So why, if corpulence is so baked in the cake, are Americans now so much fatter than they used to be, and so much fatter than most other people in the world?
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Do we really know this to be true?
Of course, current stats say this is so but as Jerry (citing Gina Kolata) points out, we only have figures for the post WWII period - a unique era when many millions of people lived free from fear of forced hunger.
But let's assume it is true and see where that takes us.
Americans probably don't eat more food than other people around the globe but I suspect they eat more of the kinds of food that push your 'set point' beyond its normal plus or minus 20 pound range into heavier territory.
A lunch consisting of a McDonald's cheeseburger, fries and a coke isn't exactly a glutton's feast but it does contain enough fat, high glucose corn syrup and calories - especially if made a regular part of your diet - to change metabolic rate for the worse.
Pro body builders - perhaps the first transhumanists though most don't know it - have been aware of these issues for a very long time, decades in fact. Indeed, there's almost nothing in Kolata's book which will surprise competitive lifters.
Indeed, the reason why growth hormones and various types of steroids came into use was because they enable lifters to overcome the limitations of their natural body types to achieve their ideal. This is why I call body builders accidental transhumanists: they've been conducting a large scale human engineering experiment, one the rest of us might benefit from if it weren't for misplaced moralism and the addled 'war on drugs' which categorized such enhancers as narcotics.
.d.