Yes, basically proteins have bee always of high nutritional value and not that easy to find, hence, accepted anytime its possible to get them, also right now we are used a much slower pace of life (physically speaking), which makes the body save reserves for the "bad days" that it was used to instead of only discard them.
sumary: its too much food to little activity, so to lose weight shut your mouth and walk more (im myself overweighted and have lost gained several pounds back and forth obesity, because my will power doesnt last too much but when i find it, it really works)