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I think America is one of the most obese countries on earth. I completely blame the food. Even eating absolute junk in Europe I noticed I lost 5 or 6 pounds ov

I think America is one of the most obese countries on earth. I completely blame the food. Even eating absolute junk in Europe I noticed I lost 5 or 6 pounds over 2 weeks. Here if I eat junk food for 3 days my weight jumps by 7 pounds. I am a bit dismayed with all the attempts to normalize obesity in the US. I was morbidly obese up until I got serious about my weight in my early 20s. You can read all the dating books you want, but getting in shape is the only thing that works. It's much easier to hop on Reddit and complain though. I'm very optimistic I'll be able to move to a healthier country once I retire at 40 or so. Not exactly easy to stay in shape when this country tries to pump us all full of corn syrup

rsync 6y ago
"I completely blame the food. Even eating absolute junk in Europe I noticed I lost 5 or 6 pounds over 2 weeks." I don't. Certainly it doesn't help and, of course, Americans should eat much better than they do, but ... I think the most important factor is that our built and cultural environment are constructed to make us obese. If one does not live in a modern city center one barely ever walks. Most Americans sit all day - at a desk or in a car. Further, many Americans are 1-2 generations removed from "the farm" and are still heavily influenced by habits like "three square meals per day" that made great sense on the farm and make no sense at all in the city. We're bad at being urban. I contrast us with people I see who are good at being urban. The old Chinese women in the park doing Tai Chi every morning. The 70+ woman I saw running (running!) to get the bus in Zurich. The Spanish people I lived with who sort-of ate one big meal every day at 14:00 ... We'll get there ...
- opportune 6y ago
  I agree that there is a big cultural factor here. I wish people focused on this more. So many people want to look at correlations like income:BMI that don’t generalize to other countries or cultures. Really what they expose are cultural and societal idiosyncrasies, much more than they expose that “cheap food is not healthy”. Of course, that is less appealing to an epidemiologist because the cause and effect is less clear and has much greater implications than recommending more exercise.
- offtop5 6y ago
  >We'll get there ... You can also write an article for the Huffington Post arguing it's impossible to ever lose weight. I'm not calling for fat shamming, but you can't be both obese and healthy. You can't really be obese ( over a certain point anyway) and be happy. When I was over 300 pounds every day was an experience in pain. But it's considered rude even for doctors to say you need to lose weight. I was fortunate enough that an alternative medicine provider told me to just lose weight. And that said, I'm even reluctant to make the argument above since there's a lot of really angry people who will try to misconcue it and call me a monster or something. But I've been morbidly obese, and I'm in shape now ( still trying to lose that last 10 pounds ) . Life is better now in every single way.
  - rchaud 6y ago
    > You can't really be obese ( over a certain point anyway) and be happy. When I was over 300 pounds every day was an experience in pain. So if that's the case, why does it matter what the Huffington Post says? I'm not morbidly obese, so perhaps I've missed the pro-obesity PR. A fashion magazine might give a cover to an obese model once a year, but the other 11 months all seem to have the same rail thin models that have dominated since the '80s. Same goes for TV and movies. Producers wouldn't hire a fat guy to play Mark David Chapman, it'd be an easier sell to get a fit actor and have him balloon up to that desired weight. The only obese poeople of renown in our society are older politicians and the rich, i.e. people that do not care about meeting society's beauty standards.
    - rubycon22 6y ago
      >but the other 11 months all seem to have the same rail thin models that have dominated since the '80s People used to see those and aspire to be like them and improve themselves. Something changed over the last decade or more, and now no one wants to do any better than they currently are. They are despairing in content with themselves.
      - e7ry33g4ff6 6y ago
        >Something changed over the last decade or more, and now no one wants to do any better than they currently are. They are despairing in content with themselves< People still aspire to be attractive they just don't feel the same social pressure to chase it that they used to. Personally I don't see the problem for the USA, if people are happy being unhealthy then let them be unhealthy. If this was Europe I could see a public cost argument but US businesses are already starting to charge more to people who are inconveniently obese so I don't see why it's a real concern.
- Delk 6y ago
  While it may be true that the American lifestyle is more sedentary, I don't think obesity can be entirely or even mostly explained by that. AFAIK diet generally affects weight more than exercise does; if your diet is energy-heavy, it's very difficult (without being an athlete) to exercise enough to consume as much as your energy surplus from the diet is. I don't have any references or numbers to back that up, but that's what I've understood from what I've read in papers and heard from some people who apparently did the math. With that said, physical activity has lots of benefits beyond just weight loss, and it would be worth it to make one's lifestyle non-sedentary in any case.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
    It's really that baseline metabolic burn is pretty high, you have to work a lot to double the number of calories you burn, but it's easy to eat double your metabolic needs
    - xnyan 6y ago
      >easy to eat double your metabolic needs Or more! When I started losing weight, my target was 1600 kcals a day. I learned that I was eating 1600+ calories __every single meal__, plus snacks. Pasta is the devil y'all.
      - kaybe 6y ago
        I found this pasta made purely from peas or beans in the shop. They are a bit harder to eat but fill you up much faster and feel lighter in the stomach. (And they have less carbs and more protein.) If you like pasta I can recommend trying this.
      - belorn 6y ago
        The sum of kcals is not as easy as that, In take is the kcal of the food times the digestion factor. The kcal out is the metabolic need, which depend on factors such as fat building vs energy usage, which in turn is influenced by stress but also things like dieting. This is why counting calories can be an ineffective strategy for some while for others it is a good match.
- prawn 6y ago
  Were you travelling in Europe? I typically lose weight while travelling because I'm walking more and have fewer snacks around. This includes months in the US last year where pace and timing of a lot of our driving meant we ate fast food a bit. It was hot so we couldn't stash chocolate/ice cream, we didn't have access to a fridge so we didn't scoff leftovers, etc. We mostly lived out of a cooler and cooked on fires. We walked around exploring cities/towns where many residents would not have though. The number of mobility scooters and the like is incredible.
  - FemmeAndroid 6y ago
    I lived in Europe for multiple years and then moved to the US. I gained a lot of weight. This had to do with both less of an effective culture of walking and public transit in the city I lived in the US. And also the quality and availability of relatively healthy, tasty foods at a reasonable price. I’ve also had the same experience on shorter (few month) stays in Europe, while still working a 9-5.
- asveikau 6y ago
  As a formerly obese American, I need to say you are both right. The food ingredients in this country are, on average, garbage. With careful shopping you can get around this but it does take effort and vigilence. Cultural expectations around both diet (especially portion size) and exercise (I cite the walking thing a lot too) are also bad. It takes effort to avoid those hazards. I think both of these and probably a few other factors are a terrible combination that compliment each other in a bad way.
  - brewdad 6y ago
    Portion sizes are a huge factor. My wife tried a few new recipes this week. All of them said they serve 4. We are a household of two adults and one almost adult and didn't eat half of what she prepared (they all tasted great). That said, I'm 30 lbs heavier than I was a decade ago. I know WHAT I need to do (exercise more, drink less), it's just been hard to get back into better habits.
- thatfrenchguy 6y ago
  > Further, many Americans are 1-2 generations removed from "the farm" and are still heavily influenced by habits like "three square meals per day" that made great sense on the farm and make no sense at all in the city. Meh, Americans snack all the time. French people are anal about their meal structures and times and we’re not fat.
  - llsf 6y ago
    I concur. I am French living in US. And I do not snack at all. I only have 3 meals a day. And I try hard to get a lighter dinner (dinners here are generally too big for me). I don't like to go to parties with an empty stomach, because of the poor choice of food there (chips, salsa, cake, cookies, etc.). If I go with an empty stomach, I know I would not resist, and I would feel sick and bloated later, high on sugar & salt, and dehydrated with alcohol. Just don't snack.
    - keithnz 6y ago
      portion size is generally way way way too big in the US. I always put on weight when I visit the US.
    - heyoni 6y ago
      One time I went to a restaurant in upstate New York and I swear to god, I ordered the chicken and an entire roasted chicken arrived on a plate! The mashed potatoes came in a second plate and I spent the first 15 minutes laughing at how ridiculous it all was. Oh, and my meal without drinks was like $16.
      - namdnay 6y ago
        I agree that portions are ridiculous, but do Keep in mind that in most lower-end restaurants the customer expectation is to have enough for a doggy bag
        bambataa 6y ago
        Doesnt that just mean you are going to have two or three unhealthy meals instead of one?
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I personally think that body composition is 80% food and 20% work. Yes, driving cars everywhere is not great. But we’re also more obese than other car dependent cultures, so it’s not a satisfactory answer to say that it’s entirely about being sedentary.
- wyclif 6y ago
  When I came to the Philippines I was shocked by the large number of obese people here. I thought it would be like China because that was my only reference point in SE Asia. Relatively speaking, it's not as bad as the States or the UK but it's getting there. If you look back only a few generations, you'll see what happened here: they were colonized by the US and adopted Western-style processed food and soft drinks. Also, car ownership is a new thing for most families. Before WW2 this was not the case, and thus there was far less obesity.
  - chestertn 6y ago
    Western style != American style. Philippines was part of the Spanish crown and had Spanish customs. Plenty of European (Western) countries have balanced diets and healthy lifestyles.
    - Talanes 6y ago
      They were under American rule more recently, and were only given their Independence without a fight after agreeing to preferential trade on importing American products.
      - chestertn 6y ago
        I didn't argue about that. I just said that before American rule they were ruled by Spaniards.
    - wyclif 6y ago
      Sure, for you and I it's not equivalent. But for them, it might as well be. People simply did not eat large amounts of packaged, processed food only a few generations ago, like people do everywhere in the west, including the EU.
      - chestertn 6y ago
        I just complained about the use of "western diet" as a catch-all epithet for unhealthy, processed food.
- lambda_obrien 6y ago
  I barely walk, but I've been losing weight like mad because I've been cooking at home everyday now, not eating fast food, and not drinking soda. Look at the ingredients for any premade foods, even the ones that bill themselves as healthy, they are mostly sugars and carbs and sauces containing HFCS. Also, the caloric density is insane, one "meal" can be upwards of 1500 or 2000 calories if you ignore their "suggested serving" which is unrealistic to what people eat. Also, exercise accounts for maybe a hundred or two calories a day for the average person who isn't into marathons or something, so the only true way to lose weight is to decrease what you eat. It's not lack of exercise, that's the way these corporations try to blame you for being lazy so you forget their food is garbage that's making you fat.
  - Aa9C4xPz43Gg7k6 6y ago
    Only in US there's this serving size bullshit that requires effort to figure out how much you're actually eating.
    - lambda_obrien 6y ago
      Exactly, that's why we're fat as fuck. We don't have the same culinary habits as most of the world. I ate a cookie for lunch today: it was 500 calories.
- novok 6y ago
  It really is the food. America was as car dependent in the 70s as they were in today, but if you look at photos then, you'll notice how uncannily THIN everyone was. If you dig more into it, you'll find the obesity crisis started around the late 70s with a change in dietary guidelines and medical guidelines saying basically 'fat & meat bad' and 'carbs good' along with the widespread introduction of vegetable oils, leading to too much insulin and other hormonal effects slowly increasing diabetes & obesity in our population. Also food companies honing on what obesogenic combos of food lead to people to eat more, buy more and thus get better sales. Read "The Obesity Code" if you want a more detailed description with a lot of links to papers and studies for more info. [0] [0] I said this yesterday too in another article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25767604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25767604
  - coredog64 6y ago
    What’s the percentage of food spend in the 70s vs today? If I read the USDA charts, it’s about 13% for the decade of the 70s, declining to under 10% today. So I would expect that as food gets significantly cheaper, people consume more of it.
    - jt2190 6y ago
      Portions are now massive. McDonalds, once upon a time, had small and large sizes of french fries; the little white paper pouch or the red cardboard sleeve. Today I believe they have two even larger sizes. The smallest size of soda doesn’t even exist any more. Other restaurants have retired round plates and serve meals on platters.
    - lostcolony 6y ago
      Are rich people on average fatter than thin people? After all, they can afford more food, so presumably they consume more of it. Spending has dropped because there are such large subsidies to cheap carbs, and that is the bulk of many people's diets. A steak and veggies is no cheaper than it was 40-50 years ago, but we're eating far more refined junk with additives because it is cheap and convenient.
- venkats 6y ago
  I live in China, I can assure you there are plenty of obese chinese people here in the major cities I've been to. It's not as bad as the US, and the culture is more aggressively against it, but it's not uncommon. Obesity is a problem that most developing nations are facing. You can buy junk food anywhere. > If one does not live in a modern city center one barely ever walks. Most Americans sit all day - at a desk or in a car. As opposed to someone in China, where we must do such extraneous physical activities like order take-out delivered to our place less than 15 minutes, then order a masseuse to come give us a massage and finally order a bottle of wine to top the night off, all without needing to get out of bed.
- snicker7 6y ago
  Walking burns like, what, 5 kcal/minute (generous)? If non-Americans walk on average 20 more minutes a day (generous), that's like 100 kcal per day. Or about 7kg at 15 kcal/kg basal metabolic rate, not taking into account for increased appetite.
  - KAMSPioneer 6y ago
    While you have a good point, I want to nitpick a little: As an American who recently moved to Europe, I don't think 20 minutes of walking per day is being generous. COVID-related measures aside, I find I add about 20min/day of walking easily, and more if I need to do something (e.g. buying groceries). Now, in the US I own a car and here I do not -- but in my Midwestern town I am totally obligated to own and operate a car. Here in Europe I get along fine with walking, riding a bike, and using public transport.
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  Vietnam has the lowest adult obesity rate yet is the 8th most sedentary population. The only thing I see that accounts for this is the lack of cheap, processed foods. The Vietnamese diet is largely prepared at home from scratch. Sugar is not crammed into every effing thing you eat the way it is in the U.S.
- harha 6y ago
  I actually lost weight when I moved from Switzerland to the US. The food just all felt somehow gross, so I didn’t eat much (also the options on campus were incredibly limited, apart from these horrible undergraduate dining halls there were few normal choices and most only served food for around 2 hours - the food at the supermarket also felt strange)
  - torgian 6y ago
    I’m curious, how did the food in the supermarket feel strange? I eat mostly fruits, veggies and meats. Pretty much 80% natural foods. But I live in east Asia now so it’s easier to do that and with more variety. But, I don’t recall American supermarkets food feeling strange. Unless you mean the processed stuff?
    - harha 6y ago
      The processed food I avoided mostly, though I do that in Europe as well. For the rest of it: might just be my perception to be honest, my impression was that the fruits and vegetables tasted very watery with little flavour, as if they were grown in the most efficient way to bring them to market quickly. Same for the meat, was kind of floppy and the cheese just didn't taste like much. There were some good things from farmers markets, but at absurd prices. I see differences in Europe as well, e.g. I think the quality in Switzerland is better than Germany and Austria. In Spain and France I was able to get really good food, probably because it's closer to where it is produced. Again this might be my perception, didn't do a blind tasting. Unless the food is specially prepared to be stored (like fermented food, cheese, etc.), I don't think the highly industrial production, refrigeration and long transportation is doing the quality any favours.
      - Izkata 6y ago
        This isn't the first time I've heard this, and a quick Google search with the right keywords brings up: https://www.greenoptimistic.com/fruit-vegetables-taste-europe-america/ https://www.greenoptimistic.com/fruit-vegetables-taste-europ... https://www.treehugger.com/why-doesnt-american-produce-taste-good-europes-4858067 https://www.treehugger.com/why-doesnt-american-produce-taste... The key point seems to be that we prioritize the looks, which unintentionally affects taste.
pstrateman 6y ago
> I think America is one of the most obese countries on earth. Yes but not by a very wide margin. [1] Average BMI in the US is 28.5, Saudi Arabia is the same, Mexico is 28.1, New Zealand is 27.9, UK is 27.3, Canada is 27.2. My point is that the impression that the US is unreasonably fat compared to the rest of the world is mostly just bias. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass...
- martinald 6y ago
  I think you are just pointing out very car reliant countries. London has good public transit, but the rest is extremely car dependant. This shows IMO in obesity rates - they are significantly lower in London than the rest of the UK.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    Not sure that the UK is that car reliant. I guess in rural areas, but that's true in most countries. In cities, not at all.
    - jacobolus 6y ago
      62% of all trips in the UK are made by car, compared to 26% by foot, 6% by bus, 3% by train, 2% by bicycle. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/787488/tsgb-2018-report-summaries.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... It is not as entirely car dominated as the USA, but I think it's pretty fair to call it "car reliant".
    - iainmerrick 6y ago
      It very much depends on the city. London has excellent public transport (and is horrible for driving), other cities are much more mixed.
  - boc 6y ago
    Same thing in many US cities where walking is the norm. The other major factor is wealth. Richer people can afford higher quality food. Poor people generally consume more calories from junk foods and sugary drinks, which are staples of drive-throughs and fast food chains.
partiallypro 6y ago
I was in Germany for some time, I thought I would lose weight walking everywhere and eating differently; but I actually didn't lose a single pound. I don't know if muscle replaced fat, but I felt I looked the same and weighed the same. I was truly baffled. During the early pandemic, I stopped drinking for 3-4 months...and still didn't lose any weight. I honestly don't understand the human body.
- tayo42 6y ago
  I think you need to count calories to really know what your eating. I did it as an experiment for a week, it really interesting to see how fast you blow through your daily calories snacking or adding sauce
  - nl 6y ago
    Yes, do this. It's shocking how much of your calorie budget a sugared soft drink has.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Strangely, it’s both most of your calorie budget, and none of it at the same time. Soft drinks have a ton of calories which have to go somewhere; we all know that. The paradox is that the human brain does not generally treat liquid calories as calories. So even though you might drink down 300 calories of soda, your brain will not adjust your hunger levels to match. This is obviously very bad.
      - nl 6y ago
        Oh yes, satiety of food is a hidden thing people don't talk about. Eat warm porridge and on average you will feel twice as full as the equivalent calories in white bread: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b3cf/3b7d71a7485e6355e49b2e4c86db54b25046.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b3cf/3b7d71a7485e6355e49b2e...
- XorNot 6y ago
  Genuine question: do you have biscuits, confectionery or ice cream in your home normally? The most shocking thing to me when I first moved alone was how easy it was too eat a ton of sugar, without realising it till after. My solution these days is to just ensure its not there, and commit to not getting takeaway (easy if I think about all the money I save). Even doing all that, I still have habits I need to keep up: eating toast too often is a problem, for example. I've eliminated peanut butter entirely. Don't eat lunch when I'm at a desk job and replace it with just mid afternoon coffee to keep me going. The human body is stupidly efficient, unfortunately.
krisroadruck 6y ago
"You can read all the dating books you want, but getting in shape is the only thing that works." I don't know my guy. I'm 39, weigh 280lbs at 5'9 but am married to a smart and beautiful women a decade younger than me and 150lbs lighter than me. It's not a sugar daddy thing either, she makes more than I do. Not everyone is shallow and a great sense of humor / shared interests / good personality is more than enough for plenty of people. That said, being fit certainly ups the odds in your favor.
- fossuser 6y ago
  A large component is the dating market you’re in. If you’re a man in DC, NYC, or some rural town you’ll have more luck. Bay Area? Zero chance.
VRay 6y ago
> You can read all the dating books you want, but getting in shape is the only thing that works. Counterpoint: I got in great shape in my early 20s, but didn't have much luck with dating because I was still a "Reddit niceguys"-style jerk Later on I stopped being a jerk, and even though I ballooned back to a very stately American weight I had way better luck with dating. Including "attractive females" as a young involuntarily-celibate gentleman might say
- xnyan 6y ago
  Agree. Try to be a good person and be honest. Treat your hygiene as important, clean up your home and maybe think a little bit about some clothes that look nice on you. That's all you need to do.
  - creamytaco 6y ago
    Assuming you're at least moderately physically attractive. And even then, the quality of partners you can attract in terms of looks is non-linearly decreasing as your own physical attractiveness drops. OkCupid studies have proven that women find 80% of men below average looking. If you don't happen to be at least average in terms of looks, things are looking grim.
    - VRay 6y ago
      This is like looking at hiring statistics and deciding you'll never get a FAANG job unless you went to a top-tier university Going on a dating site and messaging attractive women there is like sending resumes into the online job sites for Google/Facebook/etc. MAYBE you'll get a response, but more likely you're just wasting your time. In the working world, you can build up your skills and network to get a referral In the dating world, you can improve your hygeine/personality and get an introduction via mutual friends/family/family's friends/family's friends' coworkers.
      - creamytaco 6y ago
        And why do you think that would be any different? Do you seriously believe women will suddenly view a physically unattractive male as sexually desirable just because they got an introduction? It doesn't happen. Raw sexual attraction is not something one builds towards with friend/family introductions/referrals and good hygiene. It's a visceral, almost animal-like condition that manifests at the drop of a hat and physical appearance (face, height, build) is _the_ most (if not the only) important attribute. Those that have won the genetic lottery are smooth sailing. The sky is the limit. Those that are average have to put in work to get results (and there are definite limits, they will hit a ceiling). Those that have lost the genetic lottery are kneecapped from the get-go and they're looking at a vastly diminished set of possible partners and opportunities.
agumonkey 6y ago
I wonder how much is due to regulation about inner dosage. I hear that mcdonalds recipees varies a lot between Europe and USA, saying that USA have way more everything in it, whereas in EU limits are imposed. That or USA citizens really like to eat overly sweet and fat stuff.
- whatever1 6y ago
  The portions at the USA are insane. When I first saw the "large size" side drinks at fast foods I started laughing. In Europe the large size is equivalent to the US Medium. This is also the case in restaurants. I get it that many people pack left over to go, but the portions served are comically large. For someone with broken "I am full" sensor, it is easy to consume the whole portion at once, and then get a dessert.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    I find that in most US restaurants the portions are a bit small and I need the desert to fill me up. People always remark about how much I eat though. Most of them completely fail to notice that I eat only at meals, so even though it seems like I'm eating a lot, over the course of a day I'm getting no more than them. However most of my calories are not empty snacks (even counting the desert). I cook most of my meals at home though, which allows me to get enough without needing desert every meal. Plus my cooking tastes better since it is real flavor not added sugar/salt.
  - Talanes 6y ago
    >When I first saw the "large size" side drinks at fast foods I started laughing. In Europe the large size is equivalent to the US Medium. Depending on where exactly you were, this is the experience of a lot of Americans compared to the sizes from their childhoods. A lot of places missed the point on Super-Size Me and just renamed their sizes to eliminate extra-larges around that time. So a 16oz shifted from being medium to being small.
xur17 6y ago
> Here if I eat junk food for 3 days my weight jumps by 7 pounds. If you are gaining 7 pounds in 3 days, I imagine the vast majority is just water weight, which can probably be attributed to the salt levels in the junk food more than anything else.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
brbrodude 6y ago
Food is definitely a big factor. Here in Brasil it's not like we're super healthy eating, we are much more into real food than America, it was the impression I was left with. Some things just seem arbitrarily made junkier for no reason. My colleague who lived in Italy through masters and doctors and recently came back comments on how in Brazil we eat way more meat than europeans, as an additional point of comparison.
- nradov 6y ago
  It's tough to eat enough meat to get really fat. Most people who try a carnivore diet end up losing weight. (I am not necessarily recommending that people follow a carnivore diet because it might have other negative effects.)
  - brbrodude 6y ago
    Here the diet is kind of meat and a lot of carbs at all meals(rice & beans in portuguese actually is a term meaning "the basics"), prefferably with a lot garlic and salt.
jimbob45 6y ago
So you’re blaming the FDA for allowing something into American food that the EU doesn’t?
outworlder 6y ago
> I completely blame the food I don't completely blame the food itself. It's more about food habits. One of the things I found very weird was American portion sizes. Go to any restaurant and plates were easily double the amount I was previously used to. I felt bad leaving almost half of a plate every time. And then... I got used to it. But also very fat. With similar levels of sedentarism so it's not only about exercise levels. And frankly, while exercise is healthy, you don't burn that much energy with cardio. Every time I do the calculations I'm shocked. From a weight loss perspective, you're better off reducing food quantity (and the proportion of highly energy dense food types) than just increasing exercise. Unless you are at marathon-levels, that is. Increasing muscle mass is also time well spent (still pales in comparison to just eating less). Need to do it for the health benefits anyway, but it's easy to see why people get frustrated. The kind of food served must have an impact too. Most places, if you are even offered a salad, it's awful. It's either tasteless or downright nasty and you can only make it palatable by overdosing on dressings. It seems that the nastiest tasting greens are chosen - don't even get me started on the "spring mix". So many people just don't eat salad and I can't blame them. Kids are right to rebel against their vegetables. The American-style breakfast is delicious. It's just that most options are caloric bombs. This is obviously not applicable if you don't eat out with any regularity. But that was the norm pre-pandemic, whether it's a restaurant or a $5 meal at Taco Bell with the nastiest (but tasty to our lizard brain) calories imaginable. Given that many people in the US don't really have the habit (or the employer doesn't give them time) of having lunch, burgers and the like are common. Fine, let's eat healthy then and stop complaining. Let's start with fruits. ... and they suck. Apples are tasteless. Bananas are terrible. Mangos are a shadow of what they are supposed to be. Some grapes are ok. Berries are good (but not cheap in most places!). And so on. Fruits seem to be selected for appearance, easy of transport and shelf life, nevermind if they taste like used cardboard. Except berries and even then, IFF they are sourced locally. You can make a decent salad with ingredients found in any supermarket, so there's that. Less convenient - you need to make your own with tastier greens(whatever your preference is!) rather than grabbing a box of spring mix that tastes like grass that was mowed a week ago. Add some lemon, vinegar and a very small amount of salt and it's all you need. Meat is essentially the same everywhere(barring some food regulations). Can be affordable if one is ok with eating based on what's available, as prices fluctuate like crazy. You _can_ eat healthy in the US. But you'll be battling: affordability, time, convenience and cultural norms. You need to check the labels on everything too, the corn syrup comment is relevant.
llsf 6y ago
Just came back from 3 weeks in France, over holiday season. I stayed with my parents, and my dad is a cook... so I did eat well :) Still managed to lose 2 pounds. In the 3 days I was back here, I managed to eat a burger and pizza. I guess I could have politely say no. But clearly the processed food here in US is ubiquitous and cheap, so difficult to escape. No idea if this is the reason of lower testosterone. But I realize that simple food based on fresh products would go a long way.
react_burger38 6y ago
It's mostly the food. It's not like people in other countries get that much more exercise than we do. (Source: lived in Ecuador for two years). I watched this youtube video recently about recipes for cutting (weightlifting term for a diet that makes you lose weight) and eating some of the food has helped me lose some weight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ieFuh_4Vs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ieFuh_4Vs
znpy 6y ago
related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lkCsKXAxfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lkCsKXAxfo (and other videos of the series)
chaostheory 6y ago
I blame the food packaging. BPA and all sorts of synthetic hormones leeching from plastic has invaded both our food and drink.
- souprock 6y ago
  Kids almost always eat and drink from plastic. It used to be glass and metal. Little kids are really surrounded by lots of fresh new plastic.
KraftKacke 6y ago
In fat tissue testosterone gets converted into estrogen via aromatase, also. Not sure if the estrogenic effects are systemic, but the T is lost from circulation.
- soonnow 6y ago
  Oh interesting. I find that when you look how people move, ie walk or sit down, you'll often find that men with big bellies move very deliberate, not forceful at all.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
"Here if I eat junk food for 3 days my weight jumps by 7 pounds." That's impossible you would have to eat 8167 extra calories a day to do that, you are doing something else like drinking lots of water or something.
- wrycoder 6y ago
  I see the same, but typically five pounds. I believe it’s my glycogen storage increasing, along with water weight due to the excess salt. When I stop, it comes right off again in a couple of days.
kristopolous 6y ago
FWIW, oil prices have a really high (negative) correlation with obesity There's weirdly enough, quite a bit of scholarly literature on this. Here's a decent survey, scroll down to see the links https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/energy/gas-prices-effects-health-driving-economics-policy/ https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/energy/g... There's also studies that show increasing gasoline sales tax is predictive of future obesity prevalence (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5415832/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5415832/). The correlation appears robust enough to generally use petroleum prices as an indicator of obesity prevalence as measured through BMI. They're all pretty careful to note that "the relationship between gasoline prices and physical activity must be empirically determined". Maybe, for instance, people purchase less food or go out to eat less frequently in high gas-price places. (See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1550-8528.1999.tb00715.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1550-8528....) Maybe people spend less time commuting in high petroleum prices areas, which increases well being and decreases obesity prevalence (see https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-012-9678-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-012-9678-6) Maybe petroleum-based fertilizers lead to high obesity (see https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/prospective-association-between-consumption-frequency-of-organic-food-and-body-weight-change-risk-of-overweight-or-obesity-results-from-the-nutrinetsante-study/1B800116CA8AFD21D26B6DF877EF7AC1 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-n...). Maybe the psychological activity of driving affects metabolism (see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743515003655 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009174351...). Maybe this is all p-hacking and it's nonsense. Regardless, if scholarship is to be believed, moving to a place with high gas prices might help you lose weight. Yes, it still sounds nutty to me as well.
kgin 6y ago
Whatever it is, it started in the mid 70s. You can see the exact moment obesity rates launched upwards and never looked back. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/-/media/Images/Health-Information/Other-Child-Pages/Health-Statistics/adults_bmi_949x703.jpg?imbypass=true https://www.niddk.nih.gov/-/media/Images/Health-Information/...
thelittleone 6y ago
"Anything that is more than our necessity is poison. It may be power, wealth, hunger, ego, greed, laziness, love or ambition..." Rumi
soonnow 6y ago
Also keep in mind that in vast swathes of America, kids are brought up with low value high calorie food. If you are used to junk food, that's chemically engineered to appeal to our caveman instincts it's incredibly tough to switch later in life to a healthy food lifestyle. This pandemic of shitty food starts with the kids and their tastes being set at a young age.
_the_inflator 6y ago
I disagree. Don't blame USA, after all you decide what goes into your mouth. Whole Foods ain't junk and Walmart has a decent plant based area. If you wanna find junk, you get it - everywhere. Europe is on the rise: https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/noncommunicable-diseases/obesity/data-and-statistics#:~:text=Based%20on%20the%20latest%20estimates,steadily%20from%201990%20to%202008 https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/noncommunicable-di.... No way to, pun not intended, sugar-coat this fact. Sorry to say that, but "moving to a healthier country" is an excuse. Come on, dude! :)
CodeGlitch 6y ago
The fact that America can't even do chocolate right tells you everything you need to know about the food. Having been to America several times, I've eaten some amazing restaurant food, but the stuff bought in supermarkets is where I think the problem lies.
andomar 6y ago
> Not exactly easy to stay in shape when this country tries to pump us all full of corn syrup That's it I think. Advertising has become much more effective over the past 40 years. Humans can simply not resist. There should be advertising for healthy eating, to steer people to healthy food.
- mlrtime 6y ago
  There should be advertising for healthy eating, to steer people to healthy food. The problem now is we have #fatfobia that shames people for advertising their healthy lifestyle.
T-A 6y ago
> I think America is one of the most obese countries on earth. World obesity rankings are curiously topped by a bunch of small Pacific island nations and Kuwait, followed by the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r...

rsync 6y ago

"I completely blame the food. Even eating absolute junk in Europe I noticed I lost 5 or 6 pounds over 2 weeks." I don't. Certainly it doesn't help and, of course, Americans should eat much better than they do, but ... I think the most important factor is that our built and cultural environment are constructed to make us obese. If one does not live in a modern city center one barely ever walks. Most Americans sit all day - at a desk or in a car. Further, many Americans are 1-2 generations removed from "the farm" and are still heavily influenced by habits like "three square meals per day" that made great sense on the farm and make no sense at all in the city. We're bad at being urban. I contrast us with people I see who are good at being urban. The old Chinese women in the park doing Tai Chi every morning. The 70+ woman I saw running (running!) to get the bus in Zurich. The Spanish people I lived with who sort-of ate one big meal every day at 14:00 ... We'll get there ...

opportune 6y ago
I agree that there is a big cultural factor here. I wish people focused on this more. So many people want to look at correlations like income:BMI that don’t generalize to other countries or cultures. Really what they expose are cultural and societal idiosyncrasies, much more than they expose that “cheap food is not healthy”. Of course, that is less appealing to an epidemiologist because the cause and effect is less clear and has much greater implications than recommending more exercise.
offtop5 6y ago
>We'll get there ... You can also write an article for the Huffington Post arguing it's impossible to ever lose weight. I'm not calling for fat shamming, but you can't be both obese and healthy. You can't really be obese ( over a certain point anyway) and be happy. When I was over 300 pounds every day was an experience in pain. But it's considered rude even for doctors to say you need to lose weight. I was fortunate enough that an alternative medicine provider told me to just lose weight. And that said, I'm even reluctant to make the argument above since there's a lot of really angry people who will try to misconcue it and call me a monster or something. But I've been morbidly obese, and I'm in shape now ( still trying to lose that last 10 pounds ) . Life is better now in every single way.
- rchaud 6y ago
  > You can't really be obese ( over a certain point anyway) and be happy. When I was over 300 pounds every day was an experience in pain. So if that's the case, why does it matter what the Huffington Post says? I'm not morbidly obese, so perhaps I've missed the pro-obesity PR. A fashion magazine might give a cover to an obese model once a year, but the other 11 months all seem to have the same rail thin models that have dominated since the '80s. Same goes for TV and movies. Producers wouldn't hire a fat guy to play Mark David Chapman, it'd be an easier sell to get a fit actor and have him balloon up to that desired weight. The only obese poeople of renown in our society are older politicians and the rich, i.e. people that do not care about meeting society's beauty standards.
  - rubycon22 6y ago
    >but the other 11 months all seem to have the same rail thin models that have dominated since the '80s People used to see those and aspire to be like them and improve themselves. Something changed over the last decade or more, and now no one wants to do any better than they currently are. They are despairing in content with themselves.
    - e7ry33g4ff6 6y ago
      >Something changed over the last decade or more, and now no one wants to do any better than they currently are. They are despairing in content with themselves< People still aspire to be attractive they just don't feel the same social pressure to chase it that they used to. Personally I don't see the problem for the USA, if people are happy being unhealthy then let them be unhealthy. If this was Europe I could see a public cost argument but US businesses are already starting to charge more to people who are inconveniently obese so I don't see why it's a real concern.
Delk 6y ago
While it may be true that the American lifestyle is more sedentary, I don't think obesity can be entirely or even mostly explained by that. AFAIK diet generally affects weight more than exercise does; if your diet is energy-heavy, it's very difficult (without being an athlete) to exercise enough to consume as much as your energy surplus from the diet is. I don't have any references or numbers to back that up, but that's what I've understood from what I've read in papers and heard from some people who apparently did the math. With that said, physical activity has lots of benefits beyond just weight loss, and it would be worth it to make one's lifestyle non-sedentary in any case.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
  It's really that baseline metabolic burn is pretty high, you have to work a lot to double the number of calories you burn, but it's easy to eat double your metabolic needs
  - xnyan 6y ago
    >easy to eat double your metabolic needs Or more! When I started losing weight, my target was 1600 kcals a day. I learned that I was eating 1600+ calories __every single meal__, plus snacks. Pasta is the devil y'all.
    - kaybe 6y ago
      I found this pasta made purely from peas or beans in the shop. They are a bit harder to eat but fill you up much faster and feel lighter in the stomach. (And they have less carbs and more protein.) If you like pasta I can recommend trying this.
    - belorn 6y ago
      The sum of kcals is not as easy as that, In take is the kcal of the food times the digestion factor. The kcal out is the metabolic need, which depend on factors such as fat building vs energy usage, which in turn is influenced by stress but also things like dieting. This is why counting calories can be an ineffective strategy for some while for others it is a good match.
prawn 6y ago
Were you travelling in Europe? I typically lose weight while travelling because I'm walking more and have fewer snacks around. This includes months in the US last year where pace and timing of a lot of our driving meant we ate fast food a bit. It was hot so we couldn't stash chocolate/ice cream, we didn't have access to a fridge so we didn't scoff leftovers, etc. We mostly lived out of a cooler and cooked on fires. We walked around exploring cities/towns where many residents would not have though. The number of mobility scooters and the like is incredible.
- FemmeAndroid 6y ago
  I lived in Europe for multiple years and then moved to the US. I gained a lot of weight. This had to do with both less of an effective culture of walking and public transit in the city I lived in the US. And also the quality and availability of relatively healthy, tasty foods at a reasonable price. I’ve also had the same experience on shorter (few month) stays in Europe, while still working a 9-5.
asveikau 6y ago
As a formerly obese American, I need to say you are both right. The food ingredients in this country are, on average, garbage. With careful shopping you can get around this but it does take effort and vigilence. Cultural expectations around both diet (especially portion size) and exercise (I cite the walking thing a lot too) are also bad. It takes effort to avoid those hazards. I think both of these and probably a few other factors are a terrible combination that compliment each other in a bad way.
- brewdad 6y ago
  Portion sizes are a huge factor. My wife tried a few new recipes this week. All of them said they serve 4. We are a household of two adults and one almost adult and didn't eat half of what she prepared (they all tasted great). That said, I'm 30 lbs heavier than I was a decade ago. I know WHAT I need to do (exercise more, drink less), it's just been hard to get back into better habits.
thatfrenchguy 6y ago
> Further, many Americans are 1-2 generations removed from "the farm" and are still heavily influenced by habits like "three square meals per day" that made great sense on the farm and make no sense at all in the city. Meh, Americans snack all the time. French people are anal about their meal structures and times and we’re not fat.
- llsf 6y ago
  I concur. I am French living in US. And I do not snack at all. I only have 3 meals a day. And I try hard to get a lighter dinner (dinners here are generally too big for me). I don't like to go to parties with an empty stomach, because of the poor choice of food there (chips, salsa, cake, cookies, etc.). If I go with an empty stomach, I know I would not resist, and I would feel sick and bloated later, high on sugar & salt, and dehydrated with alcohol. Just don't snack.
  - keithnz 6y ago
    portion size is generally way way way too big in the US. I always put on weight when I visit the US.
  - heyoni 6y ago
    One time I went to a restaurant in upstate New York and I swear to god, I ordered the chicken and an entire roasted chicken arrived on a plate! The mashed potatoes came in a second plate and I spent the first 15 minutes laughing at how ridiculous it all was. Oh, and my meal without drinks was like $16.
    - namdnay 6y ago
      I agree that portions are ridiculous, but do Keep in mind that in most lower-end restaurants the customer expectation is to have enough for a doggy bag
      - bambataa 6y ago
        Doesnt that just mean you are going to have two or three unhealthy meals instead of one?
ashtonkem 6y ago
I personally think that body composition is 80% food and 20% work. Yes, driving cars everywhere is not great. But we’re also more obese than other car dependent cultures, so it’s not a satisfactory answer to say that it’s entirely about being sedentary.
wyclif 6y ago
When I came to the Philippines I was shocked by the large number of obese people here. I thought it would be like China because that was my only reference point in SE Asia. Relatively speaking, it's not as bad as the States or the UK but it's getting there. If you look back only a few generations, you'll see what happened here: they were colonized by the US and adopted Western-style processed food and soft drinks. Also, car ownership is a new thing for most families. Before WW2 this was not the case, and thus there was far less obesity.
- chestertn 6y ago
  Western style != American style. Philippines was part of the Spanish crown and had Spanish customs. Plenty of European (Western) countries have balanced diets and healthy lifestyles.
  - Talanes 6y ago
    They were under American rule more recently, and were only given their Independence without a fight after agreeing to preferential trade on importing American products.
    - chestertn 6y ago
      I didn't argue about that. I just said that before American rule they were ruled by Spaniards.
  - wyclif 6y ago
    Sure, for you and I it's not equivalent. But for them, it might as well be. People simply did not eat large amounts of packaged, processed food only a few generations ago, like people do everywhere in the west, including the EU.
    - chestertn 6y ago
      I just complained about the use of "western diet" as a catch-all epithet for unhealthy, processed food.
lambda_obrien 6y ago
I barely walk, but I've been losing weight like mad because I've been cooking at home everyday now, not eating fast food, and not drinking soda. Look at the ingredients for any premade foods, even the ones that bill themselves as healthy, they are mostly sugars and carbs and sauces containing HFCS. Also, the caloric density is insane, one "meal" can be upwards of 1500 or 2000 calories if you ignore their "suggested serving" which is unrealistic to what people eat. Also, exercise accounts for maybe a hundred or two calories a day for the average person who isn't into marathons or something, so the only true way to lose weight is to decrease what you eat. It's not lack of exercise, that's the way these corporations try to blame you for being lazy so you forget their food is garbage that's making you fat.
- Aa9C4xPz43Gg7k6 6y ago
  Only in US there's this serving size bullshit that requires effort to figure out how much you're actually eating.
  - lambda_obrien 6y ago
    Exactly, that's why we're fat as fuck. We don't have the same culinary habits as most of the world. I ate a cookie for lunch today: it was 500 calories.
novok 6y ago
It really is the food. America was as car dependent in the 70s as they were in today, but if you look at photos then, you'll notice how uncannily THIN everyone was. If you dig more into it, you'll find the obesity crisis started around the late 70s with a change in dietary guidelines and medical guidelines saying basically 'fat & meat bad' and 'carbs good' along with the widespread introduction of vegetable oils, leading to too much insulin and other hormonal effects slowly increasing diabetes & obesity in our population. Also food companies honing on what obesogenic combos of food lead to people to eat more, buy more and thus get better sales. Read "The Obesity Code" if you want a more detailed description with a lot of links to papers and studies for more info. [0] [0] I said this yesterday too in another article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25767604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25767604
- coredog64 6y ago
  What’s the percentage of food spend in the 70s vs today? If I read the USDA charts, it’s about 13% for the decade of the 70s, declining to under 10% today. So I would expect that as food gets significantly cheaper, people consume more of it.
  - jt2190 6y ago
    Portions are now massive. McDonalds, once upon a time, had small and large sizes of french fries; the little white paper pouch or the red cardboard sleeve. Today I believe they have two even larger sizes. The smallest size of soda doesn’t even exist any more. Other restaurants have retired round plates and serve meals on platters.
  - lostcolony 6y ago
    Are rich people on average fatter than thin people? After all, they can afford more food, so presumably they consume more of it. Spending has dropped because there are such large subsidies to cheap carbs, and that is the bulk of many people's diets. A steak and veggies is no cheaper than it was 40-50 years ago, but we're eating far more refined junk with additives because it is cheap and convenient.
venkats 6y ago
I live in China, I can assure you there are plenty of obese chinese people here in the major cities I've been to. It's not as bad as the US, and the culture is more aggressively against it, but it's not uncommon. Obesity is a problem that most developing nations are facing. You can buy junk food anywhere. > If one does not live in a modern city center one barely ever walks. Most Americans sit all day - at a desk or in a car. As opposed to someone in China, where we must do such extraneous physical activities like order take-out delivered to our place less than 15 minutes, then order a masseuse to come give us a massage and finally order a bottle of wine to top the night off, all without needing to get out of bed.
snicker7 6y ago
Walking burns like, what, 5 kcal/minute (generous)? If non-Americans walk on average 20 more minutes a day (generous), that's like 100 kcal per day. Or about 7kg at 15 kcal/kg basal metabolic rate, not taking into account for increased appetite.
- KAMSPioneer 6y ago
  While you have a good point, I want to nitpick a little: As an American who recently moved to Europe, I don't think 20 minutes of walking per day is being generous. COVID-related measures aside, I find I add about 20min/day of walking easily, and more if I need to do something (e.g. buying groceries). Now, in the US I own a car and here I do not -- but in my Midwestern town I am totally obligated to own and operate a car. Here in Europe I get along fine with walking, riding a bike, and using public transport.
Hnrobert42 6y ago
Vietnam has the lowest adult obesity rate yet is the 8th most sedentary population. The only thing I see that accounts for this is the lack of cheap, processed foods. The Vietnamese diet is largely prepared at home from scratch. Sugar is not crammed into every effing thing you eat the way it is in the U.S.
harha 6y ago
I actually lost weight when I moved from Switzerland to the US. The food just all felt somehow gross, so I didn’t eat much (also the options on campus were incredibly limited, apart from these horrible undergraduate dining halls there were few normal choices and most only served food for around 2 hours - the food at the supermarket also felt strange)
- torgian 6y ago
  I’m curious, how did the food in the supermarket feel strange? I eat mostly fruits, veggies and meats. Pretty much 80% natural foods. But I live in east Asia now so it’s easier to do that and with more variety. But, I don’t recall American supermarkets food feeling strange. Unless you mean the processed stuff?
  - harha 6y ago
    The processed food I avoided mostly, though I do that in Europe as well. For the rest of it: might just be my perception to be honest, my impression was that the fruits and vegetables tasted very watery with little flavour, as if they were grown in the most efficient way to bring them to market quickly. Same for the meat, was kind of floppy and the cheese just didn't taste like much. There were some good things from farmers markets, but at absurd prices. I see differences in Europe as well, e.g. I think the quality in Switzerland is better than Germany and Austria. In Spain and France I was able to get really good food, probably because it's closer to where it is produced. Again this might be my perception, didn't do a blind tasting. Unless the food is specially prepared to be stored (like fermented food, cheese, etc.), I don't think the highly industrial production, refrigeration and long transportation is doing the quality any favours.
    - Izkata 6y ago
      This isn't the first time I've heard this, and a quick Google search with the right keywords brings up: https://www.greenoptimistic.com/fruit-vegetables-taste-europe-america/ https://www.greenoptimistic.com/fruit-vegetables-taste-europ... https://www.treehugger.com/why-doesnt-american-produce-taste-good-europes-4858067 https://www.treehugger.com/why-doesnt-american-produce-taste... The key point seems to be that we prioritize the looks, which unintentionally affects taste.

pstrateman 6y ago

> I think America is one of the most obese countries on earth. Yes but not by a very wide margin. [1] Average BMI in the US is 28.5, Saudi Arabia is the same, Mexico is 28.1, New Zealand is 27.9, UK is 27.3, Canada is 27.2. My point is that the impression that the US is unreasonably fat compared to the rest of the world is mostly just bias. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass...

martinald 6y ago
I think you are just pointing out very car reliant countries. London has good public transit, but the rest is extremely car dependant. This shows IMO in obesity rates - they are significantly lower in London than the rest of the UK.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  Not sure that the UK is that car reliant. I guess in rural areas, but that's true in most countries. In cities, not at all.
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    62% of all trips in the UK are made by car, compared to 26% by foot, 6% by bus, 3% by train, 2% by bicycle. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/787488/tsgb-2018-report-summaries.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... It is not as entirely car dominated as the USA, but I think it's pretty fair to call it "car reliant".
  - iainmerrick 6y ago
    It very much depends on the city. London has excellent public transport (and is horrible for driving), other cities are much more mixed.
- boc 6y ago
  Same thing in many US cities where walking is the norm. The other major factor is wealth. Richer people can afford higher quality food. Poor people generally consume more calories from junk foods and sugary drinks, which are staples of drive-throughs and fast food chains.

partiallypro 6y ago

I was in Germany for some time, I thought I would lose weight walking everywhere and eating differently; but I actually didn't lose a single pound. I don't know if muscle replaced fat, but I felt I looked the same and weighed the same. I was truly baffled. During the early pandemic, I stopped drinking for 3-4 months...and still didn't lose any weight. I honestly don't understand the human body.

tayo42 6y ago
I think you need to count calories to really know what your eating. I did it as an experiment for a week, it really interesting to see how fast you blow through your daily calories snacking or adding sauce
- nl 6y ago
  Yes, do this. It's shocking how much of your calorie budget a sugared soft drink has.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Strangely, it’s both most of your calorie budget, and none of it at the same time. Soft drinks have a ton of calories which have to go somewhere; we all know that. The paradox is that the human brain does not generally treat liquid calories as calories. So even though you might drink down 300 calories of soda, your brain will not adjust your hunger levels to match. This is obviously very bad.
    - nl 6y ago
      Oh yes, satiety of food is a hidden thing people don't talk about. Eat warm porridge and on average you will feel twice as full as the equivalent calories in white bread: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b3cf/3b7d71a7485e6355e49b2e4c86db54b25046.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b3cf/3b7d71a7485e6355e49b2e...
XorNot 6y ago
Genuine question: do you have biscuits, confectionery or ice cream in your home normally? The most shocking thing to me when I first moved alone was how easy it was too eat a ton of sugar, without realising it till after. My solution these days is to just ensure its not there, and commit to not getting takeaway (easy if I think about all the money I save). Even doing all that, I still have habits I need to keep up: eating toast too often is a problem, for example. I've eliminated peanut butter entirely. Don't eat lunch when I'm at a desk job and replace it with just mid afternoon coffee to keep me going. The human body is stupidly efficient, unfortunately.

krisroadruck 6y ago

"You can read all the dating books you want, but getting in shape is the only thing that works." I don't know my guy. I'm 39, weigh 280lbs at 5'9 but am married to a smart and beautiful women a decade younger than me and 150lbs lighter than me. It's not a sugar daddy thing either, she makes more than I do. Not everyone is shallow and a great sense of humor / shared interests / good personality is more than enough for plenty of people. That said, being fit certainly ups the odds in your favor.

fossuser 6y ago
A large component is the dating market you’re in. If you’re a man in DC, NYC, or some rural town you’ll have more luck. Bay Area? Zero chance.

VRay 6y ago

> You can read all the dating books you want, but getting in shape is the only thing that works. Counterpoint: I got in great shape in my early 20s, but didn't have much luck with dating because I was still a "Reddit niceguys"-style jerk Later on I stopped being a jerk, and even though I ballooned back to a very stately American weight I had way better luck with dating. Including "attractive females" as a young involuntarily-celibate gentleman might say

xnyan 6y ago
Agree. Try to be a good person and be honest. Treat your hygiene as important, clean up your home and maybe think a little bit about some clothes that look nice on you. That's all you need to do.
- creamytaco 6y ago
  Assuming you're at least moderately physically attractive. And even then, the quality of partners you can attract in terms of looks is non-linearly decreasing as your own physical attractiveness drops. OkCupid studies have proven that women find 80% of men below average looking. If you don't happen to be at least average in terms of looks, things are looking grim.
  - VRay 6y ago
    This is like looking at hiring statistics and deciding you'll never get a FAANG job unless you went to a top-tier university Going on a dating site and messaging attractive women there is like sending resumes into the online job sites for Google/Facebook/etc. MAYBE you'll get a response, but more likely you're just wasting your time. In the working world, you can build up your skills and network to get a referral In the dating world, you can improve your hygeine/personality and get an introduction via mutual friends/family/family's friends/family's friends' coworkers.
    - creamytaco 6y ago
      And why do you think that would be any different? Do you seriously believe women will suddenly view a physically unattractive male as sexually desirable just because they got an introduction? It doesn't happen. Raw sexual attraction is not something one builds towards with friend/family introductions/referrals and good hygiene. It's a visceral, almost animal-like condition that manifests at the drop of a hat and physical appearance (face, height, build) is _the_ most (if not the only) important attribute. Those that have won the genetic lottery are smooth sailing. The sky is the limit. Those that are average have to put in work to get results (and there are definite limits, they will hit a ceiling). Those that have lost the genetic lottery are kneecapped from the get-go and they're looking at a vastly diminished set of possible partners and opportunities.

agumonkey 6y ago

I wonder how much is due to regulation about inner dosage. I hear that mcdonalds recipees varies a lot between Europe and USA, saying that USA have way more everything in it, whereas in EU limits are imposed. That or USA citizens really like to eat overly sweet and fat stuff.

whatever1 6y ago
The portions at the USA are insane. When I first saw the "large size" side drinks at fast foods I started laughing. In Europe the large size is equivalent to the US Medium. This is also the case in restaurants. I get it that many people pack left over to go, but the portions served are comically large. For someone with broken "I am full" sensor, it is easy to consume the whole portion at once, and then get a dessert.
- bluGill 6y ago
  I find that in most US restaurants the portions are a bit small and I need the desert to fill me up. People always remark about how much I eat though. Most of them completely fail to notice that I eat only at meals, so even though it seems like I'm eating a lot, over the course of a day I'm getting no more than them. However most of my calories are not empty snacks (even counting the desert). I cook most of my meals at home though, which allows me to get enough without needing desert every meal. Plus my cooking tastes better since it is real flavor not added sugar/salt.
- Talanes 6y ago
  >When I first saw the "large size" side drinks at fast foods I started laughing. In Europe the large size is equivalent to the US Medium. Depending on where exactly you were, this is the experience of a lot of Americans compared to the sizes from their childhoods. A lot of places missed the point on Super-Size Me and just renamed their sizes to eliminate extra-larges around that time. So a 16oz shifted from being medium to being small.

xur17 6y ago

> Here if I eat junk food for 3 days my weight jumps by 7 pounds. If you are gaining 7 pounds in 3 days, I imagine the vast majority is just water weight, which can probably be attributed to the salt levels in the junk food more than anything else.

deleted 6y ago
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brbrodude 6y ago

Food is definitely a big factor. Here in Brasil it's not like we're super healthy eating, we are much more into real food than America, it was the impression I was left with. Some things just seem arbitrarily made junkier for no reason. My colleague who lived in Italy through masters and doctors and recently came back comments on how in Brazil we eat way more meat than europeans, as an additional point of comparison.

nradov 6y ago
It's tough to eat enough meat to get really fat. Most people who try a carnivore diet end up losing weight. (I am not necessarily recommending that people follow a carnivore diet because it might have other negative effects.)
- brbrodude 6y ago
  Here the diet is kind of meat and a lot of carbs at all meals(rice & beans in portuguese actually is a term meaning "the basics"), prefferably with a lot garlic and salt.

jimbob45 6y ago

So you’re blaming the FDA for allowing something into American food that the EU doesn’t?

outworlder 6y ago

> I completely blame the food I don't completely blame the food itself. It's more about food habits. One of the things I found very weird was American portion sizes. Go to any restaurant and plates were easily double the amount I was previously used to. I felt bad leaving almost half of a plate every time. And then... I got used to it. But also very fat. With similar levels of sedentarism so it's not only about exercise levels. And frankly, while exercise is healthy, you don't burn that much energy with cardio. Every time I do the calculations I'm shocked. From a weight loss perspective, you're better off reducing food quantity (and the proportion of highly energy dense food types) than just increasing exercise. Unless you are at marathon-levels, that is. Increasing muscle mass is also time well spent (still pales in comparison to just eating less). Need to do it for the health benefits anyway, but it's easy to see why people get frustrated. The kind of food served must have an impact too. Most places, if you are even offered a salad, it's awful. It's either tasteless or downright nasty and you can only make it palatable by overdosing on dressings. It seems that the nastiest tasting greens are chosen - don't even get me started on the "spring mix". So many people just don't eat salad and I can't blame them. Kids are right to rebel against their vegetables. The American-style breakfast is delicious. It's just that most options are caloric bombs. This is obviously not applicable if you don't eat out with any regularity. But that was the norm pre-pandemic, whether it's a restaurant or a $5 meal at Taco Bell with the nastiest (but tasty to our lizard brain) calories imaginable. Given that many people in the US don't really have the habit (or the employer doesn't give them time) of having lunch, burgers and the like are common. Fine, let's eat healthy then and stop complaining. Let's start with fruits. ... and they suck. Apples are tasteless. Bananas are terrible. Mangos are a shadow of what they are supposed to be. Some grapes are ok. Berries are good (but not cheap in most places!). And so on. Fruits seem to be selected for appearance, easy of transport and shelf life, nevermind if they taste like used cardboard. Except berries and even then, IFF they are sourced locally. You can make a decent salad with ingredients found in any supermarket, so there's that. Less convenient - you need to make your own with tastier greens(whatever your preference is!) rather than grabbing a box of spring mix that tastes like grass that was mowed a week ago. Add some lemon, vinegar and a very small amount of salt and it's all you need. Meat is essentially the same everywhere(barring some food regulations). Can be affordable if one is ok with eating based on what's available, as prices fluctuate like crazy. You _can_ eat healthy in the US. But you'll be battling: affordability, time, convenience and cultural norms. You need to check the labels on everything too, the corn syrup comment is relevant.

llsf 6y ago

Just came back from 3 weeks in France, over holiday season. I stayed with my parents, and my dad is a cook... so I did eat well :) Still managed to lose 2 pounds. In the 3 days I was back here, I managed to eat a burger and pizza. I guess I could have politely say no. But clearly the processed food here in US is ubiquitous and cheap, so difficult to escape. No idea if this is the reason of lower testosterone. But I realize that simple food based on fresh products would go a long way.

react_burger38 6y ago

It's mostly the food. It's not like people in other countries get that much more exercise than we do. (Source: lived in Ecuador for two years). I watched this youtube video recently about recipes for cutting (weightlifting term for a diet that makes you lose weight) and eating some of the food has helped me lose some weight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ieFuh_4Vs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ieFuh_4Vs

znpy 6y ago

related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lkCsKXAxfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lkCsKXAxfo (and other videos of the series)

chaostheory 6y ago

I blame the food packaging. BPA and all sorts of synthetic hormones leeching from plastic has invaded both our food and drink.

souprock 6y ago
Kids almost always eat and drink from plastic. It used to be glass and metal. Little kids are really surrounded by lots of fresh new plastic.

KraftKacke 6y ago

In fat tissue testosterone gets converted into estrogen via aromatase, also. Not sure if the estrogenic effects are systemic, but the T is lost from circulation.

soonnow 6y ago
Oh interesting. I find that when you look how people move, ie walk or sit down, you'll often find that men with big bellies move very deliberate, not forceful at all.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

"Here if I eat junk food for 3 days my weight jumps by 7 pounds." That's impossible you would have to eat 8167 extra calories a day to do that, you are doing something else like drinking lots of water or something.

wrycoder 6y ago
I see the same, but typically five pounds. I believe it’s my glycogen storage increasing, along with water weight due to the excess salt. When I stop, it comes right off again in a couple of days.

kristopolous 6y ago

FWIW, oil prices have a really high (negative) correlation with obesity There's weirdly enough, quite a bit of scholarly literature on this. Here's a decent survey, scroll down to see the links https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/energy/gas-prices-effects-health-driving-economics-policy/ https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/energy/g... There's also studies that show increasing gasoline sales tax is predictive of future obesity prevalence (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5415832/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5415832/). The correlation appears robust enough to generally use petroleum prices as an indicator of obesity prevalence as measured through BMI. They're all pretty careful to note that "the relationship between gasoline prices and physical activity must be empirically determined". Maybe, for instance, people purchase less food or go out to eat less frequently in high gas-price places. (See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1550-8528.1999.tb00715.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1550-8528....) Maybe people spend less time commuting in high petroleum prices areas, which increases well being and decreases obesity prevalence (see https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-012-9678-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-012-9678-6) Maybe petroleum-based fertilizers lead to high obesity (see https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/prospective-association-between-consumption-frequency-of-organic-food-and-body-weight-change-risk-of-overweight-or-obesity-results-from-the-nutrinetsante-study/1B800116CA8AFD21D26B6DF877EF7AC1 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-n...). Maybe the psychological activity of driving affects metabolism (see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743515003655 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009174351...). Maybe this is all p-hacking and it's nonsense. Regardless, if scholarship is to be believed, moving to a place with high gas prices might help you lose weight. Yes, it still sounds nutty to me as well.

kgin 6y ago

Whatever it is, it started in the mid 70s. You can see the exact moment obesity rates launched upwards and never looked back. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/-/media/Images/Health-Information/Other-Child-Pages/Health-Statistics/adults_bmi_949x703.jpg?imbypass=true https://www.niddk.nih.gov/-/media/Images/Health-Information/...

thelittleone 6y ago

"Anything that is more than our necessity is poison. It may be power, wealth, hunger, ego, greed, laziness, love or ambition..." Rumi

soonnow 6y ago

Also keep in mind that in vast swathes of America, kids are brought up with low value high calorie food. If you are used to junk food, that's chemically engineered to appeal to our caveman instincts it's incredibly tough to switch later in life to a healthy food lifestyle. This pandemic of shitty food starts with the kids and their tastes being set at a young age.

_the_inflator 6y ago

I disagree. Don't blame USA, after all you decide what goes into your mouth. Whole Foods ain't junk and Walmart has a decent plant based area. If you wanna find junk, you get it - everywhere. Europe is on the rise: https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/noncommunicable-diseases/obesity/data-and-statistics#:~:text=Based%20on%20the%20latest%20estimates,steadily%20from%201990%20to%202008 https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/noncommunicable-di.... No way to, pun not intended, sugar-coat this fact. Sorry to say that, but "moving to a healthier country" is an excuse. Come on, dude! :)

CodeGlitch 6y ago

The fact that America can't even do chocolate right tells you everything you need to know about the food. Having been to America several times, I've eaten some amazing restaurant food, but the stuff bought in supermarkets is where I think the problem lies.

andomar 6y ago

> Not exactly easy to stay in shape when this country tries to pump us all full of corn syrup That's it I think. Advertising has become much more effective over the past 40 years. Humans can simply not resist. There should be advertising for healthy eating, to steer people to healthy food.

mlrtime 6y ago
There should be advertising for healthy eating, to steer people to healthy food. The problem now is we have #fatfobia that shames people for advertising their healthy lifestyle.

T-A 6y ago

> I think America is one of the most obese countries on earth. World obesity rankings are curiously topped by a bunch of small Pacific island nations and Kuwait, followed by the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r...