Public health experts no longer accept that the obesity epidemic
can be explained solely as the outcome of poor individual
choices. They understand, rather, that the food environments or
food “defaults” surrounding people constrain the actual choices
people are likely to make, i.e., the number of fast food
restaurants and convenience stores that offer little (if any)
fresh food, the variety of highly processed food products, and
the pervasiveness of food marketing—especially with respect to
children. Food environments are created beyond the point of
sale. They start much further upstream, on the land. Here, two
other major drivers of the food environment come into the
picture: the industrialization of agriculture, and trade and
investment rules that extend it to developing countries.
Industrialization, and globalization, of agriculture There’s
little doubt that the industrialization of agriculture in the
U.S. has increased calorie output tremendously. One key
component was federal investment in, and policies