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Obesity being a correlation might mean it is also a symptom. We already know from a couple studies that people with the same activity level and calorie intake are significantly more overweight than in the 80s. One leading hypothesis is endocrine disruptors.

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Possible, but I would tend to bet its just a high sugar and sweetener diet more than anything. Obesity is not uniform at all. In pre covid days of seeing many people, I would rarely see anyone who is obese (northeast american), but that's because I'm in an upper middle class bubble. These days I'm pretty good about avoiding heating up plastics and what not. Growing up it wasn't on our radar at all. Point I'm trying to make is plastic exposure is pretty high for all populations, whereas diet varies tremendously by social class, and the composition of it has changed significantly since the 80s.

Also we traded cocaine and cigarettes for pot and booze (alcohol usage is much higher than the 80s).

I'd be very wary of any studies that ask people to identify "activity level."

That does seem the weak point. The body can conserve calories in many hard to observe ways.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18714...

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