So, 100 years ago, this kind of weight was sideshow-worthy (and remember the other things one would see in a circus sideshow...); today, it wouldn't turn heads on a subway.

However: the US has become _more_ health-conscious in the past 100 years, not less. We must have something wrong, if concern for exercise and good nutrition goes hand-in-hand with this kind of obesity.

I think this is due, at least in part, to the drastic reduction of fat consumption relative to carbohydrates; but changes in lifestyle and in modes of entertainment must have something to do with it, too. No one mindlessly eats high-carbohydrate foods while playing poker, after all...

The increase in number of sedentary jobs relative to others probably has a role, too, but it must not be a very major factor on its own; otherwise, there would have been as much obesity among white-collar workers then as there is among everyone today.

There are things that man was not meant to know: not the coordinates of Cthulhu's tomb in the watery depths and the nature of spells to manipulate the Great Old Ones, but the unholy and arcane arts of transistors, CRTs, and low-fat yogurt.

[Edit: typo.]