One thing I noticed up there is that there wasn’t much nightlife in the more rural areas except bars and that even in Halifax things closed a lot earlier–no Dunkin’ Donuts, no gas station food shops, no Starbucks or Tim’s, fewer convenience stores open, etc., past ten o’clock or so. You really have to plan your shopping and can’t be impulsive at all; no running out for ice cream at midnight, no late-night pizza, no Chinese food delivery…
I think in America we have a situation that is directly opposite to the situation we saw for centuries. It used to be the obese were almost wholly the wealthy. Food expense was such a huge portion of your family budget the commoners did not have the ability to become obese and still maintain a household.
Now in America I think poverty directly correlates to obesity. I believe the two most obese states in the U.S. are West Virginia and Mississippi, and they are also the two poorest (there is a running joke in West Virginia, “thank god for Mississippi” since in many “bad” stats MS is the only thing keeping WV from being 50th, although MS and WV trade off a lot.)
In America it is more expensive to eat healthy. I’m an incredibly healthy person, I hardly eat any processed foods, I only eat fresh fruit and if I’m in a situation where I must use canned fruit I make sure it is 100% natural (fruit in it’s own juice, with ingredients no more complex than the fruit, and the fruit juice, no refined sugar at all.) I eat lots of chicken and such as well. “Real” bread instead of processed bread. Bottled water, “real” fruit juice et cetera.
And everytime I go grocery shopping at the super market I never fail to realize that I pay $9 for a pack of chicken while if I bought an equal amount (in lbs.) of a chicken product that was way higher in saturated fat it’d be probably $4 cheaper. And typically the cheaper product is also easier to prepare than boneless skinless chicken breast (which you actually have to cook, not just heat up.)
Fresh fruit is way more expensive than canned (most canned fruit has refined sugar in the disgusting syrup) fruit juice that is more sugar water than real juice is way cheaper than a product like Simply Orange that uses real oranges to make real juice.
So for the average low income shopper they see the following things that predispose them to “bad” food: lower price, easier to prepare, and objectively a lot of it tastes better. I think we can all also agree that unfortunately with poverty comes a general lower level of education and thus a decreased understanding of what is “healthy” food.
So I think it makes sense given the food markets in America that the poor tend to be obese. The wealthy are more inclined to worry about personal appearance I think, more likely to be informed about the correct things to eat, more likely to be able to afford the time and money that is involved with obtaining and preparing said food.
Now compare America to most othe Western states. America is up at the top when it comes to GDP per capita. But we’re also pretty high among Western states when it comes to percentage of the population living under the poverty line. For example America’s GDP per capita is a good chunk higher than Canada’s but Canada also has a lower poverty percentage.
So in summation we have more people living in relative poverty in the United States, and that combined with the way food is processed and sold in America (with a premium on healthy foods both because they are more expensive to store and stock as well as the fact producers know people will pay a premium for healthy food) you have a relatively high amount of obesity.
I think that education people will only do so much. The impoverished people that have grown up with a certain idea as to what you’re supposed to buy at the supermarket will have a hard time turning around life long habits. I think their poverty would have to be “fixed” first as well.
As far as universal healthcare and such goes, I don’t see that as having any impact whatsoever on obesity.
And restaurant portion sizes probably don’t have a lot to do with it either. Most obese people make themselves big portions at home too.
Here are some statistics on income inequality with comparisons between several countries.
Thanks, but it doesn’t really relate. The statement I was referring to suggested that average Americans aren’t doing so hot (presumable compared to Canadians or Europeans). The link you gave took me to stats about how Americans are doing compared to Americans. Also info on how Canadians are doing compared to Canadians. Nothing on average Americans vs. average citizens of other countries.
Everything I’ve read on this, including some recent stats suggests that if you are going to be a poor or middle class person, this is the place to be.
Also, stats on income inequality can be very misleading. America appears to have a big spread because we have so many immigrants who are dirt poor when they get here. But if you look at 10 year mobility, they do great. Very few people stay in the lowest group for long here. In other countries with big governments favoring the insiders, I’m not so sure.
Sorry, I thought you were asking about the spread.
How about the United Nations Human Development Index, which includes standard of living as a metric along with education and life expectancy?
IIRC, you’re from a half-hour away from where I was raised. We had them.
Not too dissimilar from a hot beef sandwich in the southern US, except that you are just as likely to get sliced roast beef as fried ground beef, depending on what restaurant you patronize. They’re not terribly common, though. Generally found as small-town cafe fare.
My thoughts exactly. Not long ago my husband and I went to some fancy Italian restaurant in Philly. Like we always do, we ordered something for starters. When the plates arrived we looked at each other, wondering if they had not delivered the wrong orders. Those things were huge. I ate a bit of it and was even more surprised at the elephantic proportions of the main dish. Neither my husband nor I could finish our food, the waitress seemed worried that maybe we were not pleased with the food. I guess it didn’t ocurred to her that maybe it was just too much.
I also notice that most food commercials put a lot of emphasis on the size of their portions. That’s not something I have seen anywhere else.
I don’t know if those are symptoms or causes… but it’s new to me, an outsider.
Haven’t most of them moved to the US?
Well, when I get back here after being away, it’s usually, “I’d kill for pho. Let’s go to Pho Hung, dear.”.
I’ve only ever lived in Toronto and Ottawa, and the only American cities I’ve visited are Philadelphia, Ames, Waco, Austin, and Little Rock, so my sample is sort of skewed. Nevertheless I’ve been amazed by how unwalkable the U.S. cities I’ve been to are- you need a car to go for coffee! I know that the Toronto suburbs are difficult to travel without a car, but it still seems that Toronto is a lot more geared towards walkers. Ottawa, too, particularly the city core. It’s a lovely city to walk in.
Initially, my thoughts tended toward the attitude about walking, as **Lissla Lissar ** said , but I think **Martin Hyde ** pretty much nailed it dead on. I suspect it’s all tied to the greater proportion of people with low socio-economic status, i.e. poor people, faced with:
-lower cost of fattening food.
-poor access to healthy food / supermarkets closing in inner cities / groceries from 7-11
-more tendancy to eat fast food rather than home cook
-not as much attention to nutrition in schools / less attention paid to what schools say
-lower knowledge of nutrition importance and good practices
-packaged snacks (i.e junk food) being a greater proportion of caloric intake
It would be interesting to see some type of psycho-social research on attitudes about food, nutrition, health and weight comparin the different countries, which are, after all, fairly similar.
Maybe Canadian weight works like the Canadian dollar - its about half the US value.
By the way, I do believe chop suey is an American dish - created from leftover ingredients for other recipies. (Source: one of those History Channel shows, possibly also American Heritage Magazine).
Close, eh? To do the conversion, you double it and add seven.
Chicago is plenty walkable. I didn’t own a car until I was 26 and moved to Bloomington, IN for grad school, and the only times I’ve consistently commuted by car were when I was on crutches after surgery.
In fact, you can get *pho *in about 15 different places within a 10-minute walk of my apartment, and super-cheap fresh produce of about 10 different ethnicities within a mile of here (the closest is Mexican, about 100 feet from my front door, including still-warm corn or flour tortillas). But then walkability and great grocery shopping are a large part of why I chose to live in this neighborhood.
Of course, I’ve never lived anywhere where a car was an absolute necessity to get around, so my perspective is skewed, too.
I don’t know that these are so much American and Canadian differences. We chose were we live, for example, based on the amount of stuff that wasn’t there. Peace and quiet and low numbers of people are essential to our ideals of what constitutes quality of life. While visiting Toronto is nice and walking and using the subway is kind of neat, the idea of actually choosing to live there horrifies me to no end, much as I imagine that living “in the woods” horrifies a city dweller.
I can’t walk to get a coffee in five minutes, but then that’s why Henry Ford created the automobile*.
*I mean this figuratively. I know that Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile.
I just got back from Vancouver and was surprised how many fat people I did notice. Two or three were gigantic, although one of them was at the Vancouver train station and could have been an American on the way back.
In sum I just didn’t see much difference between the two countries, or at least between L.A. and Vancouver.
Huh? Double which and add seven to convert to which? I see today that one Canadian dollar is worth about $.79 USD.
I’m pretty sure Larry Mudd was referring to weight conversion, although he was clearly getting his formula mixed up with the “Gentleman’s Rule”, which is “half your age plus seven”.
I misremembered the rule, anyway. It’s double it and add thirty. (Link is a .wav file.)
Thanks, sorry I was away from this thread for a few days. The link makes the opposite point. If you follow through to the GDP per capita, we come in first.