Kevin Drum writes that, "Childhood obesity is far higher than it used to be, but it's not brand new: there have always been kids who were sedentary and ate lots of crappy food. But 30 years ago, these kids just got flabby, they didn't get diabetes." The implication is that the rise in childhood obesity and diabetes might be the product of phthalates -- a compound used in plastic packaging that is also proving a potent disruptor of normal endocrine function.I'm all for more study of phthalates, but I really wouldn't dismiss the change in eating habits over the past 30 years. Thirty years ago, kids might have been sedentary and eating lots of crappy food, but they were eating less of it than they are now. Same for adults. According to CDC data, between 1971 and 2000, obesity in the United States shot from 14.9% to 30.1%. The main reason is simple enough: Average calorie consumption increased. Men went from 2,450 calories to 2,618 calories. Over the course of a year, that's an increase in 61,320 calories. The trends were even more striking for women: an average intake of 1,542 calories became 1,877 calories. That's 122,275 extra calories per year. (The gender difference here surprises me, incidentally.) Another study, this one from the USDA, estimated that "average daily calorie consumption in 2000 was 12 percent,or roughly 300 calories, above the 1985 level." This, they estimated, was the prime factor behind America’s soaring rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes." That's not to say phthalates aren't plausibly playing some sort of role, but the obesity epidemic isn't the sort of issue where you have to grope around for credible causal mechanisms. We eat more, move less, and are thus getting fatter. If we reversed those first two trends and nothing happened, I'd begin to worry more about packaging compounds. But for now, the safe bet is that we have a behavioral problem rather than a medical mystery. This is, incidentally, one of the health system issues people are loathe to really confront because no one has really good ideas for how to confront it. We can argue back-and-forth about how to best fund health insurance expansions. But no one knows how you provide affordable medical services to a population where a solid quarter of the folks have type II diabetes. In fact, you probably can't do it. But that's where the trends are headed. ARE PLASTICS MAKING US FAT?
Kevin Drum writes that, "Childhood obesity is far higher than it used to be, but it's not brand new: there have always been kids who were sedentary and ate lots of crappy food. But 30 years ago, these kids just got flabby, they didn't get diabetes." The implication is that the rise in childhood obesity and diabetes might be the product of phthalates -- a compound used in plastic packaging that is also proving a potent disruptor of normal endocrine function.I'm all for more study of phthalates, but I really wouldn't dismiss the change in eating habits over the past 30 years. Thirty years ago, kids might have been sedentary and eating lots of crappy food, but they were eating less of it than they are now. Same for adults. According to CDC data, between 1971 and 2000, obesity in the United States shot from 14.9% to 30.1%. The main reason is simple enough: Average calorie consumption increased. Men went from 2,450 calories to 2,618 calories. Over the course of a year, that's an increase in 61,320 calories. The trends were even more striking for women: an average intake of 1,542 calories became 1,877 calories. That's 122,275 extra calories per year. (The gender difference here surprises me, incidentally.) Another study, this one from the USDA, estimated that "average daily calorie consumption in 2000 was 12 percent,or roughly 300 calories, above the 1985 level." This, they estimated, was the prime factor behind America’s soaring rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes." That's not to say phthalates aren't plausibly playing some sort of role, but the obesity epidemic isn't the sort of issue where you have to grope around for credible causal mechanisms. We eat more, move less, and are thus getting fatter. If we reversed those first two trends and nothing happened, I'd begin to worry more about packaging compounds. But for now, the safe bet is that we have a behavioral problem rather than a medical mystery. This is, incidentally, one of the health system issues people are loathe to really confront because no one has really good ideas for how to confront it. We can argue back-and-forth about how to best fund health insurance expansions. But no one knows how you provide affordable medical services to a population where a solid quarter of the folks have type II diabetes. In fact, you probably can't do it. But that's where the trends are headed. 
