How the Food Supply Stacks the Deck Against You!

We have long been told that if our waistlines expand, the culprit is willpower or personal discipline. A growing body of research invites a more compassionate—and accurate—view: the broader food environment is playing a much larger role than we have been led to believe.

In a recent CNN piece, nutrition scientist Kevin Hall, PhD (author of Food Intelligence), argues that it is time to stop the self-blame and start looking outward. The food system itself is designed in ways that promote excess.

Kevin Hall’s key takeaways:

• Genetics influence body size, but they have not changed much in decades, while obesity rates have skyrocketed.
• The modern food system creates a calorie glut, converting vast surpluses of corn, soy, wheat, and rice into ultra-processed foods (UPFs).
• UPFs are engineered for taste, convenience, and profit—high calorie, low satiety, hyper-palatable, and addictive.
• Hall’s studies show that people consume hundreds more calories per day when their diets are heavy in UPFs, even when nutrient profiles match.

So, it is not simply “eat less and move more.” Our environment makes overeating easy and resisting incredibly difficult. Let’s shift from shame to strategy, advocate for better food access, make small daily changes, and extend grace to ourselves.

A few practical tips:

• Scan your food environment and notice which choices are quietly undermining your health.
• Choose more whole foods when possible—fill your plate with ingredients you recognize.
• Read labels. If it sounds like a lab experiment, it probably behaves like one inside your body.

If you have been blaming yourself for your waistline, stop. The system is stacked against us—but awareness gives us power. Choose wisely, kindly, and strategically, and remember to sparkle on.

Read the full article here: cnn.com

*** Suz