Are 50's Moms Responsible for Today's Obesity Epidemic?

From Mother Nature Network. No, it's the processed food industry, and it goes further back than the 50's--all the way to the Depression.

"Over the years, I've seen a lot of fingers pointed when it comes to figuring out the root cause of today's skyrocketing obesity rates. Is it the schools? Parents? Television? Fast-food restaurants? The health care system? Some combination of all of the above? Or maybe there is some other source out there that researchers have not yet pinpointed.

That's what Melinda Sothern is banking on. At 55, Sothern is a leading fitness and nutrition expert at Louisiana State University. And according to her theory, today's obesity rate is less about the choices that Americans are making today and more about the choices that young mothers made, or didn't make, in the post-war 1950s. If she's right, it may very well make reproductive-age women the central focus of America's efforts to lose weight.

Sothern doesn't deny that a sedentary lifestyle and fast-food addiction will cause a person to gain weight. But according to her research, America's obesity problem began in the 1980s, after a generation of children were raised by mothers who smoked, turned their noses up at breastfeeding and restricted their weight during many, closely spaced pregnancies.

"It was the evil '50s. A perfect recipe for obesity," she said in a recent interview with the Star Tribune.

If she's right, then Sothern suggests that the key to reducing obesity has less to do with teaching folks about diet and exercise than it does about making sure that pregnant mothers are in optimal health while their babies are growing and developing in the womb and that those mothers choose to breastfeed after their babies are born. One of her suggestions: women who are significantly overweight should be discouraged from having babies until they shed pounds.

It's an interesting theory to say the least, but I worry that it will put even more pressure on moms to be "perfect" while pregnant. What do you think?"

I believe it was the introduction of convenience foods (canned, boxed, whatever) that started during the Depression and ran through the war and rationing, which only helped pervade it into two countries. As soon as Grandma (or great-Grandma) stopped eating farmed foods in favor of canned or frozen ones, that's when the trouble started. When our fat and meat got severely limited during the war, we got shifted to sugar- and starch-laden foods to make up for it. As the convenience ramped up, so did the health issues. As lobbying ramped up, so did the political reliance on faulty health science.

Oh, and as far as food rationing goes, we've been doing it since the Revolutionary War, switching to grain- and starch-based foods so the soldiers could have the meat and fat. Check any wartime cookbook from that era and see for yourself--Google Books has plenty of them on file. The difference is that BEFORE, WE WENT BACK TO EATING MEATS AND FATS AFTER THE WAR WAS OVER, and this time we didn't.

There--did I miss anything? The war's over, so why are we still clinging to our sugar and starches...and bad science? Oh yeah--politics. If we're all stuffed and ill-functioning for generations from too much sugar and starch at the cellular level, we become easily-manipulated and easy-to-control sheeple, which is what the political class wants in this country...as witnessed by vegans and the "global warming" movement. Look at Steve Jobs and what a sugar- and starch-laden diet did for HIM!

Now the author of this article wants to throw in mandated birth control and eugenics on top of it...why not? You just know it's what's coming! "Only the physically and photogenically fit can breed." Sounds like something right out of East Germany, doesn't it?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was buried somewhere in Obamacare.

The ONLY things I agree with is her request for optimal health in pregnancy, and more breastfeeding. Blame everyone from the government (for succumbing to lobbying without valid scientific proof) to Jane Fonda/Gloria Steinham (for the Women's Lib movement) to ConAgra/Monsanto/Cargill (processed foods) to the death of Jack LaLanne (exercise guru) for the rest of it if you want to. Technology put the icing on an already-bad cake by making life comfy, cozy, and movement-free.