World Cup fans learn why Americans are over weight. Everything is cheap and large here. Very large!

Mmmmm, biscuits and gravy! Yes, the U.S. is the land of plenty.

That's certainly one reason, that is, food being abundant and cheap. However, food in Europe isn't overall more expensive than food in America, so that doesn't fully explain why so many more Americans are obese.

The quality of the food is another part of the reason. European food isn't loaded with sugar, salt, and mystery chemicals to the degree that American food is, and all that word not allowed the big companies put in our food is designed to make you want to eat more of it. European fruits and vegetables also taste better than those in America; why, I don't know, but most of ours are just bland.

Lastly, Americans don't walk as much as Europeans do, and that extra bit of exercise makes a difference.

Dave

Good points. ^

In America one of our First Lady's emphasized more healthy food served in public schools. A big plus for this issue.

Sugar and salt are the worst offenders in industrial food. Sugar leads mostly to obesity. Salt to cardiovascular diseases.

The percentage of obese people increaes every year in Europe due to junk food essentially.

For the rest 7500 steps a day at least four times a week will help.

56 minutes ago, Bernard Ducret said:

The percentage of obese people increaes every year

Yep. They estimate that three quarters of the population of Europe could be obese in a couple of decades.

We evolved to survive in an environment where food was in short supply. Not in an environment where junk calories are in abundance.

Trouble is, despite what many believe, dieting isnt easy. The body regards too few calories as a threat to it's survival and so increases appetite and slows metabolism right down to conserve energy.

Which is why it's important to incorporate resistance training / weight lifting when dieting so that a) you don't lose muscle which the body uses as fuel before fat, and b) to keep your metabolism up as muscle consumes more calories than fat

I am an overweight American. I've never paid much attention to my diet. I just eat what I like. But I do crave fresh fruit. Breakfast is my main meal:

Half an apple

A tangerine

A handful of grapes

An English muffin loaded with butter

Three eggs sunny side up

A sausage patty and a strip or two of bacon

A bowl of Cheerios with milk and sugar

I usually skip lunch and eat a small supper of whatever is on the dining room menu. I snack in the evening on fruit, candy and Cracker Jack.

How come I've lived as long as I have (92)?

Noel

1 hour ago, FPVSteve said:

Which is why it's important to incorporate resistance training / weight lifting when dieting so that a) you don't lose muscle which the body uses as fuel before fat, and b) to keep your metabolism up as muscle consumes more calories than fat

Absolutely, resistance training is important.

However, you will inevitably lose some muscle mass while dieting, you can't retain it all. You can mitigate the loss of muscle tissue but not stop it entirely. Some of that loss of muscle mass is due to the reduction in fat marbling within the muscle, but it is also contractile tissue too. And yes, even without the muscular atrophy the metabolism will still slow down due to neural changes, that aggressively protects your body weight set-point against what it perceives as starvation.

There's also a neuroendocrine survival response that alters hormones to signal the brain that it's starving, this triggers very intense hunger to force you to seek food to regain the lost weight.

Not as simple as eat less and move more. Thermodynamics only applies in a closed system... the body inst a closed system.

Edited Monday at 12:26 PM5 days by martin-w

49 minutes ago, birdguy said:

How come I've lived as long as I have (92)?

Noel

But you are a Roswell alien, Noel, we all know that. 😄

You are a sample size of one. That's ONE with good genes for longevity.

We know that there are people who posses specific protective gene variants that help them delay aging.

7 hours ago, birdguy said:

How come I've lived as long as I have (92)?

Because you're lucky.

My mom is 80 and is in fantastic condition for her age. She has never exercised, rarely walks more than maybe 300ft a day around the house and yard, and smokes half a pack/day.

I call it the genetic lottery.

Dave

I remember back to 2000 when my wife and I took a trip to Germany. Literally, the only morbidly obese people we saw were Americans. It's ironic, the German diet isn't exactly the healthiest either. Dave is correct though, they are much more active and walk to get places significantly more than Americans in general. It does make a big difference in overall health and weight issues.

Luckily, my wife and I aren't fans of junk food. We have pizza about every two weeks, but that's God's sacred food.😁

On 7/2/2026 at 2:12 AM, tdflightsim said:

I remember back to 2000 when my wife and I took a trip to Germany. Literally, the only morbidly obese people we saw were Americans.

Changed now, then. 53% of Germans are overweight. 20% obese.

Edited Friday at 07:55 AM1 day by martin-w

Wow! I'm in Germany and a bit surprised it's that high, but sure enough. Like my food I'll take my statistics with a grain of salt, but I guess as a rough indicator:

The worst off seems to be American Samoa at 75% obese. USA proper weighs in at 42%, UK 27%, Germany 20%, France 10%, Japan 6% (not sure if sumo wrestlers count), and Vietnam the winners at only 2%. Maybe sort of a World Bowl championship instead of a World Cup.

Yeah, I think walking a lot is good. The last time I was in Taiwan I walked at least 10 km and rode commuter trains daily. Although they have elevators and escalators at the stations, it was usually quicker to take the stairs between the platforms. Going up and down several flights of stairs every day was hell on my knees, but I definitely lost weight. Excellent food, but fairly small portion sizes a few times a day, and lots of tea, it was pretty good.

Germany has a trend around the cities and outlying areas, lots of drive thru fast food, lots of parking lots around strip mall style shops. Convenient if you're driving, but unless you make an extra effort, you don't get much walking done apart from pushing a shopping cart down the aisles of a supermarket.

1 hour ago, Antipodeslonghaul said:

weighs in at

Nice phrasing 👍😆