There is a war going on.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-LOVE...X/187693159481

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4837278821

That's the problem, not the fact that it's an option presented to them. As soon as a person makes an informed decision there is no reason to place blame on anyone else.

It's the fixable problem. The food industry is not fixable.

I'd like to do a study of two small towns - one with only a few small grocery stores and normal mom and pop restaurants. The other one is full of chain restaurants and giant grocery stores.

Which town would be fatter?

Good luck finding small towns without access to giant groceries and chain restaurants. They're everywhere now, even where I grew up in BFE West Virginia, with a population of a thousand.

Although I can also tell you from my experience before the chains arrived that people in rural areas are just as capable of growing morbidly obese eating home cooked food.

People for sure. But how many people? And how many kids?

ROFL I'm from a town of 200 that had one Cafe, there were still plenty of fat people including myself.

Edit: I do agree with you that with more bad options you'll have more people that choose that option, but my whole point is if that person is educated on what and how much they are eating is it still the fault of the place serving it?

Pretty much everybody was fat where I grew up, kids included (although I actually wasn't) and this was 30 years ago, long before Wal-Mart and Applebee's arrived. Tons of butter and cooking everything in lard will do that. Not to mention soda and kool-ade for the kids and beer for the adults.

No McDonalds?

I'm not arguing that its anyone's fault but their own, I'm just exploring the reason why America is fat.

I think it has more to do with industry than individual.

Not back then, no. They have them now.

Unless the industry is tying people to chairs and shoving food down their gullets, the problem is on the individual level.

I should say "became" instead of "is."

Advanced technology + laziness + more time consuming lives + less stay at home moms + more stress + plenty of other factors = fat

The food plays a part in it, but it's not the reason.

While these factors certainly contribute, I think the biggest issue is that Americans have more disposable income than anywhere else in the world. Historically, weight has been tied to wealth and I think it is the same today.

I'd tend to agree with this as well. Even the poorest of people here are out buying McDonalds dollar menu instead of working their asses off growing their own food to feed their family.