> How do you explain the obesity epidemics which is a very recent phenomenon, if not through perverse market forces?

- Extremely high levels of food security in developed nations. It's hard to get fat when food isn't available.

- Related, nutritionally-questionable food products that were used to achieve this food security (primarily mass-preserved and processed foods).

- A transition from jobs requiring large amounts of physical labor to those that require little or none.

That's just what I can think of off the top of my head. Like most societal problems, the causes are myriad and complex.

From an evolutionary standpoint, less eating restraint may be linked to increased survival rares in times of scarcity, as stored energy in fat provides a clear advantage. Nowadays, in first world countries, food is everywhere and "overeating" becomes much easier.

Additives for food security is an intetrsting angle, thanks. That being said, I'm not convinced that it requires making fattening products, but it was in part the outcome.

Your last point is at least partially mitigated by the fact that food intake regulation factors in physical activity in most people.

Laziness. Supermarkets still sell raw food (vegetables, meat, etc) that can be used for cooking. But it takes time and effort to do it (+washing) so buying already made but unhealthy dishes is appealing for a lot of people.

But why are the ready made meals unhealthy? It’s not because they’re ready made rather than fresh cooked.

Ready made meals are usually higher in sodium and fats than fresh cooked meals.

Edit - https://www.consumerreports.org/food-shopping/supermarket-pr... The article doesn't call out higher amounts of fat in prepared food, but does mention higher cost and added preservatives.

I don't know the exact reasons why, but food made in large batches tends to be less tasty than food made in smaller batches at home. if the food is made in large batches and it's not fresh, it takes another "tastiness" penalty. adding excessive fat and/or salt is an easy hack to make ready made meals a bit more palatable.

I suspect it would be very difficult (ie expensive) to make ready made meals anywhere near as appealing as home cooked without using these tricks.

That explains why we buy ready-made meals, but not why we buy unhealthy rather than healthy ones.

"Laziness" - non-explanation word is not an explanation.

>How do you explain the obesity epidemics which is a very recent phenomenon, if not through perverse market forces?

When you put it that way, I feel like asking how could the obesity epidemic possibly be blamed on perverse market forces? It's not like the food markets of the past were any less competitive, greedy or unregulated than they were when the obesity epidemic took hold.

I will weakly float two hypotheses that I've heard to explain it: technological change that made certain types of food cheaper (the bad ones), and government regulation that subsidized corn production which of course subsidized corn syrup based foods.

You are correct that the market forces were there before, and that the epidemics couldn't have occurred without industrial food transformation. Before that, how fattening food was was limited by biology and I suppose that it was slow enough for human populations to adapt.

Also, the "artificial = good" meme mid-20th century probably helped bootstrap the whole thing by disrupting otherwise conservative feeding habits.

Corn syrup is a positive factor, but the obesity epidemics also occurred in other industrialized countries where it is far less prevalent.

Thus the driving force is growth seeking beyond reason (through both the market and (corrupt?) subsidies). Technology just gave it leverage.