The Origins of Our Global Obesity and Chronic Disease Epidemics

Have you ever wondered why it’s so tough to maintain healthy eating habits and that ideal body weight? I mean, why can’t the simple act of only putting healthy food in our mouths come naturally to us?

It almost seems like some cruel cosmic joke — billions of supposedly intelligent beings locked in a titanic struggle not to destroy themselves. But no, there’s a much more down-to-earth explanation.

In this week’s article, we look at how capitalism has incentivized the market to design foods for maximum addiction. These addictive foods contain lots of refined sugars, saturated fats, and salt — the elements most effective at sending our 200-millennia-old food cravings into a mindless frenzy.

Without this incentive, we would not be surrounded by empty-calorie, nutrient-free temptations. In other words, our environment would not be constantly screaming at us to indulge in these slow poisons.

I believe this is capitalism's single biggest failure — even bigger than climate change. And this is a big statement for someone who spends his days designing clean energy technologies and net-zero emission energy systems.

The irony is that this massive failure is ridiculously easy to fix. All we need to do is reflect the tremendous externalized costs (healthcare expenses, lost productivity, environmental damages) in the price of these slow poisons.

But, like climate change, there are good reasons why this is not going to happen anytime soon. So, for the time being, we’re on our own in this world with all its terribly twisted incentives.

That’s why this week’s article briefly introduced a great way to fix capitalism for ourselves: a personal charitable donations contract. Next week, we’ll delve into this topic in more detail.

Until then, I wish you an HHWPS week!

Schalk