4 ms·

> milk isn’t even particularly good for you Well, it's not like the healthiness of foods is what guides the average American. With that said, I think it's not

by rocgf 7y ago

> milk isn’t even particularly good for you Well, it's not like the healthiness of foods is what guides the average American. With that said, I think it's not particularly relevant if anything is good for your or not, since a lot of what and how we eat is driven by culture, and not rooted into any underlying science or reason - e.g. three meals a day, cereal in the morning, milk for strong bones and so on. So yeah, drinking milk in the US is just a part of culture now, and I am convinced that all countries have similar quirks.

serf 7y ago
>Well, it's not like the healthiness of foods is what guides the average American. point me to the national culture that prioritizes food healthiness. Given that 'Americans' are so obviously not prioritizing that (apparently?), i'd like to see the opposite country, one where every individual prioritizes the health consequences of each and every meal. Extra credit for countries that eat healthy from imported food, and not just coincidentally healthy due to their local crops and harvests enforcing it as the cheaper and plentiful option. I won't hold my breath. Lots of anti-American sentiment around here. It's too bad that I seem to be the only one in this thread who thinks that these broad national generalizations of identity are actually hugely bigoted diatribe that has no real connection to the reality that we live in.. Guaranteed if I said something like "Germans all do.." i'd be flagged in minutes. I don't do that because 1) such statements are almost always false and 2) it's disrespectful and outside of what can happen in actual civil discourse. All I ask : Let's try to keep in mind that these big bad nations are actually full of individuals, all with different ideas and concepts of how to live our lives.
- rocgf 7y ago
  I did say the 'average American', as opposed to 'all Americans, down to the last one'. You can choose to become defensive, but it is empirically true that the Americans are on the heavy side of things. I live in the UK and I could say the same thing about people here, though the US is much worse. Out of OECD/Western countries, the USA has the highest BMI and obesity rates. > point me to the national culture that prioritizes food healthiness You are strawmanning here. I never claimed that there is such a thing as a culture that prioritizes food health, nor did I claim that the US is the opposite of that. But if you want examples at the other end of the spectrum, there are plenty, most notably Japan. There are European countries that are tackling the obesity problem more successfully than others, such at the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, France. For example, the Netherlands has made it illegal for fast food chains to be with a certain distance of schools.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    "Out of OECD/Western countries, the USA has the highest BMI and obesity rates." I think this may be misleading. If you look at obesity rates, the US is an outlier, and around 38% compared to the UK at around 28% (from 2015, I think). But if you look at overweight rates, the US is pretty close to average.[1] Germany, Canada, the Netherlands all seem to have a slightly higher frequency of overweight people. I don't know why this is, but it seems like if the difference is in the number of more extreme individuals, then the cultural explanations don't make obvious sense. [1]Page 30 of http://www.oecd.org/sdd/37964873.pdf http://www.oecd.org/sdd/37964873.pdf

by rocgf 7y ago

serf 7y ago

>Well, it's not like the healthiness of foods is what guides the average American. point me to the national culture that prioritizes food healthiness. Given that 'Americans' are so obviously not prioritizing that (apparently?), i'd like to see the opposite country, one where every individual prioritizes the health consequences of each and every meal. Extra credit for countries that eat healthy from imported food, and not just coincidentally healthy due to their local crops and harvests enforcing it as the cheaper and plentiful option. I won't hold my breath. Lots of anti-American sentiment around here. It's too bad that I seem to be the only one in this thread who thinks that these broad national generalizations of identity are actually hugely bigoted diatribe that has no real connection to the reality that we live in.. Guaranteed if I said something like "Germans all do.." i'd be flagged in minutes. I don't do that because 1) such statements are almost always false and 2) it's disrespectful and outside of what can happen in actual civil discourse. All I ask : Let's try to keep in mind that these big bad nations are actually full of individuals, all with different ideas and concepts of how to live our lives.

rocgf 7y ago
I did say the 'average American', as opposed to 'all Americans, down to the last one'. You can choose to become defensive, but it is empirically true that the Americans are on the heavy side of things. I live in the UK and I could say the same thing about people here, though the US is much worse. Out of OECD/Western countries, the USA has the highest BMI and obesity rates. > point me to the national culture that prioritizes food healthiness You are strawmanning here. I never claimed that there is such a thing as a culture that prioritizes food health, nor did I claim that the US is the opposite of that. But if you want examples at the other end of the spectrum, there are plenty, most notably Japan. There are European countries that are tackling the obesity problem more successfully than others, such at the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, France. For example, the Netherlands has made it illegal for fast food chains to be with a certain distance of schools.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "Out of OECD/Western countries, the USA has the highest BMI and obesity rates." I think this may be misleading. If you look at obesity rates, the US is an outlier, and around 38% compared to the UK at around 28% (from 2015, I think). But if you look at overweight rates, the US is pretty close to average.[1] Germany, Canada, the Netherlands all seem to have a slightly higher frequency of overweight people. I don't know why this is, but it seems like if the difference is in the number of more extreme individuals, then the cultural explanations don't make obvious sense. [1]Page 30 of http://www.oecd.org/sdd/37964873.pdf http://www.oecd.org/sdd/37964873.pdf