More Sex Is Safer Sex by Steven E. Landsburg

Author:Steven E. Landsburg
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2007-09-07T16:00:00+00:00

It’s not just shopping carts that have gotten bigger. It’s also the people pushing them.

Take the people of Georgia, for example. Georgia is the home state of cornbread, barbecue, peach pie, and a whole lot of really fat people—to be exact, 21.1 percent of the population is obese. Ten years ago, the cornbread, barbecue, and peach pie were all just as good as they are now, but only 9.5 percent of Georgians were obese. What changed?

Whatever changed, it changed everywhere. Obesity is famously skyrocketing in every age group, in every race, in both genders, and in every state of the Union. The most obese region in the country remains the South: four of the five most obese states are below the Mason-Dixon Line. But the spectacular recent growth in obesity is nationwide, led by Georgia but followed by New Mexico, Virginia, California, and Vermont. In 1991, a little over 12 percent of the country was obese; eight years later, it was almost 20 percent.

To see whether you’re part of the trend, start with your height in inches, square it, and take 4.25 percent of the result. If you weigh more than that, you’re obese. To see if you’re merely overweight, take 3.5 percent instead of 4.25 percent.

Okay, so what’s changed in the past decade or so? Well, one thing that’s changed is the portion sizes at McDonald’s. In 1970, McDonald’s offered one size of french fries; today that size is called “small.” Eventually, they introduced a new size and called it “large”; today that size is called “medium.” There’s a new, larger, large size, but at least until recently you didn’t have to settle for that—you could always go a step beyond large and “super-size it.”

So are we fatter because we’re being fed more? Not so fast: bigger portions don’t necessarily translate into bigger meals. When portions were small, you could buy two orders of fries and eat them both; now that portions are enormous, you can buy one super-sized order and share it with your family. How much of that goes on? We simply have no idea.

And even if people are eating more fries these days, there’s still a which-came-first-the-chicken-

nuggets-or-the-Egg-McMuffin question: Do big meals cause obesity or does obesity cause big meals? Did McDonald’s decide on a whim to fatten us up or did their market research reveal that bigger customers were demanding bigger portions? My money’s on the latter. After all, McDonald’s was presumably just as greedy in 1970 as it is today, so if we had wanted super sizes back then, we’d presumably have gotten them. That means we still have to figure out why people choose to be fatter now than in the recent past.

Well, what else has changed? Here’s a thought: ten years ago, you couldn’t even read a local newspaper without walking to the newsstand, or at least to the mailbox; today you can browse any major newspaper in the world from the same chair where you work, chat with friends, and do half your shopping.

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