If 3/10 has a weight issue, yes, blame that 3 out of 10. Yes, those folks probably have self control issues.
If within 50 years suddenly 7 out of 10 has a weight issue, what, all of the sudden everyone just decided to get completely out of control with their food choices?
Something happened within the last 50 years that led to the dramatic weight issue. And especially over the last 20 years. The quality of the food got A LOT worse and the BAD food got A LOT cheaper. A huge part of this is secondary to government subsidies which artificially suppress the food prices. Another issue is the food industry grew rapidly and became extremely powerful, it is minimally regulated, it is allowed to use misleading labels, and it is allowed to target the kids with billion dollar ad campaigns aimed at getting them hooked on sugar.
There is a huge imbalance when it comes to the food supply that are presented to WE THE PEOPLE. Most of the food is highly salted to increase flavor and improve shelf life. Most of it also overly refined and overly processed. The portions also grew significantly. And because of the extra processing as well as the subsidies, this food got a whole lot cheaper.
So you tell me that there is no food supply problem in this country.
When it came to the housing bubble, the lending industry CREATED the loans that enabled WE THE PEOPLE. Of course there was personal responsibility, and that’s why the bubble bloggers were trying to rescue people from making bad mistakes. But ultimately the bad loans had to stop for the general population to stop buying.
Same thing with the obesity crisis. Of course it is up to the individual. And most folks on this blog probably do a decent job navigating away from cheap bad food. But do you think WE THE PEOPLE do a good job in general? Of course not.
The same WE THE PEOPLE that fell for the toxic loans offered to them are also buying 2L cokes for 99 cents and loading up on extra large pizzas for $5. Someone is offering that to them and they are taking it.
The masses ultimately will fall inline with what is available and what is cheap. That is what the masses do.
In the 19th century the Chinese masses were offered cheap opium by the British and huge numbers got hooked.
In the 80’s the masses in our inner cities were offered cheap crack and huge numbers got hooked.
This last couple of decades the American masses were offered cheap food by the giant food industry of this country and they too got hooked.
So don’t tell me we do not have a food supply issue.
