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Comment by AlecSchueler | Hacker News Reader

Because we understand that obesity is highly linked to traumatic experience and that the over eating tends to be the result of compulsive escapism rather than a conscious choice to indulge.

Can highly recommend the book The Body Keeps The Score for further reading.

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It's also linked to enjoying fatty and sugary foods. I'm overweight, and it's not because of a traumatic experience. It's because I enjoy eating pizza and burgers, and I'm too lazy to shop for and cook healthy food.

According to the most recent CDC data, 42% of Americans are classified as clinically obese. Are we to believe nearly half the country is suffering from severe psychological trauma?

I blame the intersection of capitalism and food, the normalization and expansion of horrific fast food choices solely because it is profitable and advertising is cheap.

Yeah, this is a fishy correlation. While I believe that some people may soothe their bad feelings with food, we don't observe any sort of obesity epidemics in the cohorts of survivors of serious crises (Yugoslav civil wars etc.)

Mental health is down, and obesity is up. It doesn't follow that they are related, but it seems they could be.

Don’t forget the sensationalist left that has proliferated the idea of “fat” “shaming”, where merely pointing out an unhealthy lifestyle is considered rude, insulting, shaming or elitist.

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