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Introduction

The ObesiTy epidemic

I GREW UP in Toronto, Canada, in the early 1970s. My younger self

would have been utterly shocked if someone had told me then that obe-

sity would be a rising, unstoppable global phenomenon within only a

couple of decades. Back then, there were serious Malthusian fears that

the nutritional needs of the world’s population would soon eclipse the

world’s capacity for food production and we would face mass starva-

tion. The major environmental concern was global cooling due to the

reflection of sunlight off dust particles in the air, which was expected to

trigger the dawn of a new Ice Age.

Instead, almost fifty years later, we find ourselves facing exactly the

opposite problems. Global cooling has long ceased to be a serious con-

cern, with global warming and melting polar ice caps now dominating

the news. Instead of global hunger and mass starvation, we face an obe-

sity epidemic that is unprecedented in human history.

There are two puzzling aspects to this obesity epidemic.

First, what caused it? The fact that it is both global and relatively

recent argues against an underlying genetic defect. Exercise as a leisure