If this were truly the determining factor in the American obesity crisis, we'd see similar outcomes in all developed economies (which, obviously, we don't).
Let's not throw our hands in the air and blame the quirks of evolutionary biology when there are clearly better examples to follow.
What do you mean obviously we don't. Obesity in France is at 24%, closely behind the US and the UK. And obesity is rising in countries around the world as access to "western" diets increases.
The obesity rate is the US is at over 36%, so at quite a distance to France [1].
The overall rank of all countries by body mass index places the US at #9 and France at #43. [2]
Evolutionary psychology is fine for producing plausible-sounding explanations, but I have not yet heard a single case where it actually produced something of scientific value.
Sure, aeons of scarcity obviously made us like food. But as can be seen with this example, culture often plays a much bigger role.
Obesity rates in both France and the US are rising at similar, alarming rates. In the mid-90s the US surpassed 24% obesity rates, and at that time France was at less than 10%.
This is crazy. What are we doing? Nobody chooses to be fat, except maybe sumo wrestlers and a few other strange outliers.
Let's not throw our hands in the air and blame the quirks of evolutionary biology when there are clearly better examples to follow.