virtually no compelling evidence that that, in fact, is the
cause.While exercise is vital to the health of the brain and
body, study after study has shown it to be only minimally
impactful on weight compared with what people consume.
Fitness enthusiasts know that “abs are made in the kitchen,”
but for many of those who are overweight and obese, a
statement like the above only perpetuates the confusion.
This sets up a trap for society’s most vulnerable, paving the
way for cognitive dysfunction and an early death. This is
not an exaggeration: for the first time, our eating habits are
killing more Americans than our smoking habits.^34 In fact,
the latest figures, published in the journal Circulation,
suggest that nearly two hundred thousand people die each
year from diseases driven by sugar-sweetened beverages
alone. That is seven times the number of people killed by
global terrorism in 2015.^35
And speaking of smoking, let’s look for a second to the
historical awareness of the link between cigarettes and lung
cancer. It took decades for enough “proof ” to show up in
the medical literature to convince physicians that cigarettes
were a major driver of soaring lung cancer rates, even
though the disease had been “very rare” prior to the
ubiquity of smoking in the mid-twentieth century. And who
can forget the cringe-worthy ads from the 1940s (easily
Googleable) featuring doctors blatantly endorsing
cigarettes? As recently as the 1960s, two-thirds of all US
doctors believed the case against cigarettes hadn’t yet been
established, despite smoking being recognized as a leading