We are told that our obesity crisis would simply disappear if obese individuals simply ate less and exercised more. But what if there are other driving forces out there that are being ignored? Silent inflammation is definitely one of those, and another may be the accumulation of environmental toxins in our bodies. Although high levels of toxins, such as PCBs, dioxins, and flame-retardants have been shown to cause cancer and neurological problems in animals, the data in humans is still mixed. But what if much lower levels of these same toxins might be inducing extra accumulation of fat as a defensive mechanism to encapsulate and thus prevent them from interacting with other organs? This is exactly what some initial studies are demonstrating in animals—that seemingly “safe” levels of these toxins cause extensive fat accumulation. Since the chemical burden of these fat-soluble toxins is increasing in Americans and virtually everyone else in the world, this becomes another underlying cause of the obesity epidemic that can’t be addressed by simple slogans like “eat less; exercise more”.