Obesity isn't just about junk food

January 20, 2026

Before the 1990s, Australia had neither an obesity nor a diabetes problem. That should prompt the concerned to ask what changed? Maybe our food regulators have been asleep at the wheel, maybe there there is more high processed and junk food available today.

But how does anybody know if they don’t consider just how much sugar and other questionable foods we ate back then? We definitely didn’t go to the gym every day.

Obesity is also a side-effect of antidepressants and psychotropics, which Australia also consumes phenomenal numbers of. Why, exactly? It is also a stress reaction. Why would anybody be stressed in the lucky country? And people eat the foods they can afford.

So in the middle of a much longer cost of living crisis, now spanning more than 20 years and linked to wage stagnation, wage theft, underpaid contract employment even in professions, inadequate welfare support, and one of the highest, artificially constructed household debt levels in the world, just what do we expect people to eat? Instead of just attacking the most visible target, why aren’t we asking harder questions?