The Problem of Obesity and the Tobacco Industry

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Tobacco companies made sure that it was clear the problem is not the cigarettes or people smoking. We need to soak the american household in chemicals that are anti inflammatory, they said. And how many, for decades, people were buying all this stuff that was just soaked in chemicals that can't catch on fire? How about you just don't smoke in bed, or better still, to smoke at all? Right? Well, that that's actually really interestingus. It's its germain, i think, to this whole discussion of exercise versus diet.

Shermer and de Salcedo discuss: her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at age 27 • her long-term psychological strategy for living with a serious illness • what “eating like a pig” actually means • our 70-year-old “diet detour” • the obesity crisis • how dietary studies are conducted • the baseline health of lab rats • static vs. dynamic metabolism • diseases you can treat, manage, or prevent with exercise • cholesterol and statins • why exercise is more important than diet • how you can have your cake and eat it, too.

Anastacia Marx de Salcedo is a food writer whose work has appeared in Salon, Slate, the Boston Globe, and Gourmet magazine and on PBS and NPR blogs. She’s worked as a public health consultant, news magazine publisher, and public policy researcher. She is the author of Combat-Ready Kitchen and lives in Boston, MA.