Explores how affluence and the development of new technologies has come at a huge, and potentially devastating, cost - an epidemic of obesity and a world clogged by waste. Obesity is 'collateral damage in the battle for modernity'. It's an unintended but unavoidable consequence of economic progress. Obesity is not a disease but a signal. It's the canary in the coalmine, which should alert us to bigger structural problems in society. There are a number of areas where humans have achieved a ...

Obesity is 'collateral damage in the battle for modernity'. It's an unintended but unavoidable consequence of economic progress.Obesity is not a disease but a signal. It's the canary in the coalmine, which should alert us to bigger structural problems in society.There are a number of areas where humans have achieved a peak of success, a sweet spot, but now that very success is turning on us and threatening to unravel centuries of achievement. On the one hand, economic growt...