In The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity, Michael Pollan writes about one (possible, probable) cause of the obesity epidemic. Namely, the shift away from a price support system to an all-out subsidy to corn farmers. The net result has been a shift from a managed market of corn supply, to an ever-increasing supply of corn. Farmers need to produce more corn year over year to make the same money as the price of corn has dropped. All of that corn has to go somewhere and it ends up in the food supply as additives, high-fructose corn syrup, and feed for cattle.

Sometimes even complicated social problems turn out to be simpler than they look. Take America's ''obesity epidemic,'' arguably the most serious public-health problem facing the country. Three of every five Americans are now overweight, and some researchers predict that today's children will be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will actually be shorter than that of their parents. The culprit, they say, is the health problems associated with obesity.

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