Fat Food - Economia da Obesidade

The discussion paper, "Why Have Americans Become More Obese?" by Harvard economists David M Cutler, Edward L Glaeser and Jesse M Shapiro, appeared last January, http://post.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2003papers/HIER1994.pdf.
It concludes that increases in the amount of food that Americans eat are consistent with, and sufficient to account for, the rise in obesity. However surprisingly, it points the finger not at burgers with "three-and-a-half tablespoons" of fat, but at the great convenience of ready-to-eat food, as compared with home-prepared food. Americans are not eating bigger meals, but eating more frequent meals.
You can buy a serving of french fries on impulse if you're slightly peckish and there's a fast food shop nearby. But nobody goes home on impulse to cook a roast potato.
So, what's wrong with fast food isn't so much that it contains fat. What's wrong with fast food is that it's fast.
It turns out that some Italians already knew this. The Italian Slow Food Movement was founded in Rome in 1986, coinciding with the arrival of McDonalds in the city. It spread internationally in 1989, http://www.slowfood.com/.