HFCS is basically unique to the US food supply.
Everyone else is getting fat without it.
The rise in net calories consumed per capita is pretty much entirely explains the observed variation.
Everyone else is getting fat without it.
The rise in net calories consumed per capita is pretty much entirely explains the observed variation.
A couple of years ago I stopped eating sugar and bread. I went on a vaguely paleo diet, eating mostly meats, veggies, eggs, some dairy, and nuts, i.e. everything I used to eat minus sugar and bread. I did did not go hard-core paleo by any means. I lost 50 lbs pretty easily though I was not that I could tell eating less or less often. I ate when I was hungry, and stopped when I was full (easier to do, by the way, if you're not eating bread, pasta, or sweet things).
I never counted calories, so maybe I did consume fewer.
Recently I started eating some bread again. I really am a fan of pizza so I thought I would try indulging that every once in a while again. I have the occasional sandwich. Since doing that I gained 10 lbs back. Again I don't feel like I am overall eating more, but in my personal experience those types of carb-heavy foods cause weight gain much more than anything else.
True but I would be more specific than that. Basically we have two major trends going on:
1. Calories in per capita are falling slower than calories out per capita. For traditional, hand-tool-based farming, it required a lot of calories. Even animal-powered farming required a lot more than is required today. It's a bloody lot of hard manual work as my British friends would say. When one talks about net calories, one has to recognize that a hundred years ago people had to eat a lot more than today.
2. More reliance on high tech foods (HCFS, hydrogenated oils, etc, but also see frozen dinners, often which are loaded by excess corn sugar and oil). These are far from ideal dietary-wise.
These combine to mean fewer micronutrients, and an excess of macronutrients. But the lack of hard physical labor as the normal way of life is a major part of things.