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Saw this article that traces America's obesity roots.  Another article charges that Americans have most notably increase in weight from the 60's by an average of 25 lbs.  The primary causes are the increase in roads/automobiles, the advent of the computer, the office job, the lack of mobility for people and TV.  The article uses the word "sedentary" for how American adults live.

What neither article addresses directly are the portion size increases.  Earlier today on the History Channel, I saw a show on the frozen food industry.  You could clearly see the difference in sizes between now and then.  Also, I asked my mom about the differences when she was growing up, confirming that indeed the portions have grown out of control.

While modernization plays some role in America's move to obesity, you cannot exclusively say those factors on top as the ultimate problems.  Instead, I blame the food industry, the FDA and corporate America for engorging America's desire for consumption.  Still, I have to question when this began and if we can trace signs as to the reasons why this has gone on so long.

I can clearly state that portion size is probably the primary factor in American obesity.  If I go through the list above, I can see that it's not purely that clear.  Having lived in Japan for a while, I can say that walking around all the time didn't reduce my total body fat (it did make my legs a lot more muscled though).  However, one Australian friend commented that my problem was that I "still ate like an American."  That demonstrates to me where my training has been all my life.

All the nutty diet crazes in my opinion have done little to reduce the core problem.  In fact, people have gone back to the basics when it comes to dieting: calorie control.  I doubt that most diets work in the way people want to believe.  But controlling one's calories is where people can benefit the most.

Another article describes "value marketing" being probably the real killer.  Watch any advertisements for fast food shops or groceries.  take Taco Bell for instance.  Recently, they've been running a campaign where you can get something for $0.89.  Naturally, if you hit their drive though, mostly likely you won't stop with just the spare change (I mean, the trip to Taco Bell alone would impel you to get more).  Then  you have the upsells.  While fast food sell smaller quantities individually, the low cost make it undeniable when it comes to our desire to consume.  I think most of us have been trained to think that $3-$5 is where a trip to McDonalds, Del Taco, etc. is considered an average meal.

Then you have family restaurants.  While a lot of restaurants propose to have healthier entres, if you read between the lines, they still sell you larger portions that aren't exactly appetizing.  Not to mention most places won't have calorie information with their menu.   So most people are making highly uninformed decisions when they eat out.  Add to that, the guilt most people feel about wasting and you're going to be down a few more dollars while up a few more calories.

Again though, my real question is when this trend starting to go full throttle.  Obviously, these past few years, the world has scrutinized America over their diet (or lack thereof).  So restaurants have been a little more cautious in serving up their food.  But I'm wondering when this really came to be.  What trend(s) let loose this issue?

Another article mentioned that "the nation's obesity rose percent between 1998 and 1999 alone."  These figures came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  I'm very interested in this period because it's really the start of the dot-com boom period.  I hypothesize that the dot-com period might've started off the ultra-consumerism in America, since there was a prodigious amount of money floating around.  In terms of food, I think with all that money, there just was a lot of excess in this period that resulted in extreme morbid obesity.

For myself, I can't remember prior to that period when America had such a huge obesity issue.  Of course, there's always been fat people, but not at that noticeable level.  I had to dive into my high school and university to verify my theory.  And indeed I could not find a lot of obese people.  Certainly, being younger at that period, my friends and I had higher metabolisms back then.  Yet coming back to LA from Japan a few years back, I noticed the incredible number of fat people at the malls, including high school students.  So again what changed?

One article said that from the late 80's until the early 90's, more fast food restaurants offered "super sized" menu items as part of a combo meal.  Restaurants also were offering similar menu item upsells as well.  As I peruse many of these articles, there's a definite linking between economic/social class and obesity.  My hunch tells me that:

• Lower income families would probably fall into this category as the deals for food met their economic expectations.
• Lower income families probably have less access to good education, therefore disallowing them from understanding facts on nutrition (not to mention being more easily brainwashed by the mechanics of advertising).
  
• Lower income families would not have access to higher quality food (and in my experience the higher quality food tends to be served in smaller portions, but cooked with better ingredients)
• Organic food is out of scope for these families since organically produced food tends to be higher in cost (an interesting example that occurs even now is at the market where I saw the price of strawberries.  There was a deal for $1, but those strawberries were insanely huge, while the $6 organic variety were smaller).
• The fast food industry has been training lower income families for years (since childhood actually) to accept their version of food.

Also, I need to ask several other questions in all of this:

• How has trans fats factored into all of this?
• How does life insurance and medical insurance play a role here?
• Why did the FDA take so long to react to this situation?
• Has the food industry somehow been slowly sabotaging food by genetically mutating ingredients?  For instance, oversized fruits and vegetables?   How do chemically enhanced products factor into this?