Across the ocean, France’s chief epidemiologist said that the “US will ‘probably have the most problems’ with coronavirus, partly due to obesity”. Is obesity in the U.S as bad as he says? In fact yes! The U.S is one of the 12 most obese countries in the world with 36.2% in the adult population in 2016 from the CIA when South Korea and Japan, the healthiest countries with a similar economy to the US, are around 4%.

Why do people in the U.S record a much higher number in terms of obesity or being overweight than other wealthy countries around the world? And, how has the food system had an impact on our health?

The U.S was the first to have a vision of food as a pack of nutrients containing molecules arranged in four big families: proteins, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins and minerals. Between 1930 and 1950 the U.S military started to enrich rations with vitamins and nutrients. In fact, as all military innovation, it did not take long to find the same processed food in our supermarket. Also, the U.S had the strongest industrial system of the world, and entrepreneurs saw a new niche market in industrially processed food by using theories of nutritionism to market food as healthier than unprocessed food. However, many issues have arisen with this new industry’s food system such as a range of chronic diseases, cancers, hormonal imbalance, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and many other diseases associated with obesity.

This new model of consumption had and still has a terrible impact on the population, especially on the poorest where most of the time industrialized food is the only things that they can afford. The above graph is perfectly highlighting the correlation between the rise of obesity and the expansion of processed food in the 70s and 80s in the U.S, as well as the differences with countries who do not share this way of food consumption.

Henceforth, the pandemic of COVID-19, which mostly affects persons with a weak immune system, is showing us again how our lack of knowledge in nutritionism combines with the U.S political-economy of industrialized processed food is causing dramatic consequences on our metabolism.