Obesity Epidemic

Multivariable models including both median household income and adult obesity prevalence as predictors of meperidine distribution were statistically significant in both 2022 and 2023. The willpower explanation for rising obesity is biologically implausible because it would require a trait common to humans before 1980 to have systematically disappeared across two generations. Dr. Lee Kaplan argued that the body actively regulates how much fat it carries and that this regulation is outside personal control, making eat-less-exercise-more advice ineffective long-term. The association between obesity prevalence and meperidine distribution was statistically significant only in 2023, not in 2022, indicating inconsistency across years. Every measurable weight indicator — obesity rate, overweight rate, average BMI, average body weight — worsened between 1999 and 2016 despite increased weight loss efforts. The obesity epidemic correlates with post-1980 dietary shifts including increased sugar, refined carbohydrates, processed foods, industrial seed oils, and higher meal frequency. Higher obesity rates are proposed to drive greater meperidine use through increased surgical burden from obesit…