It's clear enough that the bomb-calorimeter / steam engine model (calories in vs calories expended) dogma doesn't work. Clearly the endocrine system is being dysregulated - the question is "by what?".

Some environmental toxins are known to dysregulate some endocrine systems, so it's certainly plausible - and the lower obesity in higher watershed locations (which I had not known of) seems to be at least an indication that this is correct.

It seems we have a ''natural experiment' happening in Flint MI. People shifted from bad water to good filtered (filters that can eliminate lead in solution get a lot of other pollutants) or bottled water at a known time. Hopefully a researcher can look at obesity rates (or even BMI - which was intended for population studies) before and after.

Personally, I'm more suspicious of the level of processed food in our diets, but let's go where the data leads (and it doesn't lead to calories in vs used).