We live in an age of obesity. How did it happen? The answer will surprise you.

When I saw the picture, I couldn't believe I was seeing the same population. A picture of Brighton's beach in 1976, which appeared in the “The Guardian” a few weeks ago, seemed to show an alien race. Almost everyone was thin. I mentioned this on social networks and then I went on vacation. When I returned, I saw that the subject was still being debated. The heated discussion moved me to read more. How are we so fat, so fast? To my surprise, any proposed explanation in question proved to be false.

Unfortunately, there was no consistent data on obesity in the United Kingdom before 1988, the year in which the phenomenon was already on the rise. But in the U.S., data goes back in time. The data, by chance, shows that the initial growth point was about 1976. Suddenly, about the time that picture was fired, mankind began to grow thick and trend has continued.

The most common explanation, according to the insistence on social networks, was that we were eating more. Some mentioned it, not without reason, that the food was more complicated in the 1970 ' s. It was even more expensive. There were fewer restaurants “fast food” and malls closed early so meals could be easily lost.

Here comes the first surprise: We ate more in 1976. According to U.S. government data we now consume 2,130 kilo-calori per day, the figure that contains sweets and alcohol. But in 1976 we consumed 2,280 kcal without including alcohol and candy or 2,590 kcal if involved. I have found no reason not to believe these numbers.

Others insisted that reduced physical work is the reason. Again, that seemed logical, but the data did not support it. A paper done last year by the “International Journal of Survey” found that “adults working in physical work are four times more likely to be classified as obses for different employees at other professional jobs”.

What about volunteering? Many people argued that as we drive more than we ride or use our bicycle or are in front of the screen all the time, we are not exercising as physically as we have previously practiced. It seems logical but here comes the next surprise. According to a long - term study by Plymouth University, children's physical activities have remained the same as they did 50 years ago. A study by “International Journal of Epidemiology” found that, after mass proportion, there is no difference between burning calories from people in wealthy and poor countries where agriculture as survival is the norm. The study proposes that there is no connection between physical activity and weight increase. Many other studies show that exercise, while essential in some areas of health, is less important than dieting. Some suggest that exercise does not play at all because the more you exercise, the more you are hungry.

Others cited even more abstract factors: adenovrus-36 infection, the use of antibiotics in childhood, and chemicals that disrupt endocrine production. Although the evidence shows that all of these play spins and can explain variations in weight gain to different people with equal diets, none of these were enough to explain the overall trend.

So, what happened? The problem seems more understandable when you start to analyze the traditional data more deeply. Yes, we ate more in 1976, but we also ate differently. Today, we buy half rations in a few milk per person, buy five times as bad, three times as much ice cream, and 39 times as much candy based on milk products. We buy half the rations fewer eggs than in 1976 and 3 times more morning cereals and 2 times more cereals; we consume half less potato portions, but 3 times more chips. Since the direct purchase of sugar has been reduced, sugar that we consume in drink and candy has increased at an alarming rate (consumption rates exist since 1992, where this increase was already on the rise. As we consumed 9cal a day of drink in 1976, no one may have found it important to add numbers. In other words, opportunities to fill our sugar foods have increased. As many longtime experts have mentioned here clearly is the problem.

This change has not happened by accident. As Jacques Perett explains in his film “The Men Who Made Us Fat”, food companies have invested huge money to design foods that use sugar as an escaper of natural appetizers, and through packing and promotion of these products destroy recent protections, including unconscious use of senses. They hire an army of food scientists and psychologists to trick us into eating more than we need as their efforts use their recent findings in neuroscence to suppress our resistance.

They employ obedient scientists and “thinctantks” to confuse us with the real reasons for obesity. Above all, as cigarette companies have done, they promote the idea of overweight as a problem of individual responsibility. After spending billions of dollars to crush our will, they blame us for not being able to exercise it.

If you judge the debate on the picture of 1976, you see this tactic has worked. There's no reason. Be responsible for your lives, people” “No one has fed you bad food with violence, it's a personal choice. We're rodents. It's right for whoever's lazy and fat because he's got a sense of justice that someone's going to solve.” Emotions of disagreement agree disastrously with industry propaganda. We enjoy blaming the victims.

Even more alarming, according to a study in Lancet, is the fact that 90% of lawmakers think that “personalmotive” is “strong or very strong influence on increasing obesity”. These people do not propose any mechanisms to show how 61% of the overweight English population have lost their will. It seems to be immune to evidence.

Perhaps because obesity is a hidden form of snobbery. In most rich states, obesity rates are higher in low socioeconomic levels of the population. Standards directly match inequality, which helps explain why obesity is higher in the United Kingdom than in most European states and states ECD. Scientific literature shows that people with less power and more stress, anxiety, and depression associated with the lower social statute are more inclined to pursue worse diets.

As if the unemployed are left guilty of structural unemployment, or debtors for high payment rates, the fat are blamed for the social problem. But, of course, the will must be exercised by governments. We need personal responsibility from lawmakers. But control must be exercised on those who have discovered our weaknesses and exploited them without mercy.