Weight-loss shots are here. So who needs a healthy diet?
Fitness crazes and meal fads haven’t stopped us from getting fatter and fatter. But new drugs bring new problems.
In 1980, the obesity rate in the US hovered around 13 percent, not far from where it had been 20 years earlier.
But sometime during the ’80s, we began hurtling towards this moment.
Of course, that was the decade when Jane Fonda’s workout videos zoomed to the top of the charts. Diet Coke, Healthy Choice frozen dinners, and Bud Light all made their debuts. And consumption of refined carbohydrates — like high-fructose corn syrup — surged.
By the ’90s, diet and exercise trends had shifted. The fitness video “Buns of Steel” was all the rage, and Snackwells took the American supermarket by storm. I remember picking those squishy, low-fat devil’s food cookies out of plastic trays. They reminded me of chocolate, but only a little.