No, I think it was more a matter of psychology. Too many people are conditioned from birth to finish everything put in front of them, whether or not they’re hungry. Too many are conditioned to eat at specific times, whether or not they’re hungry. Too many people are conditioned to always eat large meals when their actual hunger might make a large snack more appropriate. Too many people eat for comfort, to fill some emotional lack in their life.
Looking at just the food is taking a mechanistic approach that ignores there’s an emotional human being in the mix.
Another look at the typical Western diet was done in the 30s by a dentist who wanted to research what people did right to keep thier teeth vice what they do wrong. His take was basically that high sugar processed food bad, real food good. A shocker then and a shocker now…
There are some interesting parallels between these nutrition and the election threads. You know how some jump all over a single poll by a single polling firm as being highly meaningful and others by more attention to the aggregate of the information weighted intelligently ala 538 and others? Reacting to one small study looking at one nutritional component in isolation in mice by one lab rather than evaluating a whole context of information is like that.
Really. As noted this is not so complex. Standard Western diet, high in calories, highly refined carbs, fats, salts, nitrates, low in fiber, low in omega 3s, big in serving sizes, bad. Almost anything else better.