What is making Americans so fat? It’s a question people ask constantly. Hell, I ask myself the same question, because it is a big mystery. Here’s series of articles from the LA Times that try to pin the blame:

- Maybe it’s all that High Fructose Corn Syrup

- Maybe low-fat foods made us eat more

- Maybe a a virus is to blame

- Maybe we take too many drugs

- Maybe we’re too stressed

- Maybe the temperatue is just right

- Maybe we are doomed before birth

- Maybe there’s too much pollution

- Maybe we’re not sleeping enough

- Maybe we shouldn’t have stopped smoking

What else could it be? The first one, on high fructose corn syrup, contains a date reference:

The theory: High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was introduced in the 1970s, about the time the obesity epidemic was first taking off. Maybe the syrup has some special, inimical quality that makes it wreak havoc with our fat cells.

That raises the obvious question: what else happened in the 1970s?

1) Cable TV started in a big way (HBO started in the 70s), as well as the camcorder and the VCR

2) The microprocessor was invented, giving rise to a thousand other sedentary technologies including PCs, video games, CD and DVD players, etc.

3) We made catalytic converters mandatory and banned lead in paint. Maybe lead kept us thin?

4) The manned flights to the moon ended (huge psychological blow)

5) The rise of the suburb

6) Wal-Mart got moving (first stock split was in 1971), giving rise to the idea of big-box retail.

7) The idea of the big, enclosed “shopping mall” was first popularized in the 1970s

8 ) The cell phone got its start in the 1970s.

Maybe it’s a combination of all this stuff together….

[See previous question]