We are trapped in a junk food cycle that is making us sick

IN 1950, less than 1 per cent of the UK population was clinically obese. Today, that figure stands at 28 per cent. How did this happen? Did the British public suffer a massive collapse of willpower? Of course not. Humans haven’t changed. The food system has.

Many people find it hard to imagine that a food “system” really exists, let alone that it could be shaping their own dietary habits. This is because we live deep in this vast, complex machinery of supply and demand, and struggle to see it as a whole. Our new book, Ravenous, aims …