the world health organization points to two major causes of obesity rates globally--which have drastically increased over the past decade or so:
Quote:
* a global shift in diet towards increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat and sugars but low in vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients; and
* a trend towards decreased physical activity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many forms of work, changing modes of transportation, and increasing urbanization.
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there's alot more here:
WHO | Obesity
naturally, when the initial who reports came out, the bush administration had a Problem with it because it points to structural factors, many of which are directly linked to the american industrial food system and to changes in work and transportation that are linked to the "american way of life"---instead, the bush people preferred to talk in terms not unlike many of the folk above--structural factors are neutral, and it's all a matter of atttitude blah blah blah.
but that's bullshit.
of course, thinking in terms of structural factors tends to short circuit the fun and excitement of self-righteous blather---but maybe that blather is really little more than that--mixed with an avoidance of difficult problems that lead to kinda important questions (like does the american industrial food model, in its subordination of food production to profit maximization, really make sense?) in favor of a kind of nitwit empiricism, so that only what's in front of your face is real.