there was a study done in the 50s that pretty much decided US health policy for decades that said fat is bad and makes you fat. the reaction to this was for companies to remove fat from their products to claim it’s low fat but in order to maintain taste they replaced it with sugar. this proliferated all food products and being coupled with both parents working 40+ hours a week caused a lot of families to fill fridges with highly processed foods with “healthy” sugar/fat levels that could be prepared easily. tie in the fact that there’s no time to exercise with the fact that most Americans drive to destinations, it becomes easy to read articles that x is the cause of obesity that it took a long time to realize what the real problems are.