All complex issues of the day involve multiple factors. Such was the case with the housing bubble. We blamed the realtors, we blamed the ignorant buyers, we blamed George Chamberlin, we blamed the builders. But ultimately it was the toxic mortgage that were EVERYWHERE. Toxic mortgages that everybody could get cheaply (as in zero down). That was the driver of the bubble. When the ultimate source of the toxic mortgages died, everything did as well.
Same thing here, you can blame cars, video games, increase of single parent families, air condition, and TVs that have more than one knob. But ultimately one key issue is still the food. Food and drinks are packed in with so much calories and at such a cheap price that I would imagine if someone graphs a $/cal graph it would probably look like the reverse of the housing bubble graph of yesteryears.
The perfect example is Chili’s, where a couple can literally go in, spend $20, and get 4500 cal per person out of that $20. (btw, the food industry of course fought tooth and nails to prevent mandatory calorie information in restaurants. now that they are mandated, they hide the calorie info in small prints at the back of the drinks menu. Bottom line, they DONT want you to know what you are really getting. And while Piggs WILL ask and find that calorie info, the vast majority of WE THE PEOPLE would not).
There is absolutely no way the energy saving from having TV remote, using AC, and sitting all day in front of TVs and video games can begin to compare to the fact that someone in this society can obtain 450 calories with a single dollar. To put into better prospective, that Chili’s meal that only cost $10 per person but yield 4500 calories needed 45 miles of fast paced walking to burn off. I dont care how your parents walked uphill in the snow to go to school and back and now your kids are now chauffeured to the corner elementary school. None of the other factors account for the obesity crisis as much as the food factor.
