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Today’s Obesity Epidemic: It all started in the ‘70s!
Governments, Health Authorities and Consumers alike seem quite baffled when it comes to finding a solution to the current epidemic of obesity in the Western world. Yet a meaningful insight can be gained by looking back at the alignment of an “Un-holy Trinity” of events that came into being about the same time in the early seventies, which may explain the start of all our problems…
(Extracts from a recent report from the RAND University of Chicago.)
Critical Event #1: Palm oil was introduced in the US in the 1970s, much cheaper and tastier than vegetable oil - but containing 45% saturated fat.
Critical Event #2: At the same time, soft drink companies switched to high-fructose syrup saving the companies 20% in sweetener costs, but also allowing the production of calorie-dense convenience food, the so-called "TV Dinners".
Critical Event #3: Still at the same time, meat production soared world-wide as penned animals became easier to fatten because the feed costs of soy meal and corn fell…so at fast food outlets, portions became bigger and cheaper.
The Fallout: "Value meals" became popular and the presence of more food for the same amount of money induced people to eat more.
By the end of the 20th century, super sizing reigned supreme in the fast food world.
Another factor responsible for the rise of obesity is the habit of consuming high-calorie snacks between meals, particularly in schools where most cafeterias stopped cooking proper meals in the favour of "outsourcing" - contracting an outside source to deliver pre-plated meals.
This moves up another level when we see how obesity in the United States is becoming associated with high levels of “religiosity”, and how obesity is made to a cult on TV with some popular singers revering their own overweight body in their lyrics.
Other factors contributing to obesity: lack of physical education in schools, disproportionate TV-viewing (where up to 40% of child-focussed advertising is for high-fat foods because genuinely healthy foods are not commercially attractive) which can lead children to develop type 2 diabetes, particularly among the working poor who have the "impulse to eat for today, tomorrow being a tentative proposition at best".
The End Result: The costs of overweight and obesity are enormous to individuals and to business, and compromises both the physical and fiscal health of the United States and, following closely behind, the United Kingdom.