A new study has found that soybean oil contributed to obesity in mice, prompting concern that the United States' most popular cooking oil could be playing a role in the country's obesity problem .

The University of California, Riverside study, published in the Journal of Lipid Research in October, investigated how mice metabolized linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid widely present in soybean oil, by feeding them a high-fat diet based on the common cooking oil.

Why It Matters

Soybean oil is by far the most widely used cooking oil in the country, with rapeseed oil second and palm oil third, according to data from Statista.

The finding raises notable concern, not only because of the oil's popularity, but also because of America's high obesity rates—one in five children and two in f

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