I had the same impression about countries with rice-based diets. But, anecdotally, after I moved to Thailand I learned that many of my spouse's relatives and fr

I had the same impression about countries with rice-based diets. But, anecdotally, after I moved to Thailand I learned that many of my spouse's relatives and friends are diabetic, some seriously. All of them are of older generations that were never exposed to modern junk food and don't indulge in it even now. But they have always eaten a lot of Jasmine rice and sticky rice, both very high GI foods. They typically were not obese, but they definitely were doing something that led to diabetes. Actually, obesity seemed pretty rare when I first came to Thailand about 20 years ago. One rarely saw a truly big person when out shopping or dining. In fact, there used to be "jumbo" contests which were beauty pageants for obese women. Really large girls were considered sort of cute, and there really were not very many of them. Hence the contests. But that has changed and now the trend is the same as western countries with many obese young people indulging in modern junk food. They still eat the high GI rice-based diet, but now have added on sodas and all the other sugar-loaded junk food. The future is bleak.