![[PART I – MYSTERIES]
[PART II – CURRENT THEORIES OF OBESITY ARE INADEQUATE]
[PART III – ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINANTS]
[INTERLUDE A](https://slimemoldtimemold.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/victorian_microscopy_1050x700-copy.jpg?w=1200 "A Chemical Hunger – Part IV: Criteria")
A Chemical Hunger – Part IV: Criteria
[PART I – MYSTERIES] [PART II – CURRENT THEORIES OF OBESITY ARE INADEQUATE] [PART III – ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINANTS] [INTERLUDE A – CICO KILLER, QU’EST-CE QUE C’EST?]
If we’re lucky, a few compounds are entirely responsible for the increase in obesity over the past forty years, and we can ban those chemicals.
If we’re not lucky, the obesity epidemic is the result of dozens or even hundreds of different contaminants, each with a small effect, which when combined lead to extreme obesity. In this case we can try to ban or regulate them all, but it will be much more difficult to find ways to get all of them out of our food, water, and homes.
While more work will be needed to pin down exactly what contaminants are responsible, we can make some very educated guesses, because we already know what kind of contaminants we’re looking for.
The big inflection point for the obesity epidemic was around 1980, so we should be looking for compounds that entered the environment slightly before then. Either they were discovered around 1960-1970 and were immediately introduced, or they were discovered some time before and went into widespread use just before 1980.
