A fascinating article by David Berreby in Aeon, takes a fresh and scary look at a lot of evidence that obesity may not simply be “the result of a lack of willpower and an inability to discipline eating habits.”
Many scientists who study the biochemistry of fat and the epidemiologists who track weight trends “believe that personal gluttony and laziness cannot be the entire explanation for humanity’s global weight gain.”
As the American people got fatter, so did marmosets, vervet monkeys and mice. The problem may be bigger than any of us.
Berreby questions-In placing the blame for the obesity epidemic on individuals has our society continued in the same vein as Bruno Bettelheim’s blaming autism on mothers with cold personalities and blaming natural disasters like tornadoes and earthquakes on sinfulness?
“History is not kind to authorities whose mistaken dogmas cause unnecessary suffering and pointless effort, while ignoring the real causes of trouble. And the history of the obesity era has yet to be written.”
which “compared 10,529 people who received prescriptions for sleep aids with nearly twice as many people with similar health histories who did not take sleeping pills, researchers found that those who had prescriptions were more than four times as likely to have died during the study’s 2.5-year follow-up as those who didn’t take the drugs.” Not only that, but they group had a 35% increased risk of cancer.
Katie Bauer, of 
New 