New food surveys show what you probably knew; if you eat too much, you will get fat, and obesity is a risk factor for numerous health issues.

In most cases, health advocates worry about the pediatric age but they focus on choosing winners and losers in foods rather than the real culprit, too much food. High fructose corn syrup, trans fats and now ultra-processed foods are the latest fad targets for the nutrition activism marketplace. Yet people still smoke and drink too much, and it is rare they do that in childhood and it can also be the case with food that bad habits develop later in life and, if they are not changed, will cascade. It's easy to eat 1,000 extra calories over equilibrium per day but much more difficult to reduce intake by that much.

The new results were from nearly 12,000 medical students at 31 universities in China and the goal was to correlate eating behaviors, obesity and various diseases - including things like colds. Because this is just correlation, it is only in the exploratory pile, but epidemiologists can link anything to anything when they try, so it is no shock they "link" poor diet to more colds, even when there is no biological or immunological mechanism for how it can be possible. It is as scientifically crazy as claiming a weedkiller can cause human cancer or that BPA in a can lining ever caused anything.



Young people generally have higher metabolisms so gaining weight will be due to meals plus high-calorie treats, like cake and soda. While long-term risks are well-documented, it is still just a risk factor. Like salt intake or even blood pressure above normal, it is only correlated to a risk factor for a disease.

Yet instead of addressing the data, the authors go on and on about culture, how medical students are food insecure and can't afford to eat healthy, and a bunch of other things an academic in Canada can't possibly know about China - and even those living in China can only speculate about, since surveys of students on how wealthy they feel are even sillier than food frequency questionnaires.

The pandemic caused a lot of stress in students, when people are told they are killing their grandparents if they go for a walk outside without a mask, that causes stress, and many people eat more during times of stress. But lots of people can lose weight also.

At no point in time is your eating behavior set in stone. Frito-Lay doesn't make you eat a whole bag of chips, that's all you.