The author writes:
And
yet, scientists still could not explain the mystery of antibiotics and
weight gain. Nor did they try, really. According to Luis Caetano M.
Antunes, a public health researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in
Brazil, the attitude was, “Who cares how it’s working?” Over the next
few decades, while farms kept buying up antibiotics, the medical world
largely lost interest in their fattening effects, and moved on. In
the last decade, however, scrutiny of antibiotics has increased.
Overuse of the drugs has led to the rise of antibiotic-resistant strains
of bacteria — salmonella in factory farms and staph infections in
hospitals. Researchers have also begun to suspect that it may shed light
on the obesity epidemic.
Now it is not only genes, advertising, it is also antibiotics. It may just as likely be global warming, climate change, or whatever the latest fad is. What it is, simply, is eating too many calories and expending too few. That law of nature has not changed. Perhaps the calories per pound of pork has increased, then eat less pork.
All one has to do is go into any American restaurant. Large plates, immense portions of high calorie food and great numbers of obese people consuming the plates, one after another. Any one of the many chain restaurants serve massive platters of excess calories and the patrons consume the food with glee. There is no price, yet, for many of them, and their obesity. Yet as it continues to grow the costs will explode.
There is no benefit to "discovering" new reasons why these people are fat. They eat too much. The whole business of blaming some exogenous factors when the fault lies within is a major failing of our society. For every 0.1 that a person is over a BMI of 25.0, there should be a tax of say $500. That ought to stem some of the tide. Sort of a new idea on income redistribution. Think about it.
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