[i_am_proteus]

>Also, agricultural output is not directly related to human consumption, past some base.

Precisely. Prior to the widespread industrialization of United States farms, there were occasional famines in the United States. 1/3 to 1/2 of the country lived on farms and were engaged in farming. The industrial revolution freed us from the burden of physical labor, and provided plentiful food.

If California an exception, are Washington and Oregon also exceptions? Why does obesity not increase as one travels down the Mississippi? One would expect Louisiana (Mississippi delta) to be substantially worse than Kentucky (more mountainous and well-upstream of Louisiana) and Michigan (situated on the Great Lakes). Michigan and Louisiana are similar, and Kentucky is much worse. I refer to the author's data source.[0]

[0]https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html#states

[simiones]

> The industrial revolution freed us from the burden of physical labor, and provided plentiful food.

Sure, but that happened well before WWII, while the obesity epidemic started sometime around 1970-1980 and is growing rapidly. The vast majority of the US population in 1950-60 had all the food that they could possibly want, and yet <1% of them were obese, versus 30% percent today.

> One would expect Louisiana (Mississippi delta) to be substantially worse than Kentucky (more mountainous and well-upstream of Louisiana) and Michigan (situated on the Great Lakes). Michigan and Louisiana are similar, and Kentucky is much worse.

I don't know enough US geography to be able to sustain this point one way or another. I will just mention that the CDC data is not the only piece of data the article uses to show this correlation between altitude and BMI, but leave it at that.

[i_am_proteus]

>Sure, but that happened well before WWII, while the obesity epidemic started sometime around 1970-1980

This is not correct. Mass-scale industrialization of US farms didn't start happening until the 1930s. Remember that it was the internal-combustion engine (not the steam engine) that permitted the use of tractors and other machinery to supplant human and animal labor.

Now consider that it takes time for humans to become obese. The children raised during the beginning of the massive agricultural surplus were precisely the ones who were fueling the start of the epidemic in the 1970s.