Why Americans Are Getting Fat

Judge Richard Posner has an insightful discussion of why Americans are getting fatter and fatter. He discusses factors contributing to the obesity epidemic, such as political correctness and the growing social acceptance of obesity.

He rightly doesn’t finger McDonalds as the culprit, the way Morgan Spurlock did. When I worked at McDonalds, I lost ten pounds over the course of a summer, while consuming little but McDonalds’ food, and eating mostly Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, and Chicken McNuggets. A Big Mac is healthier and has a better protein-to-fat ratio than high-brow foods like foie gras or Quiche Lorraine.

Judge Posner is on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and is perhaps the most prolific author in the American judiciary, having published innumerable books on almost every conceivable legal topic, as well as authoring an unusually high volume of published opinions for his court.