American Fast Food Took Over Kuwait and Made Its People Obese [video] | Hacker News Reader

American Fast Food Took Over Kuwait and Made Its People Obese [video]

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42 pointsdsr1219 comments

In India, KFC, McDonalds, and Dominos have started creeping up. They're expensive, relative to middle class income. So people have started associating it with classy upper class food.

It's good they're expensive though; most folks can't afford to eat there once or twice a month.

But the per capita income has been increasing steadily, and there's no sign of this high-class association of fast food chains slowing down. So very soon, you'll have a huge swath of population feeding themselves fast food, and an obesity crisis looms over Indian cities.

How's it in China btw?

So intelligent does not increase proportional to income. But in that case how come income increase ?

This is a great question!

You're overestimating the effect of intelligence on one's food choice. You're also conflating intelligence, ability to earn, and education. Network effects and marketing have a much bigger role to play here.

It's very common for middle class to follow upper and upper-middle class habits once they have the means. And if it's habit forming, like fast food, it's very hard to get rid of it.

Combine that with massive marketing using American dollars, and you've got a huge problem that's hard to get rid of without government intervention.

Is this peak Vice?

Editing to be more substantive: America's food culture is really terrible. We take 'celebration' foods from other cultures and then eat them like it's normal food. For one example, tamales used to be a Sunday or Christmas only thing, but now you get tamales any time you like.

Also, corporations are there to make a profit, so if they can sell you a nothing burger, they will. It's really easy to make high calorie, high flavor foods, and it's also really easy to sell that food.

---

As an aside, I've been going to physical therapy for my ankle, and a lady from Scotland was next to me one day - she said she gained 15 pounds in a couple months after moving to Texas from Scotland - and not from fast food.

That's probably just portion size, which seems to be an American disease.

I'm from the U.K. originally and I regard US portions as typically about 3 or 4 meals.

Further, I've just managed to drop my weight from 188 to 168 lbs just by regarding this as a hard rule, and just generally eating a bit less than I need.

Portion size is probably a big (hah) part of it, but the lady also commented that the food here is more appetizing/indulgent than what she was used to.

I do love the flavors and variety available in Texas - we seem to pull from a wide variety of cultures, at least in the big cities.

Yes, and I've had to limit myself pretty severely on eating out.

Flip-side, is that I can put more effort into having good food. I eat enough bread that I like to bake a loaf every week, and having fresh home-made wholewheat bread available is pretty nice.

I do enjoy 1/2 a banh mi, for lunch, a couple times a week, but otherwise I've had to pretty much stop eating Thai curry, as it's just too many calories, esp. when you consider a regular lunch special of soup and (small) dessert in addition.

* Miraculous you call it babe You ain't seen nothing yet They've got Pepsi in the Andes They've got McDonalds in Tibet *

-- Roger Waters | Amused To Death | It's A Miracle | 1992

I hiked the Inca Trail in Peru in the late 90s. Not only was there Pepsi in the Andes, it was even available on the remotest sections of the trail. People wearing flip-flops carried cases of glass-bottled Pepsi and Coke (using just tumplines!) up to various places with the price of course increasing with altitude & remoteness. :)

They made themselves obese by eating the shitty food. When it comes to living healthy, you can either blame others or change your habits.

Long time ago, I read a study made in an Asian country (Thailand?): there was a strong correlation between kids overweight and distance from a 7eleven/familymart.

Yes, it must be the fast food that makes people obese. Their lifestyle choice of going to fast food places, their decision of spending their food budget on fast food, and the act of stuffing it down their throats in quantities above their required caloric intake has absolutely nothing to do with them becoming obese.

Bad (video) title.

So you're claiming that fast food is completely uncorrelated with obesity, and fast food has no effect on lifestyles.

I mean, you could just not eat it?

It's the convenience. Bad food is much more convenient in the US than good food. In other parts of the world, south east asia for example "good" food is as equally if not more so convenient than bad food. And even bad food actually tends to come in smaller portion sizes, making it less bad overall.

Bad food is not more convenient. How is it convenient to be obese? If feces was free, would convenience be a factor? The more people repeat something is convenient as an excuse for doing something that destructively soothes anxiety, won’t make that thing any less garbage than it is. If you want to nourish yourself on garbage, don’t say it’s convenient. Say it’s because you’re anxious, lazy or lost your cultural norms. There’s nothing convienient about being obese.

You're moralizing what is usually not a moral or even clearly visible choice to the parties in question. By all means, though, please feel good about your more enlightened stance.

>Bad food is not more convenient.

Don't speak for everyone. There are significant parts of the country where it is legitimately a hassle to put together a healthy meal. You're fighting situations like:

* Inner-city and poor-neighbourhood grocers are well known for having lesser quality goods and higher prices.

* That's assuming you can even get to one. The nearest full grocer might be several miles away, and the local transit system may not be optimized to get you to and from there. The only "food" store within reach may be basically a glorified kwik-e-mart that doesn't stock much, if any, fresh food.

* Small apartments with limited kitchen and storage facilities

If I wanted to make a healthy meal in that situation, I'm looking at having to spend quite a while getting to and from the store, paying more than someone in the suburbs would for the same items, buying something I can keep in my tiny fridge until I'm ready to cook it, selecting a recipe which can be made in the small hot-plate with my limited pots and pans...

or I can just throw it in, walk to the fast food two doors down and buy an unhealthy dollar-menu burger/burrito/etc.

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