I’m en route to Florida for an hour-long interview with Tucker Carlson about food/health incentives. I am so grateful to carry this message forward, and hope these emails have sparked some interesting ideas!
Over the weekend, I posted the above chart, which sparked a lot of reactions. I think the idea being pushed by pharma-funded doctors at Harvard that US obesity (which has only happened in the past 50 years) is genetic and must be cured with pharmaceuticals has struck a nerve.
Clearly, this is not the case, and addicting America to band-aid cures isn’t working. Here are 4 of the most interesting reactions I received to this chart:
(1) One Twitter user created this graph charting obesity rate and steps per day. Clearly, the way we design cities matters.
(2) There was a lot of discussion of why Italy – with a carb-heavy diet – has such low obesity. A lot of interesting responses to Michelle’s question here. First, Italy’s card consumption is probably lower than we think. Second, Italians have a habit of walking frequently – particularly after meals- which greatly impacts glucose management. Third, the quality of food matters – and a heuristic I often use is “Are we evolutionarily made to eat this food?” We’ve been eating whole grains for hundreds of thousands of years. Processed grains (which remove the fiber, which increases glucose impact and removes nutrients to make the food more shelf-stable and addictive) are only 120 years old.
(3) This complicates the genetic argument a bit!
(4) Whereas many U.S. doctors are no longer weighting patients or speaking about weight, Japan has spoken clearly about the need to combat obesity and created public policies to incentivize healthier habits (such as healthy eating, movement, and stress management)
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Calley Means 