The National Institutes of Health describes the childhood obesity epidemic as “a devastating public health crisis.” In just thirty years, obesity rates in American children in have doubled, reaching 18% as of 2012. An excess of body fat places these children at increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. But how did we get here? A controversial hypothesis published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings has proposed a new way to answer the question—and it doesn’t begin with the usual suspects.

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