“fitness is expensive.”
It’s money-expensive and time-expensive. You need free time to not just exercise for 20 minutes, but drive 20 minutes to the gym each way, changing and showering for over an hour of time taken away from daily duties where you have to have someone else watch the kids.
I think there are three main reasons for obesity. The first is the expanded 60-80 hour work week in sedentary desk jobs. The second is agricultural subsidies that make grains, sugar and meat artificially cheap. Exempting everyone under the sun from the 40 hour work week and subsidizing fattening foods is a perfect recipe for obesity. We have to either remove subsidies for grains and meat, or add them to fruits and vegetables. Which do you think is more likely to happen?
The third? Anti-smoking laws. Smoking used to do a good job keeping people thin. Taking that away without changing anything else is going to cause more people to get fat.
FWIW, I find time to go to the gym by getting up at 5:30 to get there. That way I don’t have to worry about babysitters or anything else. Plus, traffic is much lighter at that time of the day.