Labrador Retriever obesity becoming an epidemic?

I've noticed recently that everytime I go out and see a Lab that he/she is obese. I dont just mean a few! I think I've seen about 20 of them just this last month and every single one of them was fat. I've been noticing this for the past year. When I was a child, the labs I encountered were all normal, healthy weights.

So it's got me wondering, are their owners just uneducated about diet and overfeeding unhealthy foods? Or does it seem that the majority of bloodlines of labs today have a genetic predispostion for obesity?

Labs have a higher tendency to gain weight than some other breeds and one of the main things you will read when researching the breed is to be strict about limiting their diet to the recommended amounts and do not feed table scraps. I read that time and time again when I was researching the breed before getting my 2 beautiful Lab puppies. Their weight can be easily controlled if people would just educate themselves and stop making the poor dogs pay for their ignorance!I have a Lab and he is 110# but he is a bigger Lab...not fat. He is tall and built. I think that it has to do with people overfeeding them. They only have to be fed 1 1/2 cups of food 2x a day. And they need to stop giving them scraps, its unhealthy.
I would say i see a lot of obese dogs, not just labs. I think it's because of a more sedentary lifestyle with more time at work and less time to devote to animal activities and also because we often equate food with love. We want to show our dogs how much we love them so we feed them dinner and treats and extra goodies and pretty soon we have an obese dog.
I also don't see vets warning their owners until the dogs are VERY overweight and it's become a real health issue. Frankly, i think most owners have no idea their dogs are overweight or even what 'overweight' for a dog IS!
my guess is, most people buy a dog that they like the looks of, and completely ignore the proper care for the breed. labs are work animals first and foremost, and if you are not going to hunt with them, then you have to replace that high level of activity with exercise - like walking... take a look at the dogs' owners - they are probably just as overweight as their dogs due to the same lack of exercise...
I would have to say that it has to do with lazy owners. Labs make very good family dogs, which you probably know. Since a lot of people know that labs are good with children and are very loving dogs, they dont realize the breed is actually a hunting breed. I think that most people dont realize how much excercise that Labs need. It is far more than most breeds. I also would agree with you about the over feeding. Labs will eat until the food is gone, the dont know when to stop. I have actually caugt my Lab eating out of the bag and her tummy was enormis, I had to call the vet cause I was in such shock on how much she must have eaten.
I had one which was a serious contender in every parade or exposition an died because it was too fat. Now I have another with a less "classy" bloodline and is not so fat, treating it in the same way than the other.