The Death Boom
12th April 2023
About thirty years ago I attended a presentation by an executive at a vast snack and beverage company. She announced that her firm’s goal was to have their delicious sugary and salty products within arm’s reach of every American at all times. Maybe they’d never quite fully succeed, but damn it, they were going to try.
“Uh-oh,” I said to myself. “The future is going to be fatter.”
And so it was.
America, with 42 percent of our population being obese as of 2017–2020, up from 31 percent at the turn of the century, is now the fattest country outside of some beefy Pacific islands. We’re even worse off than traditionally sedentary Muslim cultures like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. But the rest of the Anglosphere isn’t too far behind us. Countries that I long associated in my mind with healthy outdoor exercise, such as Australia and New Zealand, are now tipping the scales too.