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How to start a war with a single question.

Fun related "fact": Shakespeare supposedly sounds more period-accurate in a generic American accent than a modern British accent because the British dramatically changed their accent some time after the US split and the American accent has changed less over the centuries.

Facts. One time we were talking about how cool it would be to live really close to a mall as a kid.

Then we realized that our local mall has no pedestrian crossings or even sidewalks, so you'd still have to get adults to drive you even if you were across the street. Or play frogger across several lanes

You've also got to consider that "obesity" is a single threshold. I've been to the US many times and there are WAY more morbidly obese people in the US, and some who are so fucking huge they would definitely turn heads in the EU.

they also eat smaller portions, eat more non-processed food, etc, and have better food in schools and public institutions.

usa culture is the problem. our food culture is entirely different than most of europe.

the average take out meal in the usa is like 1200 calories, which is half your daily calories (or more if you are less than 200lbs) in europe it's like 800.

I once had a conversation with a bariatric surgeon about weight loss. She was convinced that exercise was the key to sustainable weight loss. I disagreed, saying I thought diet was far more important, noting that most americans ate like trash. She seemed a bit offended that I was disagreeing with her, a doctor specializing in weight loss, about this topic. She was more understanding when I told her that I'd lost a lot of weight simply by cutting out soda. Her look then morphed to something akin to confused horror as I told her that, as a child, I had consistently drank an average of 6 cans of soda per day, every day, and I estimated that this was pretty standard for everyone I knew growing up.

Something I noticed when visiting the US. I went to one of their Wendy's to try it out, and ordered a small chicken burger. It was very dry and bland, not really that good, yet I looked up the nutritional info and apparently this small burger alone was over 1200kcals??

I'm fairly sure it was the bun that did that as I doubt they raise some kind of super chicken with an energy density similar to petrol.

Anyway, surprise surprise I ended up with heartburn afterwards.

Edit: people always talk about the percentage of people who are obese in these discussions, but have you noticed just how big obese people can get in the states?

Genuinely, almost every day I was there I caught myself accidentally stopping and staring because I'd just seen someone fatter than I thought humanly possible. Like so big that I couldn't understand how their flesh didn't just tear and fall off their skeleton.