The U.S. government is approaching the study of obesity all wrong.

According to leadership at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, food companies are to blame — they’re engineering their snacks, fast food and sweets to addict us the same way cocaine and nicotine do. Others assessing the epidemic say people overeat because they lack willpower and could stop if they really wanted to.

While the blame game has been good for stirring public outrage, it hasn’t led to anything useful for improving our health. Meanwhile, some health officials have been undermining potentially useful research on novel causes of overeating. A leader in diet and obesity research quit his NIH job after he says officials interfered with his ability to discuss his results — which he said didn’t align with the agency’s talking points.

Those blaming Americans’ obesity on their lack of willpower also get it wrong. That viewpoint came up on a recent episode of Bill Maher’s show, during a discussion with Casey Means, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, who also argued that junk food was sometimes engineered to hook people. Maher scoffed, countering that McDonald’s is "delicious” and that’s why people choose to eat it — no fancy science needed to explain that.

There is credible evidence that our obesity rate — about 40% — is related to our heavy consumption of fast food, packaged and instant foods, sweets and sweetened drinks — all of which were recently lumped into the giant category of ultraprocessed food. These so-called UPFs make up about 53% of the average American diet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Research by Kevin Hall — the scientist who quit his NIH job........

© The Japan Times