At a recent sports medicine conference, a nutrition expert projected the images of Bill Gates and Ronald McDonald on a large screen and asked a provocative question. Of course, contrary to what the Justice Department or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals might claim, proliferating fatness in this country is not the fault of any one or two corporations. Still, images of those two human icons nicely frame the problem. On a basic level, obesity can be explained easily.
People get fat because they take in more calories than they expend.
That has always been the case, even long before Windows and Happy Meals. Without a doubt, our computerized, fast-food world has made it all too easy to put on weight. Earlier this month, a couple of University of Chicago researchers argued in a paper that obesity is an economic phenomenon. They also argue, however, that each person has an ideal weight that involves health, status and other considerations. Whether people are overweight or underweight depends on how much they care about maintaining their ideal weight.