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Comment by kome | Hacker News Reader

Americans need to get their act together, about food, but not only. 40.3% of American adults are obese (not overweight), against the 17% in the EU.

Sport won't fix that, food will.

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Diet is part of the problem but a big part of the issue is the inherent sedentary lifestyle associated with American infrastructure and suburban development. If you design tons of housing in a way that encourages people to utilize cars as much as possible, invest as little as possible into infrastructure like public sidewalks and bike lanes, etc then don’t be shocked when your populace becomes fat and lazy, especially when you combine this with a carbohydrate/sugar rich diet. The EU has a worsening diet. Japan eats more carbs than America. What’s the difference? They naturally walk much more as part of their daily routine because their governments invest in communities rather than stealing tax money to launder to military contractors.

Whenever I travel outside the USA I am always astounded at how little effort I need to put into getting my daily steps vs when I am at home. At home it is a concentrated effort

Big difference in carbs like sugar and say bread, though. Certainly not an expert on Japanese diet, but I don't think they consume a lot of sugar. Their deserts are famously rather savoury.

(And by bread I mean non-American bread that does not contain sugar, or relatively little (mostly low-end commercial stuff for shelf-life).)

Japan eats a lot healthier too. Carbs as a number is not everything.

Something like 7% of Americans eat enough fiber on a daily basis. Also something like 45% of calories consumed in the US are ultra-processed now.

That tells a huge story.

most of the sedentary lifestyle of the US is intentionally done, as a silently understood truth, to avoid violent crime without getting caught by title vii lawsuits

the only places that dont need to build suburbs with 10 mile buffer zones from other people are cities like SF and NY that exclude people via rent prices or other place like alaska, obvious reasons

i have had (white) frends visit LA/hollywood and get arrested for walking on sidewalk, taken to local police station and told yes this is for your own safety, you are free to go but do not walk around here

It is the case that we've structured things like suburbs around avoiding something that frightens much of American society, but it isn't violent crime.

That’s a lot of words to say you’re scared of black people

You say crime, history says racism.

> most of the sedentary lifestyle of the US is intentionally done, as a silently understood truth, to avoid violent crime without getting caught by title vii lawsuits

this is nonsense

It’s not an America only problem, we are similarly affected. So is every other country on earth.

In Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Malta, Ireland obesity ranges from 38%–31% and it’s rising. On an individual level the solution is food and exercise. On a societal level there is no know solution and it’s rapidly getting worse.

But the reasons can be very different. East Europe had severe food shortages until the fall of communism. The result? People eating too much after the fall of communism, which become a cultural thing ("you don't have huge meals => you are poor / is like during communism"). Add to that car ownership ("public transport => only poor use it") and you get what happened probably in USA due more to lobbying and industry.

One good thing in my opinion is that is much easier in EU to at least choose. I was amazed in USA how badly marked are the components (in EU you have at least on each thing sugar/100g, fat, salt, etc.) and how unavailable are fresher things (even if they would be expensive). So while in EU I would say "repeat more to people to eat varied and not abuse salt/fat/sugar", that would not work as well in the USA (or, you need to teach them math and unit conversion as well :-p)

ozempic baby

US today, EU tomorrow.

EU obesity has increased by 138% across the broader WHO European Region since 1975, with rates rising 21% between 2006 and 2016 alone.

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