There's a big difference between what you know as an abstract fact vs. what seems normal in your society. By definition, normal people do what is normal in thei

There's a big difference between what you know as an abstract fact vs. what seems normal in your society. By definition, normal people do what is normal in their society. I've lived in the southeastern US, various places in California, China and Europe. The type of consumption that is considered normal is so vastly different in all those places. In the southeastern US, your whole environment is telling you that eating enormous meals, drinking sugary drinks, etc, is totally normal. If you are responsible, maybe you could cut back a little to "watch your health". But you are starting from an unhealthy default setting and you have to dig yourself out of a pit to get back to 'healthy'. This includes Atlanta, the home of Coke (where I went to college and lived several years). In southern California or even more so in Europe, the norms are vastly different. Meals are much smaller and sugary drinks aren't assumed. Healthier options are available nearly everywhere. But in Europe, things go much further than even the healthiest parts of the US. The very composition of basic foods is different - brand name foods are less sugary and contain less preservatives than the same brands in the US, staple foods like bread are less shelf stable but contain less additives, and so on. Things like Kraft Mac & Cheese, Snickers bars and Doritos chips are literally illegal in Europe with their original US formulations and are produced with tweaked ingredients. It's in the very DNA of society to default to a more healthy lifestyle. Sure, it's possible to be unhealthy but the default setting of your environment is much healthier so more people are healthy. The point is that people operate at a default setting that seems normal for their society. Some will be healthy minded and will outperform the norm for their area, but not everyone will. If you want a healthy population, you need a healthy norm and no amount of telling people to take responsibility is going to fix a society if literally every food easily available is bad for you. There is just a mountain of public health evidence that shows this to be true.