We traveled in France this summer and could not help but note the visibly lower body mass of the population, particularly among children and young people. It reminded us of how North American people used to look in the ’80’s. Our observations were not imagined.
The interactive graph below shows, by color, the percentage of obese people over the age of 18 as at 2016. In 1975, the incidence of obesity was fairly uniform in the developed world, about 10% of North Americans and less than 9% in France. Today, the number has more than tripled to 36% in America, with Canada, the UK and Australia also nearly 30%. Over the same period, obesity in France has doubled to just over 20%. Click the play bar to see how dramatically the problem has accelerated globally since 1975, and even just since 2000.
There are a bunch of factors that have decreased physical activity levels to be sure. But the biggest factor here is the type of food we are eating. Fast, garbage food is infiltrating many countries, but diets in France still remain visibly fresher and portion size much smaller than in North America and the UK.
Our processed food choices and policies are driving an epidemic of poor health, undermining our productivity and bankrupting our sick-care system. We literally cannot afford to continue with the status qu0. The good news is that we know how to evolve, we just need to insist that we do.
;
