ABSTRACT
If you want to be thin, don’t eat so much. The complacent refrain is a familiar one, and its solution to obesity seemed so blindingly obvious that for a long time this illness was relegated to the status of a purely medical problem, on a par with alcoholism and tobacco addiction. It was the doctor’s job to work on patients and make them control their selfindulgence! It was up to nutritionists to devise the ideal diet, which had only to be followed to deliver fitness for all! The failure of this approach, despite the best efforts of a highly competent medical profession, may seem baffling. And yet it was largely to be expected. This is because the method was founded on the assumption that a person grows obese due to a series of bad choices, and it would be enough to point out the error of their ways for them to switch perfectly naturally to the right path. This was a tragic misunderstanding: witness the fact that obesity is mounting fastest among the poorest, least-educated sectors of every society. There are clear social and economic factors underlying the trend and the reasoned arguments of nutritionists cannot stand up to this more obstinate fact.
