Roxanne Sukol

Two-thirds of us are overweight or obese, fifty percent of Americans have either diabetes or prediabetes by age 65 now.

The big problem is that we've been told that we can nourish ourselves with these ultraprocessed foods, and we cannot. They don't nourish us. That's why I believe that obesity is (at least in part) a malnourished state, as opposed to the standard message being propagated in our society, which is that obesity is an overindulged state, but if that were true, then diets would work.

But if they sold roasted Brussels sprouts and grilled salmon at the movie theater, you wouldn't go out for dinner afterwards, because you would be satisfied. Your brain knows the difference, if there's a conflict between what we think we know and what our brain is telling us. We don't trust our brain. We trust what we think we learned. So I'm not surprised at all that everyone is confused.

It's everything else around the food, too. Another great example is the way shopping carts are constructed. So, if shopping carts were designed to support our spending more time in the fresh produce section than anywhere else ... then they would have shelves in the front, and you would access each shelf individually and fill it with produce and then go to the next shelf, but it's not that way. Everyone uses the baby section for produce, and then when that's full, then we use the rest of the shopping cart to put boxes and cans and bottles in. In other words, all the processed stuff, with some exceptions.