I think it has to do with how food quality keeps hitting new lows. We really don't need sheep hair and 5 types of artificial sugars in our foods. We don't need everything bulked up with hydrolyzed soy bean. We really don't need purple plastic gel "berries" in our breakfast. Etc. Surely we can find a way to get foods from the farms to our tables fast enough that they don't have to be picked before they develop full nutritional profiles.

Most of all, that is to say we really don't need 80% of our diets to be empty calories and sugars.

Of course, there is the problem of sedentary living. I can't believe how lazy kids are these days - they don't even go for aimless bike rides anymore, because chatting online and playing 5-hour video game marathons is way more fun than real life apparently. But I'll leave that for someone else to cover.

Let's just say our culture is feeding it, and it takes willful blindness to be at all surprised.

How many people actually believe body positivism deep down? For example, how many people would see zero difference between, all things being equal, dating a thin person and a morbidly obese person?

I'm sure they are out there but I would guess it's very rare compared to the number of people that are body positive in words but not in actions.

I suspect that body positivism wouldn't have that big an effect because most people don't actually believe in it.

My biases say yes but my brain says no. I think it's simply a function of a worsening economic situation incentivizing the consumption of poor quality food that saves people time, money, or both. Also sedentary lifestyles make a lot of heavy foods appetizing that makes you want to puke while exercising.

I ate very unhealthy and was teased quite a bit for it yet never kicked the habit. Once I started receiving more disposible income than I knew what to do with, it became a lot easier to exercise, I could buy whatever food I wanted, and it sort of spun people's heads how quickly my diet changed. People keep making fun of me for having an unhealthy diet just because of inertia even though I'm eating healthier than them.

I really see body positivism as being more caused by the obesity epidemic than the inverse. As well as the rise of social media sort of spiking body-shaming and anti-body-shaming sentiments. Not just in regards to weight but also things like height.

But what if it had to do with the food they ate instead