Derek Thompson

You've written this wonderful book that outlines the path forward.

And I think we can make some real progress on this really important question.

Julia, let's start with you.

Your thesis is that America struggles with weight and chronic disease, not because of personal failures, but because of our food environment.

In other words, it's not us, it's the food.

What does that mean?

Kevin, I wanna dive into specifics and evidence here.

There's a ton of observational research on nutrition.

Hey, we followed these 1,000 people and we kind of got some surveys about what they ate and we sort of made a connection to what kind of food is better for them and what kind of food is worse.

You are one of the only researchers in the world to have conducted several randomized clinical trials, gold standard trials, on the impact of ultra-processed foods in our diet.

What did these trials do?

What did you find?

And how were those findings consistent with this idea that, as Julia put it so beautifully, our food environment disrupts the symphony of metabolism inside of us?

Just one level deeper, right?

Because your thesis is that eaters don't have as much willpower as they think.

To a great extent, they are objects of their environment.

How are these foods specifically acting on individuals at the biological level that is making us, not just in the lab, but clearly outside of the lab where 40, 50% of Americans have obesity, overeat?

Julia, the thesis that Kevin seems to be advancing here is that our food environment is making us sicker.

It's making us sicker over time in a chronic way, and therefore we need better science and ultimately better policy in order to fix that food environment.

Who is Wiley, and what did he do?