Circus Obesity Performances

Calley Means shares a historical perspective about how rare obesity was in America 100 years ago.

"A hundred years ago if you were obese, if you were visibly very fat, you were in the circus. It was literally in a textbook - it was so rare for an American to be obese a hundred years ago they literally had to be in a circus. The fat man in the freak shows, they're not even that fat compared to what you see on a regular basis now.

The explosion of obesity is unprecedented. Doctor Robert Lustig, one of my heroes who led hormone issues and diabetes research at UCSF, said early in his career 30-40 years ago, he didn't see one child walk in with diabetes. Now it's 33% of young adults who have prediabetes."