your day. This compounds over time and encourages other movement. Of course food matters (you can't exercise away a bad diet after all) but we actively encourage stationary activities by not having public spaces that are designed for movement and activity on foot / bicycle / other physically active options
  - vundercind 2y ago
    I’d bet our relatively weak social safety net and poor family support, plus low amounts of time off (especially for low-wage workers who will tend to have lots of other sources of stress and demands on their time, too) are also major contributors. Probably a few of these things wouldn’t have such a bad outcome, but we’ve likely got a lot of problems all contributing to something much worse than the simple sum of their individual harms.

vundercind 2y ago

Absolutely, it’s not like that’s even a straightforward thing to try to address. Is it food prices? Food regulations? Our food culture? Advertising? City design and zoning? Smart money’s on the answer being “yes—plus some other stuff”. Where do you even start?

no_wizard 2y ago
>City design and zoning More than any one factor, this is one of the biggest, if not thee biggest one. Get people out of cares and walking around to do daily things like going to work, or shopping for groceries etc. and you naturally get more movement (and interaction) in your day. This compounds over time and encourages other movement. Of course food matters (you can't exercise away a bad diet after all) but we actively encourage stationary activities by not having public spaces that are designed for movement and activity on foot / bicycle / other physically active options
- vundercind 2y ago
  I’d bet our relatively weak social safety net and poor family support, plus low amounts of time off (especially for low-wage workers who will tend to have lots of other sources of stress and demands on their time, too) are also major contributors. Probably a few of these things wouldn’t have such a bad outcome, but we’ve likely got a lot of problems all contributing to something much worse than the simple sum of their individual harms.