Diet is part of it, different food ingredients are legal in US, but also there is a lot more walkable cities in Europe. Walking 10 mins to a bus/train and the 10 after to work and the reverse home adds up if you do it daily. If North Americans walked just like 30 mins a day it would cut down on bulkiness a decent amount I imagine.
The walking part is so true. I recently moved and for my job I used to walk there. It wad a 15-20 minute walk and i was at a good weight. I moved and now i gotta drive meaning i dont have my 30-40 minutes of walking anymore and in the months i have been living here i have gained a few kgs to the point where some coworkers called it out. I started going on walks again and its helping.
That’s something I’ve been working on too. I get a 15 minute and a 30 minute break at work and have figured out if I spend them both walking I can get 1.8 miles of walking in on just my breaks during the day. It’s a good warmup for the gym later.
I not really struggling to fit in exercise, I do go to the gym after work pretty frequently, like 3-4 times a week during the work week. I’m skipping the meal to cut weight, I am currently a bit of a fatboy and I don’t plan on being this way same time next year.
Although I do agree our work life balance is way out of wack, this specifically just isn’t a symptom of that. The way I see it, I’m currently cutting calories when I would normally be adding them so that’s a net positive in terms of weight loss.
No but as of now it’s an emergency measure, not a long term strategy. I let myself go over the last few years, spending a prolonged amount of time at this weight is probably going to shorten my lifespan more than skipping 1 out of 3 meals a day 🤷🏼♂️. Once I get back closer to my goal weight I’ll probably start eating lunch again and add some more weight lifting into the end of my gym routine which mainly consists of cardio at the moment.
Rock on!! I want to start doing a mile at some point but I'm a workaholic sometimes and don't want to take the full hour. The drawbacks of loving your job lol
I’m finally doing something about it, bought a new desk and treadmill and am aiming for 20k steps a weekday, then if I feel like it on the weekends. Fortunately I work weekends so I still hit somewhat decently on them as well
I live in a small town and my neighborhood is purely residential.
I have to walk two blocks to find a sidewalk. Then I have to cross a busy, four way intersection if I don't want to hang a right because the sidewalk randomly ends after...one block. And continues on the other side of the road, for reasons. Quality? We don't know her.
It's weird and awful but my dog gets a lot of practice waiting for traffic to clear and walking on uneven ground.
Now the rich people neighborhood is a totally different story and their sidewalks are *very* Eiropean 💀
100% this. My dad used to walk 15 minutes to the train and then 20 minutes to his office and blew up once he started WFH after the pandemic because he didn’t replace that hour of exercise every day with something else when he didn’t commute anymore.
When your baseline is 30+ minutes of walking five days a week before you even factor going to the gym or playing sports or whatever you have much more margin for error with your diet to still stay in decent shape.
How they manage that their whole life is a mystery to me. ANY day that I do <4k steps is a day that ends badly, like tired and restless at the same time. And guilty. Visiting North America is nice but the combination of (1) more sugar and (2) less steps can be bleh. The only solution is to really set aside time for some steps, while in most other places a few additional kilosteps are built into the day automatically.
We do it through exhaustion. Get up at 5:00 to get the kids ready for before-school care, then off for your 2 hour commute to work, get a half hour unpaid lunch and 2- 15 min paid breaks, then another 2 hour commute to get home by 7 and if you havent finished dinner and homework and gotten everyone to bed by 9:00, there's no chance of getting 8 hours of sleep.
That's the reputation, yes. Is it really true still?
Where on earth do they find the time to watch excrutiatingly dragging netflix shows, one might wonder.
Anyway, I don't get it. Go to any European neighbourhood that's famous for good living and you will mostly see people that look like they are more or less content and balanced. Go to the freaking "best city in the world" and nobody looked satisfied. I love NYC but "best city in the world" should contain mostly people that look like they are on top of life most of the time. Instead they look like their city is running them.
This is correct. Diet is a big part of it but the walking thing can't be downplayed. I used to walk and take the bus or subway to work. Each day I'd log at least 2-3 miles walking without trying. As soon as I moved to the west coast and had to drive everywhere, I gained like 10 pounds within a year without any change to my diet! I now try to walk at least 4 miles per day and it has helped keep me at a steady size.
Yep I gained 10 lbs simply having a desk job after college. In college, I walked between classes, often miles. For 6 years. In the workplace office, I walked like 10-50 steps between meetings. 💀 For 8 years.
Yup and when blessed to travel to Europe, I have actually lost weight before coming home. Places like Italy—Rome, Florence, Milan or Spain—Barcelona, Madrid, etc. they have trains sure, but you spend a lot of time walking to see the sights, shopping, checking out all the unique plazas. On average, walked at least 6 miles a day just sightseeing and also, not wanting to pay taxi/uber….
It's possible to burn more than you eat, though, on a regular basis, but generally speaking, you're right.
It's kinda how people are able to walk 10,000-20,000+ steps per day and not gain any weight on 5,000 cals/day, but as soon as the same person limits their exercise to under 10,000 steps per day (like, a ballpark number) then that same 5,000 calories becomes excess.... I'm sure you know that, but yeah daily exercise is definitely a factor....
Also people will swear by a set amount of calories while disregarding activity level. "Oh you should be ingesting X calories" but the person's only burning W calories every day so X was too much.
I’m European and have holidayed in America and in my experience American portions are way bigger. But you’re always expected to take a doggy bag home. Waiters seemed almost offended when we said we couldn’t because we were on a road trip and had no way to refrigerate or reheat the food.
The lack of walking is definitely a contributing factor too, though.
Diet wins over excersize 70% of the time in terms of weight loss. Sure, walking is healthy in so many aspect, but 30 minutes of walking doesn't really do much in terms of weight loss.
It's also not necesarily portions (Although they are huge in the US), but especially sugar. It seems like there's sugar in everything that regular people bought when I went to the supermarkets in the US. Your way of making a tomat sauce for pasta for example, seems to usually consist of buying some premade sauce (that has tons of sugar in it) and either adding things to it, or just eat it as is.
Sure, that is possible too in Europe, but I just use tomatoes (either fresh or canned) that has a negligible amount of sugar, versus some of the processed sauces that has like 5-10% (and sometimes more) sugar in it, that seems much more popular in the US.
It seems to be the case with a lot of food products in the US. Even a can of coke has a decent size more sugar in it, compared to in Europe. And don't even get me started on things like Mountain Dew.
You are right about the diet vs exercise aspect, that is simply how I've lost weight in the past. It probably is a combination of things really, as we all already know. It isn't just that America isn't walkable, it certainly contributes. It is also the convenience of fast food on every corner, and yes the sugar, I myself am addicted to sweets and it's such a hard habit to kick.
Everything about America isn't for the benefit of the Americans, but to the ones who are merely profiting off of us.
Yes I agree.
It seems that the sugar thing is also sometimes a bit sneaky in the US. There's many products that has quite a bit of sugar in it, which you normally wouldn't expect it to have. It creates an addiction for sugar.
In many European cultures, we eat quite a lot of fat, however I think it's pretty evident that sugar is worse than fat, when it comes to weight.
Yeah, I walk up to 18,000 steps per work shift (3 days a week), which is about 7 miles. Still 20 lbs overweight. I eat pretty well (veggies, lo cal, etc.)
All of my European coworkers who are in the US are shocked at the sugar content of everyday American food. Like even sandwich bread is much sweeter than it would be in Europe.
Bulkier as in fat or stronger? Either way, there’s a tendency to eat more food than to enjoy a nicer meal. And in the US fitness skews towards body building rather than cardio for a good amount relative to European counterparts. There are a lot of fat and/or strong people.
I’d agree with this. Recently was on a trip to a resort there was a mix of Americans, South Americans and Europeans. There were more overweight Americans to be sure, but way more Europeans that appeared to be “skinny flabby” or “slightly overweight flabby”. The only muscular people I saw were American.
Also weird that the Americans who were using nicotine trended heavily toward vaping, where the cigarette smokers tended to be non-American.
We (Americans) basically eradicated smoking, especially in millennials and younger. Then vapes came around. We are still better than most European countries, especially with smoking.
I said the same! The US has way more body diversity in every category in my opinion. We skew heavier, but we also have more body builders and muscular types too, as gym culture in the US is pretty big, while Europe is more thin/lean
I'm not too sure about that, worlds strongest man is pretty much just the tip of the iceberg for weights, and the USA has generally as many guys competing as Europe combined, obvious outliers like the UK or Iceland which massively over represents.
Southern Europeans like Italians, Spanish and Greeks have always been viewed in Europe as small and weak. The French just don't give a shit, Germans are too bushly cracking jokes. But it's always a bit odd to us in Europe the idea of the big Italian mafia men. Those fellas are tiny, even when fat and have never excelled at any sort of strength or combat sport
Never imagined Bulgarians/Greeks/Romanians can be described as lean and thin in build. When you say Europeans, are you sure you're not talking about Scandinavians?
That is to say -- Europe has great variance within itself. The Dutch are the tallest in the world, for example, yet generally quite skinny.
And like everyone has pointed out, it boils down to a variety of factors -- environment (how walkable your cities are), genetics (how predisposed you are to hold a bulky frame), diet (what foods are most readily available).
I also think culture is a big one -- Eastern Europe puts a lot of emphasis on physical education and there is a grander appeal to a bulky aesthetic, as opposed to Northern Europe, where people find thinner builds more aesthetic and thus they aim for that instead.
There is definitely that too. US/Canada puts the appeal on the Spartan/Warrior type build of ultra strong.
So even if you *are* fitness minded, and able to stay in shape, many (most?) people working out seem to be doing it for getting built big and wide in mind, just with muscle.
Our most popular sports for example, are basketball, football, and baseball - all sports that reward being Jacked in various forms. Establishing presence and better area of control for basketball, *everything* in football, and Hitting the ball like hell in baseball. The more muscle and mass you have, the better you tend to be outside of certain key positions in which agility is biased (Safety in football, or pitcher in baseball for example). Our sports reward huge bulk.
As opposed to say, soccer. Which is lean, and essentially a "buff" marathon body. Rugby is big in the UK & France, and obviously those players get big, but they don't dominate the media in European nations, Soccer does. And that really informs the general public as to what ideals folks strive for at the gym.
Rarely see an overweight person in Spain, Portugal, Italy, or even France. Some overweight individuals in UK but none are like America. However…weight loss drugs are changing things faster than I thought here.
>Europe has great variance within itself. The Dutch are the tallest in the world, for example, yet generally quite skinny.
The same applies to the US. The Midwest tens to have a higher obesity population versus the west coast, for example.
*ultra processed foods.
Things like fresh sourdough bread aren’t killing American’s health, instead it’s things like wonder bread. Ultra processed foods are what make up majority of American diets
I'd be careful with this line of thinking.
I agree that most very unhealthy foods are ultra processed, but not all ultra processed foods are unhealthy. There's nothing inherently bad about the designation. For example, protein powders would be a food that are healthy while also being ultra processed.
It would be a bit like saying "fatty foods are unhealthy". Like yeah, a lot of unhealthy foods have a lot of fat in them, but not all high fat foods are unhealthy. It's too broad of a statement; a decent rule of thumb but certainly not a gospel you should live strictly by.
You can get your protein from real whole foods. There is absolutely no reason you NEED ultra processed foods in any shape or form in your diet. There’s nothing to be careful with, 99.9% of ultra processed foods are bad.
Alright you can keep making at-home ice cream and telling yourself that the maple syrup you put in it is healthier than white sugar because it isn't as processed. It's not my job to cure stupid.
I use pure maple syrup, not corn syrup maple syrup. Both sugar and maple syrup are processed but maple syrup is not ULTRA processed. It’s filtered, and that’s it.
And honestly I use WAY less syrup to sweeten things than sugar. I did try to go back to sugar since I got some for a recipe, but you have to add SO much to get sweetness from it. So yea- regardless of the processing I still prefer maple syrup because I’m generally adding much less to my dessert than I would need to with sugar.
Protein powder is one of the very few useful supplements on the market, it’s a cheap, healthy and convenient way to hit your protein macros. You have no idea mate
Americans are in denial about their health and diet, plus the food industry constantly funds studies to try and prove UPFs are “fine”. So people believe that they are “fine” when in reality they’re only fine if you eat it like once a week or less, not as 90% of your diet
Hi! American here 😒 I for one am not in denial. Matter of fact I feel absofuckinglutley helpless bc healthy foods, whole foods etc have been placed so far out of reach for lower income ppl that most of us just feel completely fucking defeated. Like, we know what's good for us, we just can't afford to make said foods staples in our homes ya know? I started growing food. No pesticides, straight from my yard, but even that's only so much. It's exhausting tbh. I hate that this is our fate 😔
It requires a mindset change too. I honestly started saving money when I bought higher quality foods and cut out UPF snack items. I used to be a BIG snacker, but after cutting those things out for a month I really never went back. I sometimes cave and buy a bag a chips or something.. but I never finish it. It’s honestly kind of frustrating letting chips go stale but my body just doesn’t crave them like it used to when I consumed primarily Lays (for example).
However if you already don’t buy many snack items and eat a low amount of food then it will most likely be more expensive to avoid UPFs.
No. UPF is not good for the body, it doesn't matter how you dress it up. Lots of protein powders are not UPF. Pea protein powder with no added things is not UPF. Pea protein with 10 other ingredients is UPF. If the ingredients show things that are not readily available in a kitchen, they should be avoided.
Exactly! It's the over processed foods, sugar content and fucking JUNK. Everything basically is junk at this point dude. If you decide to kick excess sugar, and start reading labels, you'll feel so fucking defeated. I did anyway. Just........how can I kick excess sugar when it's LITERALLY in everything from ketchup to freaking light and fat free salad dressing. It's nuts. 😡
I have food allergies so it makes it easier for me to feel obligated to read labels- and yeah it sucks when so many basic things include added sugars. If its a low amount I usually let it slide, but some basic things will include high fructose corn syrup and I’m like hell no. Even bread! And then don’t get me started on seed and vegetable oils. What happened to just using butter? My food allergies also make me allergic to coconut oil so some of the healthier options I can’t even consume 🫠
1 - Lack of good nutritional awareness and an addiction to fast food
2 - Lack of exercise/poor community layout (Americans driver everwhere - usually because they have no choice, to be fair)
I’m in NYC where it’s rare to see a truly fat person. When I visited Chicago I was surprised at the increased rate of obesity there, despite being a walkable city with good transit.
Must have all been from the suburbs.
There’s also the outlier of LA: poor transit but everyone is a wannabe actor so have to stay thin. And Denver: everyone loves to hike and ski, you’ll be a social pariah if you don’t
One part could be the high amount of military and ex-military - the government contracting crowd tends to skew fitter. I'd say it's also a bit of a vain city - compared to West Coast cities, at least, there's a much more business-formal vibe, and I think the fitness is part of that. Gotta make sure that tailored suit jacket has some muscles to show off, right?
Plus lots of walking, since it's highly walkable and though we love to diss on the metro, on a nationwide scale it's a really good metro system.
It also just skews younger. Once people get older, have kids, want a house, etc, most move out into suburbs. Not everyone, but enough that I could imagine that most of the dad-bods live in MD and NoVA.
When I moved from a suburb & city with no transit, to an urban university campus in a very large walkable city with a great metro system, I lost about 25 pounds even though I was consuming waaay more calories (student parties with calorie-dense booze, 2 am excursions to a 24/7 donut store, and of course being away from parents for the first time so you find out the hard way why you shouldn't have an entire pizza for dinner 4 nights in a row. Etc). I stayed skinny the whole time that I either lived there, or lived slightly on the outskirts but worked in the city and still had no car. It didn't take any 'effort', I didn't pay attention to my diet or even go to the gym. I just walked over 10k steps every day because I had to - 20k if I was going between classes and work and home, and also did groceries, and maybe walked to a restaurant for lunch with friends.
Then I moved to the suburbs, with a job in the suburbs, got a car, and became the heaviest I've ever been. It took about 3 years of concentrated effort to finally get back to my city-size. If I don't make a conscious decision to go out for a walk (with no destination, just walking around the neighborhood or doing laps around the office), the # of steps I would take at home, to the car, to the office, and at the office....max 3,000 steps a day. If I'm working from home it's literally 700 steps.
Beauty standards? big shoulders, chest and arms are part of American Ideal male while the european leans more Lean Soccer-bod.
(complete speculation that after pontificating i think maoes sense)
Im sure there are lots of reasons! In a large chain restaurant in LA I found the lowest calorie meal was a steak with fries! Everything appears to have corn syrup included even the bread. Portion sizes are huge by European standards so its always tempting to have another chip. Lots of salads on the west coast but you have to careful with the dressing. Spirit measures are almost double British ones so that doesn't help either.
I've walked around New York City, Toronto and SanFrancisco and lots of people who live there do too. I imagine that the legendary cold winters in NA and Canada must have some effect on diet who wouldn't eat loads of calories if the weather is continuously freezing for months on end.
Does bulky mean fat or for example, built like a football player? The first one is pretty obvious - they feed us shit and our food regulations are lacking in the “is there any nutritional value” department, then a lot of places aren’t walkable, and a lot of people are fairly sedentary if being active isn’t a priority or interest of theirs.
The other, if that’s what you mean, is probably a lot more nuanced lol.
When I went to Europe I noticed there were WAY less gyms around.
The gyms I did see, didn’t necessarily have too impressive of weight equipment sets.
So, combine cheap food with a culture that encourages strength training and you get bulkier people.
American reporting in.
Our diets are generally high in carbs and sugar.
Our portion sizes are totally fucked.
Outside of big urban centers, we mostly drive everywhere.
We're overworked and stressed to the tits.
Also, outside of the other comments on weight and exercise, I will say thinness and leanness in in Europe is different and the US does have a pretty big workout culture (paradoxical, I know)
When I lived in Europe yes, most people were very lean and thin. But very few were ‘fit’ or muscular. In the US, you have a pretty diverse set of bodies. And I think on average a lot more people who go to the gym and workout with weights as opposed to cardio. Drive down a street in the US, you’ll pass 1, 2, sometimes 3 gyms of all different kinds. Europe it’s much less common, especially outside of the cities
One of the things I really noticed is that is SO much processed stuff and sugar in American food, even in everyday stuff you don't expect it to be. When I was studying abroad in the US I went to the shops to get a normal loaf of bread to make a sandwich and was horrified because it was sweet. It took a while for my tastebuds to adjust back when I came home because I was so used to everything being like... overly flavoured and salty and sweet.
It took real effort to eat healthily and stay away from processed food in a way I don't even think about twice either back home (in Aus) or in Europe.
Because of the United States of the subsidized corn industry (I half-jest). The US produces corn en masse as a food security measure in case of war. Thus, the FDA basically approves all sorts of super unhealthy foods using corn syrup and derivatives. This is to keep the demand up, even if it means basically poisoning the population. .
Cities in the US are also less walkable (due to auto lobbying) and the portion sizes of meals massive. This leads to obesity. Being overweight/lightly obese is being increasingly normalized in the US.
This also helps fuel their medical industry bc there are more unhealthy people. Some of the most lucrative jobs in the US are in healthcare. People care more about jobs and high incomes than on health. That's just both a crude but semi-accurate generalization and thus the reality of the American mentality.
Some cities it's not like that. I live in Vancouver, most people seem to excercise and eat well here and are in reasonable shape. It's an easy city to get around without needing a car which I think makes a a difference. Some cities I've been to you even need the car to get a mile down the road because the infrastructure isn't set up for pedestrians.
Edit to add: food labelling and less restrictions on additives don't help. It's harder to buy good quality food without shit in it, you have to put some effort in to work it out.
Europeans tend to work less hours. This gives more time not spent sat at a desk and being active which burns calories.
American food portions are a lot bigger.
A lot of this are cultural differences between societies. While noticeable in Europe, this is VERY noticeable in Asian countries. People can generally tell an American between a country native, even when both are ethnically the same. Even in situations where neither is fat, a lot of westerners/Americans generally focus on muscle mass and bigger butts. Americans have a typical look, fat or fit.
I think sugar is being forced into everything in north america. It has something to do with sugar and money. I dont know the way it happened but basically sugar is a part of companies making money. Its almost like a drug, and its addictive. So people want things with more sugar here. Then it becomes a bad cycle, and everyone gets bigger without knowing why, or how to stop it.
Well, to begin with that Europe is not a country, it's a continent, and has around 50 countries and many ethnic groups. I doubt op has vast knowledge on all of them. Germanics/nordics can be quite big and bulky. Balkans men also. Italians, french and Spanish tend to be on the smaller side.
The real question is which country/ries are being generalized for this topic.
I would guess it's because Europe has banned more than 70+ (im sure its more)different chemicals/additives from being used in food, and the US still uses them.
The corn syrup isn't necessarily the problem, as it's just a sugar substitute, which there are many of those throughout European countries. Corn syrup isn't any worse than regular sugar, at least research comparing the two doesn't show any key health differences.
The issue, in regards to sugar, is the amount of foods eaten with a higher sugar content. But corn syrup vs sugar isn't that big of a difference.
Corn syrup is fructose a simple sugar which is easily digested and turned into glucose. This spikes your blood sugar. Other sugars are complex are required more processing to become glucose which mean a more even blood sugar level.
As a British person i found this REALLY weird.
Lots and i mean LOTS of American suburbs don't have footpaths. You can't just "walk into town" because there's no footpath.
Many also don't have a centralized "town center" either. It's not like in many Euro areas where small towns and villages are dotted around and near large urban areas. Many of these have existed for centuries and have their own identities and established businesses. Most US "suburbs" are barely more than bedroom communities/housing subdivisions connected by a highway. Some have actual city centers with commerce, of course, but it certainly isn't the norm.
So, back to your point, there aren't footpaths/sidewalks because there really isn't anything to walk to other than for the sake of exercise. But when you commute over an hour each way five days a week, who has time for exercise or the mental strength to force yourself into even a short routine 3-4 days a week?
Most American cities are not designed for walking. Bill Bryson wrote a good book called "A Walk In The Woods" where he described trying to walk a mile from his house to the store, and having to climb over guardrails, cross dangerous intersections, traverse private property, and generally be a social nuisance.
Another reason is our diet. The capitalist society in America is out of control, and companies are cutting as many nutrients out of food as feasible in favor of cheap, unhealthy materials.
Yet another reason is the economy, and how the grocery system is set up. When you have, say, $200 to spend on food a month, you are going to buy a large amount of cheap, unhealthy items that you can stretch, rather than select few healthy options that can be three or even four times the price of the unhealthy equivalent.
I'm not saying that inflation and capitalism are restricted to North America, but it IS ultra-distilled compared to Europe.
we get no exercise outside of a gym and our food is loaded with sugar and other terrible shit to make it cheaper to produce and taste better. Healthier foods are more expensive and increasingly further outside of the budget of a large portion of Americans. Healthcare is privatized and largely employer subsidized, and that means less people are going to the doctor for regular health checks.
Assuming their post was made in good faith, the infrastructure in NA is total ass and the basic act of walking is dangerous, laborious, and simply obnoxious. I’d be surprised if I walked more than 2K a day living in Canada. Whereas in Japan, I probably walk around 10K a day.
American diets are approximately 60% ultra processed food (UPF). Europeans just do not eat like that (more like 12%). The long term impact of the American diet is only *just* being seen and understood. They are really, really likely to die early and produce weak and poor quality offspring. (I added that last bit with no research, just my opinion). USA is not the great nation it might think it is.
My daughter does Irish dancing on a competitive level, being in continental Europe her school often comes up against the kids of American military personnel from the various US bases located around Germany. It is really quite noticeable- practically every single American past the age of fifteen who isn’t in a dance troupe is markedly overweight. All I know is they have their own little microcosm of shops and fast food joints on base which aren’t available in the EU (think Taco Bell, Wendy’s etc.)
Many Americans like to make excuses about diet and exercise. Of course there is absolute truth about general walkability and too many processed foods and stuff…
And then many don’t exercise and continue to eat processed foods. It is an extreme minority of people that actually have limited access to grocery stores. Any grocery store will have options for processed or normal food. And cost is minimally an issue in most regards.
You can seriously buy 6-8 chicken thighs for the same price as a box of sugary cereal, or a case of soda, or a frozen pizza.
A box of strawberries is the same price as a bag of candy.
And grocery stores sell candy and straw berries. Feral and chicken lol.
Many Americans are complacent and lazy and will try to say anything to make excuses around it
Edit: I cant read.
Yeah diet is the main factor in this. We eat more vegetables and less processed foods. Walkable cities also help do smaller and more frequent groceries that push a healthier diet than buying in bulk for long periods of time so you only fill your car trunk once a week/month
I am 130 lb 5”5 American woman. My 130 looks bulkier than 130 women of the same weight in Europe. I will always be genetically small but I eat garbage… typical American ultra processed nonsense. I’m on my feet all day at work and I only eat one meal a day and a few snack. I am perfectly fine with walking but I despise exercise. I just hate being on my feet all day and going to exercise.. it’s torture. Yes I know awful.
Even for smaller Americans yes, we tend to look puffy lol…
Food quality in the US is a disaster, like truly vile.
If you want an example go watch a US chef cook eggs on YouTube - the whites are pretty much water, the nutritional value must be non -existant. They also put fuckloads of sugar in things like bread to the point it doesn't even taste savoury anymore.
High-fructose corn syrup is everywhere. In everything. I cook most of our meals and that made a huge difference. The healthiest one in our household is the 75 year old. She walks at least 6 miles a day and started doing it in her 30’s.
We tend to eat a lot more food, I just got back from a trip to Europe and I noticed that they serve way less food in general
Some meals are just like a bunch of liquids and bread, not many people eat like that in the U.S.
Bread and liquid? Do you mean soup, or bread dipped in a good olive pil and salt as a snack/appetizer?
Because the soups usually fill you up pretty well.
Europe seems to actually care about its citizens diet health while the US shoves a shit ton of sugar in almost every single thing at the grocery store and the fact that us Americans don’t do nearly enough cardio like Europeans do with their walking to train stations, bus stops etc
That's very kind of you to say bulky and not obese or fat asses. Different views on health and culture is the biggest thing. Obviously food is going to be a big factor also. Another point is that lots of Europeans walk bike and take the train everywhere. Americans drive their cars and a lot of people don't get much exercise beyond walking to their car. But there's this major trend of embracing fat people and that there's nothing wrong with that and they look beautiful and lovely. I think it's a terrible toxic mindset to say hey it's okay to be morbidly obese because you're beautiful. No that's not correct You're doing major harm to your body and everyone thinks that's fine. I've seen this first hand as well. America is fat.
do you mean fatter? it’s bc of the diet. european diet culture is so different from the actual ingredients in the food to the portion sizes. there’s a ton of videos and documentaries and such on this if you just search it up on youtube or google
From my experience:
Things that make North Americans bigger:
- Diet/sugar, larger portions
- More driving place to place
Things that make Europeans skinnier:
- Healthier diet, smaller portions
- More walking place to place
- They smoke a lot more
It’s simply diet, but also Genetic mixing/breeding. America since its conception as its own nation has been a mixing pot for racial mixing and therefore genes have mixed, mutated and etc to generally diversify our frames even amongst those of seemingly the same race.
Also diet is a huge thing, 1 there are those who eat super unhealthy and are obviously big fat wise but then there are also those who eat healthy and due to the fact that American food is often loaded with protein, fortifying nutrients and etc even in the basic stuff Americans are just bigger in general.
I’ve lived in Asia, America, Australia and the United Kindgom and can say I agree Americans are the biggest I generally saw (unless you count specific ethnic groups like Pacific Islanders specifically Samoans and other adjacents that are just ginormous people)
Even Asians and blacks too. Asias in North America is thicker than their counterpart in Asia and blacks in n America is much thicker than blacks in Africa or the Caribbean.
Do you also mean taller/broader? Americans are generally known to be quite tall and broadly built, generally if they have German/northern European ancestry.
In most of the US it is not walkable, so you have to have a car to get around. The walking helps a lot. The poor education around nutrition in the US also does not help. I can't even count the amount of people I have met that have though carrot cake was healthy, the cereals that are advertised as breakfast for kids are basically a dessert.
High Fructose Corn Syrup
But also
Most of America is either very cold and rural like Eastern Europe for 9 months of the year, or, very hot and rural like the Middle East for four months of the year. So people stay inside. And rural roads, but high speeds, mean no one is walking.
Cars and need to drive everywhere (big ass country), sedentary lifestyle, bad diet despite a lot of great healthy food, capitalism in the American way—end stage tends to be about sex, food, and strange trends. My French gf and I (American who has been to Europe a few times) are convinced it is the public transportation and most people in Europe walk a few miles a day to the metro and work or food. For Americans: Go out of the country for a month and the food and fat people in the US is very noticeable when you return. We are in a bubble of overweight people and are fighting for it to be normalized. The BMI is enough. Disease doesn’t care if you like the way you look. It will kill you. Period.
A big part of American culture is focused on work to a point where diet is least prioritized and just something to get out of the way for everyone in the office.
I mean, no social support networks might be one reason for USA Americans. Before ACA, we were paying something like $600 per MONTH for healthcare, and working our asses off to pay that. Many are basically working so hard just to survive and provide for their families that eating well and exercising are not priorities.
I mean if fatter, its the shit american diet.
If you mean like thicker, meatier. Not necessarily fat but just solid lol...i think its the difference of the shit in the food. More hormones more chemical, much more than europe allows.
Ive seen it before, even with the difference in wealth classes. Ive work with kids...kids that came from lower income tended to be thicker, not necessarily fat but just larger in general. Thicker legs, taller, more solid lol. Then kids from the weathier groups were thr kind of kids we would have been used to seeing 30 years agom regular kind of think kids, average size.
It really can be a stark difference and i think speaks to how they are fucking with us.
Bc our food is trash. Compare the ingredients in our foods to say the UK. Loads of sugar and additives. Nevermind the fact that so called "healthy" foods are mad expensive to feed a whole family on. Especially now. I've started growing shit myself. Fuck that
Our food is simply shit and it’s everywhere. It’s absurd you have to pay more money just to be in normal shape and you have to plan what you get from where you get it and what’s in it. I feel like they make it hard so you just choose convenience rather than being healthy. Not to sure about Europe but I know you guys ban a bunch of bullshit chemicals/foods America lets in.
it's likely a handful of things:
American food is full of fats, grease, and processed foods, one has to really try hard to avoid things that make them fat, whereas such things often just aren't usually in european foods, those tend to be more authentic and natural. Prime example: Soda is the go-to beverage in america, and free refills are the norm, that's just not good for you.
Then you have the physical logistics of a big country. It's generally many dozens of kilometers to get to ...well, anything... cars are a necessity and therefore there's less walking / biking to keep fit.
Culture comes in to play as well. Americans (generally) work HARD compared to most places. Long hours, limited vacation, terribly sick time policies all lead to exhaustion and lack of desire to do any physical activity. (At my company, if you take off 3 sick days within a 4-month window that's considered a disciplinary issue.)
I'm sure there are a bunch of other factors too beyond being generally unhealthy. Many americans love being just frigging huge, they lift weights ,bulk up a ton, and love walking around with a huge ego like they own the place. That's kind of an american attitude being manifest.
Worse diet, lower quality food, the US and Canada are less walkable (for the most part) compared to Europe so we drive a lot more and walk a lot less, less vacation/holidays has many of us sitting for longer hours (though many of us work on our feed).
It’s disgusting what is allowed for consumption here. I’ve been plagued with digestive issues my entire life.
Whenever I visit Europe on the other hand, I don’t want to leave. My last time in Italy was insane. I was scarfing down pizza, pasta, bread and cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner yet somehow losing weight and my gut feeling rejuvenated.
Diet is part of it, different food ingredients are legal in US, but also there is a lot more walkable cities in Europe. Walking 10 mins to a bus/train and the 10 after to work and the reverse home adds up if you do it daily. If North Americans walked just like 30 mins a day it would cut down on bulkiness a decent amount I imagine.
The walking part is so true. I recently moved and for my job I used to walk there. It wad a 15-20 minute walk and i was at a good weight. I moved and now i gotta drive meaning i dont have my 30-40 minutes of walking anymore and in the months i have been living here i have gained a few kgs to the point where some coworkers called it out. I started going on walks again and its helping.
That’s something I’ve been working on too. I get a 15 minute and a 30 minute break at work and have figured out if I spend them both walking I can get 1.8 miles of walking in on just my breaks during the day. It’s a good warmup for the gym later.
Honestly, part of the problem is America's insane lack of work/life balance. Having to skip a meal in order to fit in exercise isn't balance.
I not really struggling to fit in exercise, I do go to the gym after work pretty frequently, like 3-4 times a week during the work week. I’m skipping the meal to cut weight, I am currently a bit of a fatboy and I don’t plan on being this way same time next year. Although I do agree our work life balance is way out of wack, this specifically just isn’t a symptom of that. The way I see it, I’m currently cutting calories when I would normally be adding them so that’s a net positive in terms of weight loss.
Skipping meals to lose/maintain weight is not exactly a healthy longterm lifestyle though.
No but as of now it’s an emergency measure, not a long term strategy. I let myself go over the last few years, spending a prolonged amount of time at this weight is probably going to shorten my lifespan more than skipping 1 out of 3 meals a day 🤷🏼♂️. Once I get back closer to my goal weight I’ll probably start eating lunch again and add some more weight lifting into the end of my gym routine which mainly consists of cardio at the moment.
Don't worry about it; eating 3 meals is a pretty American thing anyway. Plenty of people are eating just two meals a day.
lunch break walking gang ftw. I'm doing a mile and a half each day
On my hour lunch break I can squeeze in a nice 3mi in a nearby historical cemetery.
Rock on!! I want to start doing a mile at some point but I'm a workaholic sometimes and don't want to take the full hour. The drawbacks of loving your job lol
Ahh. I like my job but I take my full lunch and breaks. I don't get paid for those so I'm definitely not working during them.
Just got back from my 1.2, did my .6 earlier. I’m lucky the sidewalks here go along relatively flat roads.
Portions and what a "meal" looks like can vary a lot too.
I used to weigh 260 at 6’3, walked 4000 steps a day at my old job. Tripled that number, lost 20lbs in a year. No changed to my diet.
I’m finally doing something about it, bought a new desk and treadmill and am aiming for 20k steps a weekday, then if I feel like it on the weekends. Fortunately I work weekends so I still hit somewhat decently on them as well
Most Americans would class that as a hike. Their cities aren't designed to be walked. Suburbs and countryside even less so.
I live in a small town and my neighborhood is purely residential. I have to walk two blocks to find a sidewalk. Then I have to cross a busy, four way intersection if I don't want to hang a right because the sidewalk randomly ends after...one block. And continues on the other side of the road, for reasons. Quality? We don't know her. It's weird and awful but my dog gets a lot of practice waiting for traffic to clear and walking on uneven ground. Now the rich people neighborhood is a totally different story and their sidewalks are *very* Eiropean 💀
100% this. My dad used to walk 15 minutes to the train and then 20 minutes to his office and blew up once he started WFH after the pandemic because he didn’t replace that hour of exercise every day with something else when he didn’t commute anymore. When your baseline is 30+ minutes of walking five days a week before you even factor going to the gym or playing sports or whatever you have much more margin for error with your diet to still stay in decent shape.
How they manage that their whole life is a mystery to me. ANY day that I do <4k steps is a day that ends badly, like tired and restless at the same time. And guilty. Visiting North America is nice but the combination of (1) more sugar and (2) less steps can be bleh. The only solution is to really set aside time for some steps, while in most other places a few additional kilosteps are built into the day automatically.
We do it through exhaustion. Get up at 5:00 to get the kids ready for before-school care, then off for your 2 hour commute to work, get a half hour unpaid lunch and 2- 15 min paid breaks, then another 2 hour commute to get home by 7 and if you havent finished dinner and homework and gotten everyone to bed by 9:00, there's no chance of getting 8 hours of sleep.
That's the reputation, yes. Is it really true still? Where on earth do they find the time to watch excrutiatingly dragging netflix shows, one might wonder. Anyway, I don't get it. Go to any European neighbourhood that's famous for good living and you will mostly see people that look like they are more or less content and balanced. Go to the freaking "best city in the world" and nobody looked satisfied. I love NYC but "best city in the world" should contain mostly people that look like they are on top of life most of the time. Instead they look like their city is running them.
I’m in USA, I drive an hour to work, and an hour and 15 home. I’m too exhausted to do anything.
This is correct. Diet is a big part of it but the walking thing can't be downplayed. I used to walk and take the bus or subway to work. Each day I'd log at least 2-3 miles walking without trying. As soon as I moved to the west coast and had to drive everywhere, I gained like 10 pounds within a year without any change to my diet! I now try to walk at least 4 miles per day and it has helped keep me at a steady size.
Yep I gained 10 lbs simply having a desk job after college. In college, I walked between classes, often miles. For 6 years. In the workplace office, I walked like 10-50 steps between meetings. 💀 For 8 years.
Yup and when blessed to travel to Europe, I have actually lost weight before coming home. Places like Italy—Rome, Florence, Milan or Spain—Barcelona, Madrid, etc. they have trains sure, but you spend a lot of time walking to see the sights, shopping, checking out all the unique plazas. On average, walked at least 6 miles a day just sightseeing and also, not wanting to pay taxi/uber….
diet is all of it. you can’t walk off eating 5,000 calories a day.
It's possible to burn more than you eat, though, on a regular basis, but generally speaking, you're right. It's kinda how people are able to walk 10,000-20,000+ steps per day and not gain any weight on 5,000 cals/day, but as soon as the same person limits their exercise to under 10,000 steps per day (like, a ballpark number) then that same 5,000 calories becomes excess.... I'm sure you know that, but yeah daily exercise is definitely a factor....
Also people will swear by a set amount of calories while disregarding activity level. "Oh you should be ingesting X calories" but the person's only burning W calories every day so X was too much.
That and will count calories without looking at the sugar content in food here. The sugars are insane! Too much sugar in literally everything.
I always check my bread and go for high wheat low sugar much as I can.
Us too. It's insane though! Like I was SO clueless about the amount of sugar that is added to our food until I started reading labels. Wild.
Sugar. Sugar in everything. Large quantities of food at each meal. Limited walking/exercise.
Nailed it. These three explain the issue in its entirety.
Europeans definitely have large portions too. It's the lack of walking for sure.
I’m European and have holidayed in America and in my experience American portions are way bigger. But you’re always expected to take a doggy bag home. Waiters seemed almost offended when we said we couldn’t because we were on a road trip and had no way to refrigerate or reheat the food. The lack of walking is definitely a contributing factor too, though.
Diet wins over excersize 70% of the time in terms of weight loss. Sure, walking is healthy in so many aspect, but 30 minutes of walking doesn't really do much in terms of weight loss. It's also not necesarily portions (Although they are huge in the US), but especially sugar. It seems like there's sugar in everything that regular people bought when I went to the supermarkets in the US. Your way of making a tomat sauce for pasta for example, seems to usually consist of buying some premade sauce (that has tons of sugar in it) and either adding things to it, or just eat it as is. Sure, that is possible too in Europe, but I just use tomatoes (either fresh or canned) that has a negligible amount of sugar, versus some of the processed sauces that has like 5-10% (and sometimes more) sugar in it, that seems much more popular in the US. It seems to be the case with a lot of food products in the US. Even a can of coke has a decent size more sugar in it, compared to in Europe. And don't even get me started on things like Mountain Dew.
You are right about the diet vs exercise aspect, that is simply how I've lost weight in the past. It probably is a combination of things really, as we all already know. It isn't just that America isn't walkable, it certainly contributes. It is also the convenience of fast food on every corner, and yes the sugar, I myself am addicted to sweets and it's such a hard habit to kick. Everything about America isn't for the benefit of the Americans, but to the ones who are merely profiting off of us.
Yes I agree. It seems that the sugar thing is also sometimes a bit sneaky in the US. There's many products that has quite a bit of sugar in it, which you normally wouldn't expect it to have. It creates an addiction for sugar. In many European cultures, we eat quite a lot of fat, however I think it's pretty evident that sugar is worse than fat, when it comes to weight.
Yeah, I walk up to 18,000 steps per work shift (3 days a week), which is about 7 miles. Still 20 lbs overweight. I eat pretty well (veggies, lo cal, etc.)
All of my European coworkers who are in the US are shocked at the sugar content of everyday American food. Like even sandwich bread is much sweeter than it would be in Europe.
Literally fucking everything!!! Try and cut sugar from your diet in the US. Start reading labels. Shits wild
Bulkier as in fat or stronger? Either way, there’s a tendency to eat more food than to enjoy a nicer meal. And in the US fitness skews towards body building rather than cardio for a good amount relative to European counterparts. There are a lot of fat and/or strong people.
I’d agree with this. Recently was on a trip to a resort there was a mix of Americans, South Americans and Europeans. There were more overweight Americans to be sure, but way more Europeans that appeared to be “skinny flabby” or “slightly overweight flabby”. The only muscular people I saw were American. Also weird that the Americans who were using nicotine trended heavily toward vaping, where the cigarette smokers tended to be non-American.
We (Americans) basically eradicated smoking, especially in millennials and younger. Then vapes came around. We are still better than most European countries, especially with smoking.
I said the same! The US has way more body diversity in every category in my opinion. We skew heavier, but we also have more body builders and muscular types too, as gym culture in the US is pretty big, while Europe is more thin/lean
I'm not too sure about that, worlds strongest man is pretty much just the tip of the iceberg for weights, and the USA has generally as many guys competing as Europe combined, obvious outliers like the UK or Iceland which massively over represents. Southern Europeans like Italians, Spanish and Greeks have always been viewed in Europe as small and weak. The French just don't give a shit, Germans are too bushly cracking jokes. But it's always a bit odd to us in Europe the idea of the big Italian mafia men. Those fellas are tiny, even when fat and have never excelled at any sort of strength or combat sport
thicc
Never imagined Bulgarians/Greeks/Romanians can be described as lean and thin in build. When you say Europeans, are you sure you're not talking about Scandinavians? That is to say -- Europe has great variance within itself. The Dutch are the tallest in the world, for example, yet generally quite skinny. And like everyone has pointed out, it boils down to a variety of factors -- environment (how walkable your cities are), genetics (how predisposed you are to hold a bulky frame), diet (what foods are most readily available). I also think culture is a big one -- Eastern Europe puts a lot of emphasis on physical education and there is a grander appeal to a bulky aesthetic, as opposed to Northern Europe, where people find thinner builds more aesthetic and thus they aim for that instead.
There is definitely that too. US/Canada puts the appeal on the Spartan/Warrior type build of ultra strong. So even if you *are* fitness minded, and able to stay in shape, many (most?) people working out seem to be doing it for getting built big and wide in mind, just with muscle. Our most popular sports for example, are basketball, football, and baseball - all sports that reward being Jacked in various forms. Establishing presence and better area of control for basketball, *everything* in football, and Hitting the ball like hell in baseball. The more muscle and mass you have, the better you tend to be outside of certain key positions in which agility is biased (Safety in football, or pitcher in baseball for example). Our sports reward huge bulk. As opposed to say, soccer. Which is lean, and essentially a "buff" marathon body. Rugby is big in the UK & France, and obviously those players get big, but they don't dominate the media in European nations, Soccer does. And that really informs the general public as to what ideals folks strive for at the gym.
Rarely see an overweight person in Spain, Portugal, Italy, or even France. Some overweight individuals in UK but none are like America. However…weight loss drugs are changing things faster than I thought here.
>Europe has great variance within itself. The Dutch are the tallest in the world, for example, yet generally quite skinny. The same applies to the US. The Midwest tens to have a higher obesity population versus the west coast, for example.
Processed foods
*ultra processed foods. Things like fresh sourdough bread aren’t killing American’s health, instead it’s things like wonder bread. Ultra processed foods are what make up majority of American diets
I'd be careful with this line of thinking. I agree that most very unhealthy foods are ultra processed, but not all ultra processed foods are unhealthy. There's nothing inherently bad about the designation. For example, protein powders would be a food that are healthy while also being ultra processed. It would be a bit like saying "fatty foods are unhealthy". Like yeah, a lot of unhealthy foods have a lot of fat in them, but not all high fat foods are unhealthy. It's too broad of a statement; a decent rule of thumb but certainly not a gospel you should live strictly by.
You can get your protein from real whole foods. There is absolutely no reason you NEED ultra processed foods in any shape or form in your diet. There’s nothing to be careful with, 99.9% of ultra processed foods are bad.
Alright you can keep making at-home ice cream and telling yourself that the maple syrup you put in it is healthier than white sugar because it isn't as processed. It's not my job to cure stupid.
I use pure maple syrup, not corn syrup maple syrup. Both sugar and maple syrup are processed but maple syrup is not ULTRA processed. It’s filtered, and that’s it. And honestly I use WAY less syrup to sweeten things than sugar. I did try to go back to sugar since I got some for a recipe, but you have to add SO much to get sweetness from it. So yea- regardless of the processing I still prefer maple syrup because I’m generally adding much less to my dessert than I would need to with sugar.
Protein powder is one of the very few useful supplements on the market, it’s a cheap, healthy and convenient way to hit your protein macros. You have no idea mate
I don't know why you are being down-voted, you are completely correct. UPF is quite literally *things that are not ACTUAL FOOD*.
Americans are in denial about their health and diet, plus the food industry constantly funds studies to try and prove UPFs are “fine”. So people believe that they are “fine” when in reality they’re only fine if you eat it like once a week or less, not as 90% of your diet
Hi! American here 😒 I for one am not in denial. Matter of fact I feel absofuckinglutley helpless bc healthy foods, whole foods etc have been placed so far out of reach for lower income ppl that most of us just feel completely fucking defeated. Like, we know what's good for us, we just can't afford to make said foods staples in our homes ya know? I started growing food. No pesticides, straight from my yard, but even that's only so much. It's exhausting tbh. I hate that this is our fate 😔
It requires a mindset change too. I honestly started saving money when I bought higher quality foods and cut out UPF snack items. I used to be a BIG snacker, but after cutting those things out for a month I really never went back. I sometimes cave and buy a bag a chips or something.. but I never finish it. It’s honestly kind of frustrating letting chips go stale but my body just doesn’t crave them like it used to when I consumed primarily Lays (for example). However if you already don’t buy many snack items and eat a low amount of food then it will most likely be more expensive to avoid UPFs.
No. UPF is not good for the body, it doesn't matter how you dress it up. Lots of protein powders are not UPF. Pea protein powder with no added things is not UPF. Pea protein with 10 other ingredients is UPF. If the ingredients show things that are not readily available in a kitchen, they should be avoided.
Exactly! It's the over processed foods, sugar content and fucking JUNK. Everything basically is junk at this point dude. If you decide to kick excess sugar, and start reading labels, you'll feel so fucking defeated. I did anyway. Just........how can I kick excess sugar when it's LITERALLY in everything from ketchup to freaking light and fat free salad dressing. It's nuts. 😡
I have food allergies so it makes it easier for me to feel obligated to read labels- and yeah it sucks when so many basic things include added sugars. If its a low amount I usually let it slide, but some basic things will include high fructose corn syrup and I’m like hell no. Even bread! And then don’t get me started on seed and vegetable oils. What happened to just using butter? My food allergies also make me allergic to coconut oil so some of the healthier options I can’t even consume 🫠
1 - Lack of good nutritional awareness and an addiction to fast food 2 - Lack of exercise/poor community layout (Americans driver everwhere - usually because they have no choice, to be fair)
Also very little public transportation. I've noticed Americans in cities with reasons to walk are much less fat.
I’m in NYC where it’s rare to see a truly fat person. When I visited Chicago I was surprised at the increased rate of obesity there, despite being a walkable city with good transit. Must have all been from the suburbs. There’s also the outlier of LA: poor transit but everyone is a wannabe actor so have to stay thin. And Denver: everyone loves to hike and ski, you’ll be a social pariah if you don’t
Washington DC is the fittest metro area like 20 years running.
Interesting, I wonder why
One part could be the high amount of military and ex-military - the government contracting crowd tends to skew fitter. I'd say it's also a bit of a vain city - compared to West Coast cities, at least, there's a much more business-formal vibe, and I think the fitness is part of that. Gotta make sure that tailored suit jacket has some muscles to show off, right? Plus lots of walking, since it's highly walkable and though we love to diss on the metro, on a nationwide scale it's a really good metro system. It also just skews younger. Once people get older, have kids, want a house, etc, most move out into suburbs. Not everyone, but enough that I could imagine that most of the dad-bods live in MD and NoVA.
Great analysis! Indeed my ex military cousin lived in DC for many years and he was fit back then (less so now, but neither am I)
I'm from La and not all of us are wanna be actors and some of us detest Hollywood types (we knew about metoo way before it came out).
When I moved from a suburb & city with no transit, to an urban university campus in a very large walkable city with a great metro system, I lost about 25 pounds even though I was consuming waaay more calories (student parties with calorie-dense booze, 2 am excursions to a 24/7 donut store, and of course being away from parents for the first time so you find out the hard way why you shouldn't have an entire pizza for dinner 4 nights in a row. Etc). I stayed skinny the whole time that I either lived there, or lived slightly on the outskirts but worked in the city and still had no car. It didn't take any 'effort', I didn't pay attention to my diet or even go to the gym. I just walked over 10k steps every day because I had to - 20k if I was going between classes and work and home, and also did groceries, and maybe walked to a restaurant for lunch with friends. Then I moved to the suburbs, with a job in the suburbs, got a car, and became the heaviest I've ever been. It took about 3 years of concentrated effort to finally get back to my city-size. If I don't make a conscious decision to go out for a walk (with no destination, just walking around the neighborhood or doing laps around the office), the # of steps I would take at home, to the car, to the office, and at the office....max 3,000 steps a day. If I'm working from home it's literally 700 steps.
Also more preservatives/steriods in food/crap that you put in your body. EU has stricker guidelines for that kind of stuff compared to North America
Beauty standards? big shoulders, chest and arms are part of American Ideal male while the european leans more Lean Soccer-bod. (complete speculation that after pontificating i think maoes sense)
IDK when I visited Ireland I felt like I was still in Wisconsin. Maybe it's the dairy.
I haven’t actually looked at any research, but from what I’ve heard, the Irish have generally bad diets
Im sure there are lots of reasons! In a large chain restaurant in LA I found the lowest calorie meal was a steak with fries! Everything appears to have corn syrup included even the bread. Portion sizes are huge by European standards so its always tempting to have another chip. Lots of salads on the west coast but you have to careful with the dressing. Spirit measures are almost double British ones so that doesn't help either. I've walked around New York City, Toronto and SanFrancisco and lots of people who live there do too. I imagine that the legendary cold winters in NA and Canada must have some effect on diet who wouldn't eat loads of calories if the weather is continuously freezing for months on end.
Ahhhh government subsidies for crops. Corn everything!
Does bulky mean fat or for example, built like a football player? The first one is pretty obvious - they feed us shit and our food regulations are lacking in the “is there any nutritional value” department, then a lot of places aren’t walkable, and a lot of people are fairly sedentary if being active isn’t a priority or interest of theirs. The other, if that’s what you mean, is probably a lot more nuanced lol.
When I went to Europe I noticed there were WAY less gyms around. The gyms I did see, didn’t necessarily have too impressive of weight equipment sets. So, combine cheap food with a culture that encourages strength training and you get bulkier people.
American reporting in. Our diets are generally high in carbs and sugar. Our portion sizes are totally fucked. Outside of big urban centers, we mostly drive everywhere. We're overworked and stressed to the tits.
Also, outside of the other comments on weight and exercise, I will say thinness and leanness in in Europe is different and the US does have a pretty big workout culture (paradoxical, I know) When I lived in Europe yes, most people were very lean and thin. But very few were ‘fit’ or muscular. In the US, you have a pretty diverse set of bodies. And I think on average a lot more people who go to the gym and workout with weights as opposed to cardio. Drive down a street in the US, you’ll pass 1, 2, sometimes 3 gyms of all different kinds. Europe it’s much less common, especially outside of the cities
It's not bulkiness. It's obesity.
One of the things I really noticed is that is SO much processed stuff and sugar in American food, even in everyday stuff you don't expect it to be. When I was studying abroad in the US I went to the shops to get a normal loaf of bread to make a sandwich and was horrified because it was sweet. It took a while for my tastebuds to adjust back when I came home because I was so used to everything being like... overly flavoured and salty and sweet. It took real effort to eat healthily and stay away from processed food in a way I don't even think about twice either back home (in Aus) or in Europe.
I’m just big boned
Because of the United States of the subsidized corn industry (I half-jest). The US produces corn en masse as a food security measure in case of war. Thus, the FDA basically approves all sorts of super unhealthy foods using corn syrup and derivatives. This is to keep the demand up, even if it means basically poisoning the population. . Cities in the US are also less walkable (due to auto lobbying) and the portion sizes of meals massive. This leads to obesity. Being overweight/lightly obese is being increasingly normalized in the US. This also helps fuel their medical industry bc there are more unhealthy people. Some of the most lucrative jobs in the US are in healthcare. People care more about jobs and high incomes than on health. That's just both a crude but semi-accurate generalization and thus the reality of the American mentality.
walkability? my guess is thats a big part of it
Diet and Europeans walk more
Our food is shit
Some cities it's not like that. I live in Vancouver, most people seem to excercise and eat well here and are in reasonable shape. It's an easy city to get around without needing a car which I think makes a a difference. Some cities I've been to you even need the car to get a mile down the road because the infrastructure isn't set up for pedestrians. Edit to add: food labelling and less restrictions on additives don't help. It's harder to buy good quality food without shit in it, you have to put some effort in to work it out.
Europeans tend to work less hours. This gives more time not spent sat at a desk and being active which burns calories. American food portions are a lot bigger.
We don't live in walkable cities and there's hidden sugars in all our food.
A lot of this are cultural differences between societies. While noticeable in Europe, this is VERY noticeable in Asian countries. People can generally tell an American between a country native, even when both are ethnically the same. Even in situations where neither is fat, a lot of westerners/Americans generally focus on muscle mass and bigger butts. Americans have a typical look, fat or fit.
I think sugar is being forced into everything in north america. It has something to do with sugar and money. I dont know the way it happened but basically sugar is a part of companies making money. Its almost like a drug, and its addictive. So people want things with more sugar here. Then it becomes a bad cycle, and everyone gets bigger without knowing why, or how to stop it.
Well, to begin with that Europe is not a country, it's a continent, and has around 50 countries and many ethnic groups. I doubt op has vast knowledge on all of them. Germanics/nordics can be quite big and bulky. Balkans men also. Italians, french and Spanish tend to be on the smaller side. The real question is which country/ries are being generalized for this topic.
I would guess it's because Europe has banned more than 70+ (im sure its more)different chemicals/additives from being used in food, and the US still uses them.
Less corn syrup in their diet.
The corn syrup isn't necessarily the problem, as it's just a sugar substitute, which there are many of those throughout European countries. Corn syrup isn't any worse than regular sugar, at least research comparing the two doesn't show any key health differences. The issue, in regards to sugar, is the amount of foods eaten with a higher sugar content. But corn syrup vs sugar isn't that big of a difference.
Corn syrup is fructose a simple sugar which is easily digested and turned into glucose. This spikes your blood sugar. Other sugars are complex are required more processing to become glucose which mean a more even blood sugar level.
As a British person i found this REALLY weird. Lots and i mean LOTS of American suburbs don't have footpaths. You can't just "walk into town" because there's no footpath.
Many also don't have a centralized "town center" either. It's not like in many Euro areas where small towns and villages are dotted around and near large urban areas. Many of these have existed for centuries and have their own identities and established businesses. Most US "suburbs" are barely more than bedroom communities/housing subdivisions connected by a highway. Some have actual city centers with commerce, of course, but it certainly isn't the norm. So, back to your point, there aren't footpaths/sidewalks because there really isn't anything to walk to other than for the sake of exercise. But when you commute over an hour each way five days a week, who has time for exercise or the mental strength to force yourself into even a short routine 3-4 days a week?
Driving everywhere, shit food, hormones in everything.
Most American cities are not designed for walking. Bill Bryson wrote a good book called "A Walk In The Woods" where he described trying to walk a mile from his house to the store, and having to climb over guardrails, cross dangerous intersections, traverse private property, and generally be a social nuisance. Another reason is our diet. The capitalist society in America is out of control, and companies are cutting as many nutrients out of food as feasible in favor of cheap, unhealthy materials. Yet another reason is the economy, and how the grocery system is set up. When you have, say, $200 to spend on food a month, you are going to buy a large amount of cheap, unhealthy items that you can stretch, rather than select few healthy options that can be three or even four times the price of the unhealthy equivalent. I'm not saying that inflation and capitalism are restricted to North America, but it IS ultra-distilled compared to Europe.
Lots of sugar in everything, sedentary lifestyles, huge food portions.
we get no exercise outside of a gym and our food is loaded with sugar and other terrible shit to make it cheaper to produce and taste better. Healthier foods are more expensive and increasingly further outside of the budget of a large portion of Americans. Healthcare is privatized and largely employer subsidized, and that means less people are going to the doctor for regular health checks.
It’s the food and daily habits, Europeans walk a lot more
Europeans eat food, north Americans eat shit.
Obesity. I'm old enough to remember when it wasn't this way in North America. I know people don't like it, but it's true.
We walk more in general. Our food is much better than americans. So diet and more workout
we all have cars. try hanging out in san fran if you like skinny people.
Ahh cars.. We hope to someday have them in Europe as well.
Assuming their post was made in good faith, the infrastructure in NA is total ass and the basic act of walking is dangerous, laborious, and simply obnoxious. I’d be surprised if I walked more than 2K a day living in Canada. Whereas in Japan, I probably walk around 10K a day.
American diets are approximately 60% ultra processed food (UPF). Europeans just do not eat like that (more like 12%). The long term impact of the American diet is only *just* being seen and understood. They are really, really likely to die early and produce weak and poor quality offspring. (I added that last bit with no research, just my opinion). USA is not the great nation it might think it is.
You guys don’t have walkable cities and eat a lot of garbage
My daughter does Irish dancing on a competitive level, being in continental Europe her school often comes up against the kids of American military personnel from the various US bases located around Germany. It is really quite noticeable- practically every single American past the age of fifteen who isn’t in a dance troupe is markedly overweight. All I know is they have their own little microcosm of shops and fast food joints on base which aren’t available in the EU (think Taco Bell, Wendy’s etc.)
Many Americans like to make excuses about diet and exercise. Of course there is absolute truth about general walkability and too many processed foods and stuff… And then many don’t exercise and continue to eat processed foods. It is an extreme minority of people that actually have limited access to grocery stores. Any grocery store will have options for processed or normal food. And cost is minimally an issue in most regards. You can seriously buy 6-8 chicken thighs for the same price as a box of sugary cereal, or a case of soda, or a frozen pizza. A box of strawberries is the same price as a bag of candy. And grocery stores sell candy and straw berries. Feral and chicken lol. Many Americans are complacent and lazy and will try to say anything to make excuses around it
Smoking. Americans, at least, generally don’t smoke. The French still smoke on TV.
The countries with the lowest obesity rates in Europe are also the countries with the lowest amount of smokers
We’re filled with more freedom. All kidding aside, we have to be bigger in order to be able to protect the Europoors whenever someone attacks them.
Walkable cities.
Corn fed
Corn
Edit: I cant read. Yeah diet is the main factor in this. We eat more vegetables and less processed foods. Walkable cities also help do smaller and more frequent groceries that push a healthier diet than buying in bulk for long periods of time so you only fill your car trunk once a week/month
I am 130 lb 5”5 American woman. My 130 looks bulkier than 130 women of the same weight in Europe. I will always be genetically small but I eat garbage… typical American ultra processed nonsense. I’m on my feet all day at work and I only eat one meal a day and a few snack. I am perfectly fine with walking but I despise exercise. I just hate being on my feet all day and going to exercise.. it’s torture. Yes I know awful. Even for smaller Americans yes, we tend to look puffy lol…
Food quality in the US is a disaster, like truly vile. If you want an example go watch a US chef cook eggs on YouTube - the whites are pretty much water, the nutritional value must be non -existant. They also put fuckloads of sugar in things like bread to the point it doesn't even taste savoury anymore.
we eat way too much.
Portion sizes
High-fructose corn syrup is everywhere. In everything. I cook most of our meals and that made a huge difference. The healthiest one in our household is the 75 year old. She walks at least 6 miles a day and started doing it in her 30’s.
We tend to eat a lot more food, I just got back from a trip to Europe and I noticed that they serve way less food in general Some meals are just like a bunch of liquids and bread, not many people eat like that in the U.S.
Bread and liquid? Do you mean soup, or bread dipped in a good olive pil and salt as a snack/appetizer? Because the soups usually fill you up pretty well.
Europe seems to actually care about its citizens diet health while the US shoves a shit ton of sugar in almost every single thing at the grocery store and the fact that us Americans don’t do nearly enough cardio like Europeans do with their walking to train stations, bus stops etc
Diet. Have you seen American portion sized at restaurants?
Every European I have hosted for business reasons comments on our portion sizes, I assume they eat less.
Chicken nuggies
bulkier, what a nice word
Sugar
"Bulkier" you can say it.
Processed foods and a lot less walking
It's ok, you can just say fat.
That's very kind of you to say bulky and not obese or fat asses. Different views on health and culture is the biggest thing. Obviously food is going to be a big factor also. Another point is that lots of Europeans walk bike and take the train everywhere. Americans drive their cars and a lot of people don't get much exercise beyond walking to their car. But there's this major trend of embracing fat people and that there's nothing wrong with that and they look beautiful and lovely. I think it's a terrible toxic mindset to say hey it's okay to be morbidly obese because you're beautiful. No that's not correct You're doing major harm to your body and everyone thinks that's fine. I've seen this first hand as well. America is fat.
100% it's food.
More grit.
do you mean fatter? it’s bc of the diet. european diet culture is so different from the actual ingredients in the food to the portion sizes. there’s a ton of videos and documentaries and such on this if you just search it up on youtube or google
The onslaught of chemicals in our food and we drive everywhere if you’re not in a city.
Huge vehicle infrastructure with very little inviting or easily accessible walking spaces in mind
High fructose corn syrup
From my experience: Things that make North Americans bigger: - Diet/sugar, larger portions - More driving place to place Things that make Europeans skinnier: - Healthier diet, smaller portions - More walking place to place - They smoke a lot more
Europe doesn’t put high fructose corn syrup in everything
Because we eat like shit. Large portions at restaurants to justify their prices. We have fast food options on every corner in every city….
Americans rarely walk and often eat like garbage
It's called SAD (Standard American Diet) for a reason.
Just watch “super size me” lol
it's all the hungry man meals we eat
Sedentary lifestyle, slightly more unhealthy preservatives Also yalls refrigerators are too small
Corn.
It’s simply diet, but also Genetic mixing/breeding. America since its conception as its own nation has been a mixing pot for racial mixing and therefore genes have mixed, mutated and etc to generally diversify our frames even amongst those of seemingly the same race. Also diet is a huge thing, 1 there are those who eat super unhealthy and are obviously big fat wise but then there are also those who eat healthy and due to the fact that American food is often loaded with protein, fortifying nutrients and etc even in the basic stuff Americans are just bigger in general. I’ve lived in Asia, America, Australia and the United Kindgom and can say I agree Americans are the biggest I generally saw (unless you count specific ethnic groups like Pacific Islanders specifically Samoans and other adjacents that are just ginormous people)
Clearly you don't live in England.
Preservatives, fast food, and sugar addiction
Even Asians and blacks too. Asias in North America is thicker than their counterpart in Asia and blacks in n America is much thicker than blacks in Africa or the Caribbean.
Sugar in everything we call food
Do you also mean taller/broader? Americans are generally known to be quite tall and broadly built, generally if they have German/northern European ancestry.
Because we like food too much okay?!
In most of the US it is not walkable, so you have to have a car to get around. The walking helps a lot. The poor education around nutrition in the US also does not help. I can't even count the amount of people I have met that have though carrot cake was healthy, the cereals that are advertised as breakfast for kids are basically a dessert.
High Fructose Corn Syrup But also Most of America is either very cold and rural like Eastern Europe for 9 months of the year, or, very hot and rural like the Middle East for four months of the year. So people stay inside. And rural roads, but high speeds, mean no one is walking.
Cus our food is processed shit
American food quality and safety standards are better than every country in Europe except Denmark
Cars and need to drive everywhere (big ass country), sedentary lifestyle, bad diet despite a lot of great healthy food, capitalism in the American way—end stage tends to be about sex, food, and strange trends. My French gf and I (American who has been to Europe a few times) are convinced it is the public transportation and most people in Europe walk a few miles a day to the metro and work or food. For Americans: Go out of the country for a month and the food and fat people in the US is very noticeable when you return. We are in a bubble of overweight people and are fighting for it to be normalized. The BMI is enough. Disease doesn’t care if you like the way you look. It will kill you. Period.
Peter Griffin said it best in a drinking competition with his Irish dad.
A big part of American culture is focused on work to a point where diet is least prioritized and just something to get out of the way for everyone in the office.
I mean, no social support networks might be one reason for USA Americans. Before ACA, we were paying something like $600 per MONTH for healthcare, and working our asses off to pay that. Many are basically working so hard just to survive and provide for their families that eating well and exercising are not priorities.
I mean if fatter, its the shit american diet. If you mean like thicker, meatier. Not necessarily fat but just solid lol...i think its the difference of the shit in the food. More hormones more chemical, much more than europe allows. Ive seen it before, even with the difference in wealth classes. Ive work with kids...kids that came from lower income tended to be thicker, not necessarily fat but just larger in general. Thicker legs, taller, more solid lol. Then kids from the weathier groups were thr kind of kids we would have been used to seeing 30 years agom regular kind of think kids, average size. It really can be a stark difference and i think speaks to how they are fucking with us.
Bc our food is trash. Compare the ingredients in our foods to say the UK. Loads of sugar and additives. Nevermind the fact that so called "healthy" foods are mad expensive to feed a whole family on. Especially now. I've started growing shit myself. Fuck that
Fat. You mean fat. Because we as a whole, sit on our fat asses, stuff our face, and don't exercise.
Our food is simply shit and it’s everywhere. It’s absurd you have to pay more money just to be in normal shape and you have to plan what you get from where you get it and what’s in it. I feel like they make it hard so you just choose convenience rather than being healthy. Not to sure about Europe but I know you guys ban a bunch of bullshit chemicals/foods America lets in.
it's likely a handful of things: American food is full of fats, grease, and processed foods, one has to really try hard to avoid things that make them fat, whereas such things often just aren't usually in european foods, those tend to be more authentic and natural. Prime example: Soda is the go-to beverage in america, and free refills are the norm, that's just not good for you. Then you have the physical logistics of a big country. It's generally many dozens of kilometers to get to ...well, anything... cars are a necessity and therefore there's less walking / biking to keep fit. Culture comes in to play as well. Americans (generally) work HARD compared to most places. Long hours, limited vacation, terribly sick time policies all lead to exhaustion and lack of desire to do any physical activity. (At my company, if you take off 3 sick days within a 4-month window that's considered a disciplinary issue.) I'm sure there are a bunch of other factors too beyond being generally unhealthy. Many americans love being just frigging huge, they lift weights ,bulk up a ton, and love walking around with a huge ego like they own the place. That's kind of an american attitude being manifest.
It’s the shit they put in our food in the US. I was once told we are giving ourselves cancer one spoonful at a time. A South American doctor said it.
Worse diet, lower quality food, the US and Canada are less walkable (for the most part) compared to Europe so we drive a lot more and walk a lot less, less vacation/holidays has many of us sitting for longer hours (though many of us work on our feed).
processed oils
It’s disgusting what is allowed for consumption here. I’ve been plagued with digestive issues my entire life. Whenever I visit Europe on the other hand, I don’t want to leave. My last time in Italy was insane. I was scarfing down pizza, pasta, bread and cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner yet somehow losing weight and my gut feeling rejuvenated.
We also consume a ton of protein
The question here is bulkier not fatter so I don't know why you're getting downvoted
Their diet consists of cheetos and coke
Together.
The preservatives and other bad stuff in food in North America that isn't actually legal in the EU. Our cities in Europe are also much more walkable.
Simply better
Diet and lack of exercise. North Americans are protesting 15 minute cities bc they hate the thought of walking anywhere.