I'm Dr. Michael Greger and this is Nutrition Facts.

There's one thing we've been thinking a lot about lately,

and that's how to stay healthy in the middle of a global pandemic,

especially since we've learned that those with underlying health problems like obesity,

hypertension, diabetes, heart disease,

are more likely to have serious complications if they contract COVID-19.

So what do we do?

We try to stay healthy with evidence-based nutrition.

Today, part two of our obesity epidemic series,

we start by looking at the role of processed foods in the obesity epidemic.

The rise in the number of calories provided by the U.S. foods

fly since the 1970s is more than sufficient to explain the entire obesity epidemic.

Similar spikes in Calvary surplus were noted in developed countries around the world in parallel

and presumably presumably responsible for the expanding waistlines in their populations.

By the year 2000, the United States was producing after exports taken into account

3,900 calories for every man, woman and child nearly twice as much as many people need.

It wasn't always this way.

The number of calories in the food supply actually declined over the first half of the 20th century,

only starting its upward climb to unprecedented heights in the 1970s.

The drop in the first half of the century was attributed to the reduction in hard manual labor.

The population had decreased energy needs, so they ate decreased energy diets.

They didn't need all the extra calories.

...