A recession is going to, somewhat counter-intuitively, increase obesity.
Unhealthy food is far cheaper (per calorie) than healthy food (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-he...). That is also one of the reasons you see an inverse correlation between income and obesity in modern America (i.e., rich people are skinnier).
The root cause is all the corn subsidies we have. Pretty much all our junk food either contains large quantities of corn, or is fed-on corn.
Unhealthy food is far cheaper (per calorie) than healthy food
I think this is only half the story. (Rice is about as inexpensive per calorie as humanly possible but the American poor don't consume large quantities of it -- because they don't have to.) The other half:
1) Historically, being poor meant you couldn't afford enough food, healthy or otherwise.
2) History has ended.
3) Historically, being poor meant you did lots of physically taxing labor.
4) History has ended.
5) Well-off Americans make a fetish out of physical fitness. Its as much a class marker as education these days.
This is a good point. If we compute the # of calories per dollar obtained from a fast food meal, it is much cheaper than the # of calories per dollar obtained from fruits and vegetables. $1.00 for a burger and fries vs $1.00 a grapefruit; at least a couple hundred calories vs. 50 calories...
Is it just me, or are Americans more obese than ever? Not just overweight, but morbidly obese?