[ExI] Obesity was progress.

[Keith Henson]

On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 4:00 AM,  Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>> wrote:

snip

> Earlier this week we had a big debate on the causes of obesity (
> http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2013/02/28/balaji-ravichandran-are-all-calories-equal-or-are-some-more-equal-than-others
> <http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2013/02/28/balaji-ravichandran-are-all-calories-equal-or-are-some-more-equal-than-others/>
> ) and I think my main take-home surprise was that obesity suddenly
> started to grow worldwide (with some lags) in the late 70s. Yet the
> causes seems to be fairly complex - I was not too convinced by the
> explanations given.

Off hand obesity seems to be a side effect of an arms race among the
corporations that sell food.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

"Their stature was defined by their skill in fighting one another for
what they called “stomach share” — the amount of digestive space that
any one company’s brand can grab from the competition."

Vast research has gone into foods, making them tasty, rewarding,
addicting even.  Is it a surprise that we eat a lot of food optimized
to be consumed?

Readers can probably think of lots of ways to test this model.

Keith