Pete McMartin: TV commercials for mass-produced food help fuel Canada’s rising obesity rate which, according to the World Health Organization, now stands at 27.3 per cent of the population

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During a recent bout of the worst flu I’ve had in my life — semi-comatose in bed for three days, followed by three weeks of headaches and a 15-pound weight loss — I passed the time in front of the TV.

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Trapped on the couch, I suffered through a daily barrage of food commercials.

They had never really registered with me before, perhaps because they were designed not to, perhaps they were only meant to register subconsciously in the hypothalamus, but lying there, unable to eat, I was struck by the daylong loop of consumption normalizing gluttony.

Devour. Digest. Buy “stretch-active” pants. Repeat.

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The food in those commercials was of a singular type: Delicious!

There wasn’t a sprig of broccoli to be seen, but there were racks of pork ribs slathered in barbecue sauces, and mounds of French fries dandruffed with salt. There were pizzas drowning in lakes of........

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