Obesity

If you look at movies or photos from the 1950's and 1960's, you'll see a lot of relatively skinny people. Time Magazine recently showed how clothing sizes have adjusted over the decades to accommodate new small-medium-large propensities. Obesity is rising in all demographic groups. Coloradans who as a group are the least obese have increasing rates of obesity over the last few decades.

Many people have written about how exercise has increased, fruit and vegetable consumption has increased also. So combatting obesity does not mean more activity or healthier eating. High carb diets leading to an insulin reaction causing more fat storage has been debunked in some studies. Some have said those are not the reasons for increased obesity rates.

Other theories I've heard over the years:

• sugar as a newborn changes our brain chemistry to be less satisfied with sugar until we increase our intake of it (has infant sugar intake increased over the last 40 years?)
• the nature of food has changed: wheat today is not like the wheat of 40 years ago, thanks to the "green revolution" of a genetically modified strain (now used almost everywhere) that is more robust; more processed foods have corn syrup as a sweetener, a result of a federal push to increase demand for corn
• smoking is down and that has decreased our satiety because of nicotine's effect on the brain
• oral health has improved therefore appetites have remained strong despite metabolism changes as we age