Yes, let us come to a conclusion by comparing the obesity of one nation to the abundance of delicious food establishments of another.
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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In what is likely a touristy or well traveled section. Sometimes the difference includes how we do our transportation too, like more walking/biking. Maybe a difference in how often we rely on said restaurants too.
carne et lacte vivant
from caesar's report about the brits: they live off meat and milk
We (Europeans) are just more active, including walking / cycling to work every day. Try it and see the difference.
i think it's not just "activity". lots of people in the US go to the gym a lot.
but what we have here in europe is integrating movements into everyday life. Like, when i drive anywhere in the city, it typically involves a 10 minute walk (to/from the subway/tram station). And i believe that does much more than going to the gym for 1 hour once a week. Because you stay moving daily, your body stays "awake" daily, instead of just waking up once a week and then falling back into slumber.
Carbs are much worse than fat. So drinking dozens of grams of sugar every day and putting sugar in every food is worse than eating fatty food.
Britain is projected to be the fattest country in Europe. So don’t think all those chippies and pub food aren’t taking a toll.
I lost weight after two weeks in Paris eating like a hedonist king because of all the walking.
Brits are fat too, they just don't have as many obese people as the States.
They walk more. That's it. That's the secret.
We compensate with gym time, you can't outrun a cheeseburger
Fast Food!
You can't outrun your diet.
calories in, calories out. Use more than you eat and weight goes down. Eat more than you use and weight goes up. It's an oversimplification, but it's not wrong.
It's very wrong, if only for the simple reason that not all calories are the same. Eating 1000 calories worth of protein will not have the effect as eating 1000 calories of HFCS.
Please stop parroting this piece of reductionist misinformation that is used to sell us ultra-processed foods.
It's not that simple, if you are healthier with regular exercise your hunger is also better regulated and your diet will be better.
To me, no one really needs to be told that being fit and healthy is better than not being fit and healthy. It's more that, as a society, we've been convinced over eating can be repaid with excersise, to sort of balance it out (an idea pushed by food lobby groups). I'm not saying that you disagree with any of that.
We evolved as persistence hunters. Being able to run off our winter fat reserves would've made us poor persistence hunters and we would've died out.
Portion sizes are a factor too!
I dont feel like they are. Traveling France and Italy a couple years back, I found myself not finishing meals much more regularly that I do in the states, Even though I was eating a bit more because I was walking 5+ miles a day.
Maybe i was in part over ordering due to language, or menu expectations. Maybe some of thw places I was in were touristy and over doing it to match 'american portions'
But for instance, i got breakfast that was 'oefs en cocotte de compagne' at a café a couple blocks from the louvre, far enough to not be in the tourist trap surrounding area anymore.
It was massive- 4 shired eggs with a generous amount of mushrooms and gruyere, served with 4 pieces of toast. And I confirmed with the waiter that that was not a shared portion....
Nobody has ever had this kind of breakfast in France. Normal breakfast here is coffee and maybe the last of yesterday's baguette.
Jesus, I top out at half that and I'm an absolute lardass, les that I used to be but still
France doesn't really do restaurant breakfast, that dish is a main. Breakfast is coffee and a croissant if you're having it outside the house, otherwise it's brunch.
Yeah, I mean brunch checks out. It was like 11:00 it was still a huge serving of a verrry rich dish though.
I can do my weekly shopping without having to get in the car. Because in Europe everything's all mixed together rather than zoned into miles of endless residential, that you have to drive for 25 minutes in order to leave to get to the big shopping mall was it's one million car parking spaces.
i walk 10 minutes (1.0 km) to the second-nearest grocery store (because that has cheaper and better-quality food) and i'm already living pretty far out on the city borders.
And also didn't replace all the fat in their food with sugar processed from corn.
Fat doesn't turn into fat when you eat it - it turns into sugars, which then turn into fat. Eating sugar just takes one step out of the process and makes your body work less (and therefore burn less calories) turning it into fat.
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