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The fattest countries (outside of Pacific islands) are mostly Arab countries.
The most individualist countries are Anglosphere or Northern European countries. Arab countries score very low on individualism comparatively.
Moralism is tempting, but the real explanation is more likely to be biological.
But our genetics has not changed since 1970. People who were skinny young adults in 1970 are in their 70s now. They’re riding scooters in Walmart. What has changed drastically in many cases leading to declines in student achievement, more crime, more drug use, and in this case obesity. All of these social vices have increased since the 1960s or so. And it wasn’t genetics that did it.
The patterns you're describing aren't happening. If we take the US as an example, crime has been declining since the early 90s (when people were much skinnier). US PISA scores peaked in 2014 before declining to their 2000 levels today (this is probably related to smartphones). Drug use seems to have peaked around 2000, while alcohol peaked around 1980.
One thing that has skyrocketed is vegetable oil consumption. I think the introduction and ubiquity of an evolutionarily novel food is a greater explanation for obesity than the whole world getting lazier in the 1970s for no reason.
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The Arab countries, like the pacific islands, have their own issues with a sudden surge in availability of food, newfound prosperity and biological adaptation to long periods of fasting (in the desert / remote islands respectively) combining to lead to a big surge in obesity. In large parts of MENA there is also a big gender divide in obesity, women are much fatter than men precisely because women are extremely, almost unfathomably (to Westerners) sedentary in those cultures. Overweight women are also considered less unattractive in those regions.
It’s a mistake to assume the cause of obesity is always the same. Nevertheless, when looking at western countries where male and female obesity rates are quite similar, and where beauty standards (correctly) favor slim bodies, and where almost all people have been rich enough to buy more than enough food to get fat for 75+ years, lack of shaming is the most likely explanation.
Pacific islanders also have the additional issue that they are genetically predisposed to higher BMI. In a lot of the rest of the world since the agricultural revolution there has been selection against high BMI over the last 10,000 or so years (we know this by comparing modern vs ancient DNA), however pacific islanders haven't seen the same thing happen. As such today they have more high BMI alleles so it's no surprise they just balloon when exposed to modern highly processed western food.
IIRC the Native Americans who are still full blooded and not just white people with interesting family histories have the same issue.
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