Okay so for the person indicating cars, sure you can make a casual link to the two. But that misses the major point here.

Type 2 diabetes, which is the type we're talking about here with this article so I'm strictly sticking to just Type 2, is primarily caused by obesity which is the primary factor that leads to diabetes.

This is because of a combination of abdominal and intra-abdominal fat distribution AND increased intrahepatic and intramuscular triglyceride content. These two factors conspire to increase insulin resistance and β-cell dysfunction. So anything that leads to this kind of situation needs to be addressed, which gets to my point. We could literally list dozens of various things that contribute to this kind of situation, there's no ONE factor that just predominately contributes in meaningful ways more so than any other outside of diet and physical activity.

While cars have indeed contributed to a decline in physical activity it is important to remember that diet also plays a role in this. I'm not disagreeing with anyone here about cars contributing to the issue. But anywhere I go, I always remind folks that it is always diet AND physical activity. If this was fucksoda or something, I would still remind them that diet is indeed important but we must remember that it is diet AND physical activity.

I know it sounds pedantic, but given the strong message that all health agencies the world over have given, we need to always remember that it is both diet and physical activity that play a role in diabetes and prediabetes.

Wonder if this shift corresponds to the age of automobiles

So yes, I would agree that physical activity has decreased but also diets have become absolute trash at the same time. We absolutely should address the lack of physical activity along with encouraging better diets. Given how important health agencies have linked the two, I just think it would be a miss if we just solely spoke on JUST the physical activity.