[borroka]

The statistical/genetic view of obesity and observed weight gain in general, which is useful in its descriptiveness, fails to explain, behaviorally, why people 30-40-50 years ago-I was young in one of those decades-were much less likely to be not only obese but also overweight. And while it is true that much more high-calorie food is available today than back then, a lot of butter was used, pasta and bread were widely consumed, and if one wanted to be fat, one could easily become fat.

If the problem was all in poor impulse control and hunger felt differently by some people genetically predisposed to feel it (but >30 percent in some states in the U.S. feel it that way?), there would have been many more fat people in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, when highly palatable food became available. And, I reiterate, those who wanted to or had no problem getting fat could certainly do so. In fact, there were (some) fat people even then.

One thing that has certainly changed over the decades is the social acceptance of obesity and being fat in general. In my country, which is not the United States, people are still asked what happened when they put on a few visible pounds or promise to start working on it before anyone says anything.

I recently visited Buenos Aires and the difference in weight between women and men compared to what I see in the United States/California was hard to believe. It was quite surprising to see so many women and men young and old in good shape, or at least at a good weight.

But in the United States (and other countries) being fat and terribly out of shape is personally and socially accepted. Let me take an opposing and politically incorrect position for a moment, strange as it may seem: if I had a kid who was overweight, I would firmly tell him or her that he or she must lose weight. Would that work? It's hard to say, but it's something I wouldn't accept lightly.

But it's like the differences we see in the way people dress, even though clothes are not part of a physiological process that is apparently easy to hijack. How is it that people show up dressed in a way that 30-40 years ago would have appeared offensive to others-I'm thinking of going to the supermarket in pajamas. Well, for one thing, that way of dressing and showing up in public has become accepted. People of my parents' generation would have been ashamed to show up in public in pajamas. Ashamed to show up in public in pajamas. But nowadays, whether one considers the loosening of dress codes as good or bad, it is socially accepted and becomes almost a need. In fact, for the younger generation, what was once considered normal (for most people), such as making phone calls or being groomed, is almost physiologically intolerable.

[autoexec]

Lab animals kept on strict diets and routines for decades have been mysteriously gaining weight as well. (https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.628)

There's more than just social acceptance of obesity and pajamas in the grocery store at work.

[borroka]

Increased calorie consumption is the offender, there is little doubt about that. By carefully measuring food, one loses and gains weight accordingly (taking into account age, physical activity, etc.).

The social acceptability of being fat leads to psychologically easier consumption of calories. Personally, if it were not for the shame I would feel, I would eat 1 kg of ice cream every night. I have a great appetite, but also a great capacity for restraint.

The "mysterious weight gain" not explained by calories is, at this point, rather speculative.

[autoexec]

> By carefully measuring food, one loses and gains weight accordingly (taking into account age, physical activity, etc.)

That was the problem. The lab animals have had their food careful measured for several decades with essentially the same food/lifestyle, but weight was being gained at a rate higher than other animal populations. Because it's unknown the "why" part is speculative, but they've got some interesting ideas. Changes in animal husbandry standards, endocrine-disrupting chemicals and infectious agents were considered as possible factors.

From the study:

"There are multiple conceivable explanations for these observations. Feral rats could be increasing in weight because of selective predation on smaller animals or because just as human real wealth and food consumption have increased in the United States, rats which presumably largely feed on our refuse, may also be essentially richer. But these factors cannot account for the findings in the laboratory animals that are on highly controlled diets, which have varied minimally over the last several decades." (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.201...)