Here is something I've honestly never understood about the thinking behind the whole "fat acceptance" movement: if diet and lifestyle changes truly don't succeed at getting and keeping people at a healthy weight, then why is it that when you look at photos of typical Americans from the 1970s and 80s (let alone the 50s and 60s), people appear noticeably thinner, in general, than they do today? If it's all "in the genes," as fat acceptance thinking goes, then does that suggest that somehow, the human gene pool (only in industrialized countries, of course) suddenly made a drastic change within only one or two generations?

I'm old enough to have grown up in the 70s and 80s. I don't remember there being all that many fat kids around. Usually there we just had that one (or maybe two at the most) in any given class, who, unfortunately, would get teased mercilessly. Today, I look at kids in school and am shocked to see that at least half of them are significantly overweight, with quite a few who are downright obese. Kids didn't look like that 20-30 years ago. That one "fat kid" from my 5th grade class 30 years ago wouldn't even look out of the ordinary today.

Do people honestly believe that our genes have suddenly changed that radically, that over half of the U.S. population (for example) is genetically doomed to be overweight (when they clearly were not just a generation ago)? I am boggled that people would think that the industrialized world's obesity problem is due to anything other than changes in lifestyle and diet over the past few decades. And therefore, it follows logically, the majority of weight problems must be caused by the environment, whether it be poor eating habits, sedentary lifestyle, or something else.