Okay, so where’s the coyote obesity epidemic?

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This week, we ran an article by Karen Ravn exploring a variety of less-mainstream theories for why the waistlines of Americans are expanding. Like: it’s a virus. Or nobody gets enough sleep any more.Or it’s the stress.

We’ve heard from readers who remind us of theories we’ve missed -- such as this one, from Ravi Rao of Victorville:

‘Hormones such as growth hormone and other anabolic hormones are given to dairy cows and cattle to improve their meat and milk production. Our children (and adults) who eat this ‘excessively hormonal’ meat and drink the ‘excessively hormonal’ milk are plumping up just as the dairy cows and beef cattle do.’

And here’s a note from Paula Maxwell of Los Angeles, who writes: ‘Why is it we don’t see any overweight wild animals?’ She’s not, of course, including pet cats and dogs in this analysis, since they, too, are getting flabby -- presumably because they get tidbits in abundance and are more sessile than ever (though I have seen no data on whether pet bowls have slowly increased in size over the decades).

Any opinions? Got a favorite obesity theory? Post them below.

-- Rosie Mestel