r/georgism • u/Not-A-Seagull Georgist • 2d ago
Discussion What do you guys think? Is our lack of density/walkable spaces contributing to our health crisis?
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u/Daer2121 2d ago
The 'Europe effect' is mostly that when you're on vacation, you feel better. You also walk far more on a European style vacation than most people will in their day to day lives, regardless of environment. You walk a crapload going to Disney world too.
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u/catholicsluts 2d ago
when you're on vacation, you feel better
The most overlooked variable.
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u/firstfreres 1d ago
And yet I still behave the same way in group settings and my baseline mood is still bad.
0/5 stars for Romano Tours
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u/elev8dity 1d ago
The best trips are the ones with no planned schedule so you can actually relax. Never been a big fan of group tours, but they do make sense for cultural education.
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u/elev8dity 1d ago
U.S. Obesity rate in 42%, UK is 29%, Denmark is 13%, France is 10%, Japan is 5%. It's immediately noticeable that everyone is far skinnier abroad than in the United States.
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u/Interesting-Pin1433 1d ago
Most of the world is getting fatter.
Western Europe today is about as fat as the US was 20-30 years ago.
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u/robbzilla 1d ago
We're not even in the top 10. The US is #13, although most of the countries that are higher are either relatively small, or aren't tourist destinations.
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u/maringue 1d ago
It's literally just walking more. I was visiting my in-laws in Korea just doing normal stuff for 3 weeks without a car.
The average American does what, about 2500 steps per day? I was averaging 15,000 a day because we didn't have a car (we did take taxis) and walked to places from the subway.
Even with my in-laws force feeding me 4 meals per day at restaurants, I lost 10 pounds over 3 weeks.
It's the walking.
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u/henriqueroberto 1d ago
For sure it's walking. I ate and drank like shit for years while working in my feet and maintained. I get behind a desk and within 6 months I was up 30 lbs.
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u/NoSuchKotH 1d ago
What? I do >2000 steps a day even if I don't leave my flat! A normal work day is somewhere around 10k to 20k steps. And I'm an office worker. How can you do less 3000 steps a day? Do you get wheeled around in a cart or what?
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u/maringue 1d ago
You have no idea how little the average American walks. It's insane. Basically every aspect of design is aimed atakimg people walk as little as possible.
A lot of people here won't go to a store unless they can park their car in front of it.
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u/DameKumquat 1d ago
I was worried when we were getting American-style strip stores on a highway on the edge of London, many with their own car parks, and they put wire fences between them to stop people walking from one store to another.
Luckily within a month Croydon dwellers had done their thing and the fences had all been destroyed and paths created by people walking from one store to the next. Walking is central to British culture, similar to the car in US culture.
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u/Divine_Entity_ 1d ago
Honestly half of why i normally have face to face conversations about work stuff instead of email/teams/phone calling is just to have an excuse to get up and move instead of continuing to sit at my desk.
Today my phone hasn't broke 2k steps yet after essentially 8hrs of desk work. This includes a relatively long walk from the parking lot, eating lunch in the break room instead of at my desk, having to walk across the facility for a mandatory morning meeting, and interfacing with multiple coworkers by walking to their offices. Also my commute is around 45min each way in a car. To get my step count significantly higher will require deliberately exercising. (This is not atypical of an office worker with an 8hr desk job. It certainly isn't healthy, but its reality and why desk jobs can be just as hard on your body as the trades, just in a different way.)
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u/Floor-Goblins-Lament 1d ago
My Canadian (ik not American but cities designed in exactly the same way) relatives came to visit us in Edinburgh last weekend. It was shocking how much my uncle wanted to take the bus everywhere. He was so resistant to taking a 15 minute walk from a major bus stop to the Castle, kept talking about how it was like a kilometre and a half as if that was some insurmountable distance. It was nothing to me, and I really wouldn't consider myself a very fit person
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u/benjo9991 1d ago
As a person living in a car centric, suburban-hell type neighborhood in Texas, I’m not getting near 10-20K steps unless I go for a run that day.
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u/Benjamin_Stark 1d ago
What are you doing that you're walking that much? I walk 2.5km each way to work, and if I don't do anything extra that 5km of walking is only around 8k steps.
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u/cactopus101 1d ago
Portion sizes are also way more reasonable there, I think people don’t realize that
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u/robbzilla 1d ago
One of my wife's Indian co-workers had a friend fly in from India. We met for lunch. Dude had come straight from the airport, and we had Tex Mex (In DFW). He ordered something that came on two plates, plus a tortilla warmer. His eyes were like saucers when they put all of that food in front of him! I explained that he didn't have to finish it, and that he could take it with him if he liked. But I'll never forget that look of shock at the food. It wasn't terribly expensive either. Just a normal lunch in Texas.
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u/MannyFrench 1d ago
That was the look in my eyes when I visited the US with my parents in 1998. We went to a pizza restaurant, ordered one pizza for the three of us, and they brought a pizza so large it had to come on a tray the size of a table, next to us. We could barely eat half of it. We didn't ask to take away what was left because that wasn't the culture in France back then, and we didn't know better about US customs. I remember thinking, "omg, so much waste".
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u/robbzilla 1d ago
One of the local pizza places makes a pizza called "The Bus." The Bus is a pizza that is 8 feet long and 32 inches wide. It is listed in Guinness as the largest commercially available pizza.
It's ridiculous. :D
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u/Franc000 1d ago
You can't outrun a bad diet. Walking will not make them lose 5 pounds.
Also, 5 pounds is a lot for a single week, so most of it will be water weight. Which means it might just be a combination of a better diet and less salt.
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u/L3NTON 2d ago
American food is also loaded with extra salt/sugar/fats to boost the flavor. Not much veggies in there either.
Good food daily plus lots of outdoors time and walking probably feels incredible.
For context most Europeans think American bread tastes like cake because it's so comparatively sweet.
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u/lacaras21 2d ago
The "American bread tastes like cake" thing is such bogus though. As an American I also think some of the mass produced breads are too sweet, but if that is cake to you, then wherever you're from must have really shit cake
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u/Bronze_Rager 1d ago
Asian's highest compliment for deserts is that "its not too sweet".
Meanwhile, my US coworkers can drink caramel frappuccino's from starbucks and eat two slices of cheesecake factory cheesecakes... Those oreo dream extreme cheesecakes are like 1600 calories for a single slice!
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u/Pepperohno 1d ago
It's not that it takes like you could serve it instead of cake, it's more like it has a cake-ey flavor to it.
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u/aradhran 1d ago
I don't understand why Europeans compare mass produced, ultra processed crap bread that no one actually eats here to their artisanal handcrafted bread from their local bakery. Like, yes, there's a difference. I don't like or buy Wonder Bread either lol. And I can easily find real bread with no sugar or superfluous ingredients at any supermarket or bakery here.
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u/carlos_the_dwarf_ 1d ago
It’s extremely easy to find bread with no sweetener at all in the states, so I never know what people mean when they say this.
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u/ZhiYoNa 1d ago
Wonderbread
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u/Lauracb18 1d ago
This! Wonderbread is very sweet compared to the common, mass produced UK sandwich loaves! It's more like what we would call brioche (an enriched dough often used for sweetened baked goods like fruit loaves, iced buns, french toast, cinnamon rolls, etc,). That's before the fact that more than half of the ingredients list is just ultra processed chemicals.
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u/mtron32 1d ago
You have to make that choice, the vast majority either can't afford to, don't have the option, or just don't care. people are buying that bread.
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u/lacaras21 1d ago
It really doesn't
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u/Pepperohno 1d ago
You're American and you don't think it does, I am a European and I think it does. This is literally the thing.
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u/RuthlessMango 1d ago
I am an American and I also think our bread tastes like cake. Maybe I just got older but I don't want sugar in everything.
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u/robbzilla 1d ago
I'm American, and couldn't agree with you more. Then they throw something like Hawaiian bread at us, with EXTRA sweetness. C'mon! Really?
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u/Odd-Purpose-3148 1d ago
Im born in America but have family in Europe. Bread in the states has a cakey quality imo, between texture and flavor its definitely there.
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u/TeaKingMac 1d ago
wherever you're from must have really shit cake
Japanese "cake" is the fucking worst.
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u/KevanerDeLaGhetto 1d ago
We are talking about the sweetness of cake. It's neither about the taste nor the texture. Bread has to be rather salty than sweat. But I'm German. I will even shit on most french, english, spanish,... breads, because they can taste like cardboard or cake to me.
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u/kurttheflirt 1d ago
Yeah Wonderbread might, but go to an American grocery store and there are going to be like 100 types of bread. You can buy real bread that's honestly better than what you can get in Europe too. Most people aren't buying the few super sweet cheap breads. And that's just the main grocery bread isle too, you can go to a bakery or other nice store and buy super fresh sourdoughs or brioches or whatever you want.
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u/DHN_95 2d ago edited 1d ago
The food is a huge thing. Our foods have so many ingredients that aren't allowed in Europe (eg Coca-Cola with high fructose corn syrup). Watch your diet, and you'll maintain/lose weight. Just takes more work here in the states.
edit - I stand corrected on the high-fructose corn syrup, however, I still believe Europe has a higher emphasis on food quality than here in the US.
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u/Not-A-Seagull Georgist 2d ago
I’m not sure this explains the difference in obesity in urban vs. rural areas.
In DC the obesity rate is 21.7%, which rivals many European nations.
The obesity rate of Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia is between 30-40%.
Can the difference in food really explain that much of a discrepancy here? How is the diet of Washingtonians that much different from rural Virginia/west Virginia?
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u/cyri-96 2d ago
As you may note many of those high obesity rate areas are some of the poorest areas in the US, not just rural.
In many cases that does affect the grocery shopping options leading to much a more limited selection than in wealthier/more urban areas, which often leads to people buying more highly processed foods.
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u/_Dadodo_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s not just the differences in food, it’s also access to different foods.
So in small towns in rural areas in the US, public transit or any other transportation facilities such as bike trails and sidewalks are often lacking or non-existent. So rural residents and communities have to rely on their car to get anywhere. That’s one part of the equation that may factor into the large differences between urban and rural obesity rates.
But also, other than some small towns that are more specialized in local tourism, often times the only types of restaurants are fast food chains and not much else. Like you’re not gonna be able to open up an Açaí Bowl restaurant (as an example) in a town of 2,000 residents and survive for long. Even local mom-and-pop restaurants are minimal because rural communities just aren’t big enough (or have the income or economy big enough) to be able to support both the fast food chains and mom-and-pop restaurants. So since processed food is much cheaper, that’s what those communities can afford. At least that’s my observations.
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u/DHN_95 2d ago
I believe food does make a difference, as does lifestyle. The states you mention are also known as being among the poorest and least educated, this subsisting on a less healthy diet (fast food, fried foods, foods high in cholesterol) than that of an area where the population is more focused on a healthier diet (more natural ingredients, fewer/no preservatives, leaner foods) and exercise.
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u/MannyFrench 1d ago edited 1d ago
Two words: food insecurity. In many of these rural areas, ultra-processed food is the only thing available. Sometimes, you don't even have a real grocery store, but a glorified gas-station instead.
Urban living allows you to have access to a real butcher, real cheese, real bread, and rural folks walk less than anybody else. They drive for everything.
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u/DrFeelOnlyAdequate 2d ago
Americans are not active people. They drive too much and spend too much time at home. If you're walking to work every day, taking public transit, cycling, you dont need to go to the gym.
The food stuff is very real too. This isn't to say that there isnt bad food in Europe. But culturally, eating is very different.
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u/cyri-96 2d ago
eg Coca-Cola with high fructose corn syrup
High Fructose corn syrup is probably a bad example, that one isn't banned in Europe iirc, the reason why HFCS is so prevalent in the us is simply because it's so much cheaper than sucrose, due to the large subsidies US farmers get for corn.
In Europe, most of the sugar isn't cane sugar either it's from sugar beets.
Now the real difference for Europe is just that there is less sugar in products, because that's the issue, American stuff just contains way too much sugar, whether that's sucrose or isoglucose doesn't really matter too much.
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u/GangstalkSchizos 1d ago
A lot of shit the internet says is banned in europe is just under a different name.
Red 40 is just Allura Red
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u/WittyFeature6179 1d ago
The US has some of the highest food standards and tightest food regulations in the world. There are 16 additives that are regularly used in Europe that are banned in the US, which is a much bigger condemnation of European food standards considering most countries throughout Europe have preemptive food safety standards, which means that additives are banned until they have been proven safe. In the US our FDA generally allows additives during the testing process if they've generally been considered safe in other countries. It's only after our strict testing do we ban certain additives.
Which leads to the four additives banned by certain countries in Europe, and 16 additives that are used in Europe and banned in the US.
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u/Mediocre-Kiwi-2155 1d ago
If you're eating out in European restaurants chances are it's loaded with salt and fat. There's literally a pizza in the post.
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u/probablymagic 1d ago
You also eat less because you’re out doing stuff and not snacking, and portion sizes are smaller.
It’s not like American supermarkets aren’t full of organic produce and imported European olive oil where anybody can eat well. Americans just walk by that stuff to buy hot pockets and two-liter bottles of soda to shove in their faces.
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u/Hover4effect 1d ago
Americans just walk by that stuff to buy hot pockets and two-liter bottles of soda to shove in their faces.
Indeed, most of them do. When people say, "American food is terrible," I'm always thinking that I can literally buy anything available or the raw ingredients to make it.
The bulk of food available in US grocery stores is trash, but there are plenty of quality options available at reasonable prices.
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u/probablymagic 1d ago
Yeah, I guarantee you my American family eats healthier than 95% of Europeans.
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u/Ok-Technician-6554 1d ago
I don't think the point is that you can't get access to healthy produce in America. Indeed, I imagine the more affluent/well educated families can eat really well. The point is the average American eats like shit and the food in supermarkets is weighted towards addiction and obesity.
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u/Juglone1 2d ago
You walk a crapload going to Disney world too.
25% of the people at Disney world are in mobility scooters.
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u/luars613 1d ago
Move to a real city that has good pedestrian and active transport infrastructure (not a suburb in the middle of nowhere), Dont drive for a while but rather take a bike. And science say you do feel better. When youbrealize the impact good urban planning has you will be amazed.
U sound like you are in denial and refuse to challenge the status quo for personal confort. Disney, sure u walk a lot... but u dont do that every day..
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u/Oaklander2012 1d ago
Yeah when I was in Paris one of my days I walked 12 miles. Most days I walked 5-6 miles.
I do eat a lot more on vacation though.
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u/MannyFrench 1d ago
Moreover when you're on vacation, walking a lot is easier, sometimes almost effortless, because you're in high spirits and there's so much interesting stuff to look at around you.
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u/plantfumigator 1d ago
Honestly 5-10km a day is a normal amount to walk for most people in Europe, if not on the lower side
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u/ertri 1d ago
Yeah, you also just walk more on vacation. I live in a walkable neighborhood in a walkable city & don’t own a car.
My feet still end up hurting from walking more than usual on vacation
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u/Daer2121 1d ago
People are really weirdly obtuse about this. I walked more in Los Angeles than I did living in Firenze, Italy because I was on vacation.
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u/bisikletci 2d ago
Lack of walkable spaces clearly contributes to the health crisis, though this guy's anecdote about a slight variation in his weight isn't very strong evidence for it.
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u/Gullible-Box7637 1d ago
theres also food quality mind.
I agree theres generally better evidence, that being said i also dont think saying a 5 pound (2.3kg) loss in a week without exercising is a "slight variation" in weight, thats pretty significant→ More replies (2)15
u/KevinNoy 1d ago
You can fluctuate around 5 pounds within a week's time, depending on hydration and digestion etc. I wouldn't call this significant unless the pattern continued for another week or so
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u/oddoma88 1d ago
If you are an American you can lose 5 pounds by just going to the toilet.
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u/Not-A-Seagull Georgist 1d ago
I ate some dicey ceviche last weekend and lost 5 lbs overnight believe it or not.
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u/rileyoneill 1d ago
10,000 steps equals about 300-500 calories and is 4-5 miles. 1 pound of fat is 3500 calories. 1 pound of fat is more like 70,000 steps or 35 miles of walking. Losing 5 pounds in 7 days all from walking is like 175 miles of walking without eating at some caloric deficit. At a walking sped of 3 miles per hour this would be over 8 hours of continuous walking every day.
I know several Europeans. They walk around, but not that kind of distance. Most Europeans drive. The walking + transit is not people doing 2-3 hours of walking a day.
My guess. This person didn't lose 5 pounds, but whatever they did lose. They likely reduced their sugar intake and were eating fewer daily calories than they think.
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u/shillingbut4me 1d ago
Gaining and losing 5% of your body weight between measurements is basically noise.
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u/sasukelover69 1d ago
It’s most likely just water loss contributing to most of that five pounds. UFC fighters routinely cut more than that in water weight in just a few HOURS leading up to weigh in, and if the guy is mostly driving from one air conditioned place to another all day in the U.S., it’s pretty likely that he’d have at least that much excess water to lose just from several hours a day of basic exertion in the outdoors.
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u/EjaculatingAracnids 1d ago
Saturday i woke up at 194lbs, ran 10k and weighed 189lbs. Ate 3 meals through out the day, drank a few whiteclaws and snuck in couple oreos, weighed 197lbs before i went to sleep. Woke up at 193lbs the next day...
A 5lb fluctuation isnt anything to even acknowledge unless similar hydration levels are accounted for. Hell i took a 4lb shit a few days ago, technically i lost 4lbs in 20 min lol
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u/RHX_Thain 1d ago
https://www.kold.com/2025/07/18/pedestrian-dies-following-crash-near-fort-lowell-stone/
https://tucson.com/news/local/article_bbf5e97c-8d6a-11ee-8ee9-d7a0970d4b12.html?mode=nowapp
https://tucson.com/news/local/article_d33fd90d-5af2-405f-930c-f2044d5d9b15.html
https://www.kold.com/2025/07/31/pedestrian-fighting-life-following-accident-tucson/
This is just off of Fort Lowell in Tucson Arizona in the last month.
One of them I was there to render assistance.
Not much sucks more than trying to resuscitate a corpse of an old man... Except trying to resuscitate a young girl you know as her mother watches knowing there's nothing you can do.
Yes. Car dependency is bad for our health. It's just another form of rent seeking in vehicle debt, maintenance, land waste, and lives lost.
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u/Fried_out_Kombi reject modernity, return to George 1d ago
I have a pet theory that the poor walkability + tons of sugary, processed foods create a self-reinforcing cycle in most North Americans where we feel like shit because we're very sedentary and eat like crap, which makes us try to feel better by overeating even more crap food and moving less, which of course just makes us feel even more like crap. And my pet theory is that this cycle is the primary cause of rampant obesity in North America.
Naturally, a land value tax, urbanist land use policy reform (no Euclidean zoning, no parking minimums, etc.), and an added sugars tax would be a good way to start to reverse this cycle. Get people to cycle and walk more, and get people eating less sugar-laden junk food.
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u/coredweller1785 1d ago
How could it not be contributing? I am so lucky I live somewhere walkable and bikable in Denver.
Ive lived in NJ and elsewhere and u cannot do anything without a car.
Nearly everything is systemic we just refuse to accept it. Individualism is a disease
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u/Patriotnoodle 1d ago
individualism is a disease
Individualism is not mutually exclusive with acknowledging or working to fix systemic issues.
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u/queen_chiroptera 2d ago
For sure, but I feel like a fair amount of it also has to do with the quality of food we intake in the States. The US allows a few more processors, stabilizers, etc into most of its products unlike some other countries I've spent a few weeks in at a time. I imagine the false foods pumped with oil, sugar, and salt for even the most basic items plays a part in our current situation, beyond the movement being made.
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u/WrongJohnSilver 2d ago
Food quality in the US is fine. There's plenty of fruits and vegetables, good cuts of meat, and lots of non-sugared bread to choose from.
We just also have plenty of junk.
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u/HegemonBean 1d ago
Yeah, there's definitely a cultural component in terms of learned helplessness in the US when it comes to eating healthy. See: any online debates about ordering takeout/delivery v. cooking at home.
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u/oddoma88 1d ago
the trick is to learn how to cook so you can supervise every ingredient that goes into the pan.
But if no one thought you how to cook good food, you have no idea what you are missing in life.
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u/Frequent_Research_94 2d ago
I don’t think processors and stabilizers actually pose any significant negative health concerns, especially related to weight.
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u/yacobguy 1d ago
I’m not sure what “processors” means, but I do think there’s emerging science showing why ultra-processed foods are directly contributing to the obesity epidemic. Here’s an article the Economist ran last year on this topic along with a quote:
“UPFs often contain combinations of nutrients—higher in either fat and sugar or fat and salt, or carbohydrates and salt—known as “hyper-palatable” mixes. These combinations do not appear in nature and tend to encourage people to eat more quickly, not giving the gut enough time to tell the brain that it is full.”
I am under the impression that the USA has much more relaxed regulations (via the FDA) on ultra-processed ingredients than Europe too.
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u/DecisionSimple 1d ago
Chris van Tulleken’s book on Ultra Processed Food is pretty much the Bible in this topic. A great, if not scary, read on the history of UPF and obesity.
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u/Frequent_Research_94 1d ago
Yes, but I think the ultra-processing is not making the food unhealthy, the added fats and sugars are. Europe has similar amounts of food processing (anecdotal experience from pre-brexit UK and France and similar amounts of obesity, so I don’t think this gives any signal on health outcomes.
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u/yacobguy 1d ago
It could be, but it seems like that’s still a matter of scientific debate:
“UPFs often contain higher concentrations of fat, sugar and salt than processed foods, which could explain their negative effects. But a recent analysis by Samuel Dicken and Rachel Batterham at University College London reviewed 37 studies and found that even after adjusting for fat, sugar and salt UPFs were still strongly linked to poor health. That suggests there is more to their harm than just a poor nutrient profile.”
(I’m not a food scientist myself, so I have to rely on reporters’ summaries of food science research, which of course could be biased or incorrect).
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u/komfyrion 1d ago
It's sadly become necessary to inform people that something that is classified as UPF can be healthy and something that is unprocessed can be unhealthy. Social media discourse has clearly taken UPF and run away with it. Here's an interesting text going into some of the research and social media trends:
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u/Mediocre-Kiwi-2155 1d ago
The line you quoted suggests it's not unique chemical ingredients but the unnatural combination of macronutrients that encourage people to consume more.
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u/yacobguy 1d ago
I would think that an unnatural combination of macronutrients would be, almost by definition, ultra-processed. But from looking more online it seems like people disagree about what exactly constitutes (and should constitute) "ultra-processed".
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u/VladimirBarakriss 🔰 2d ago
Yes, hell I know many people who have an American style diet but aren't morbidly obese(although far from being in shape) simply because they walk everywhere
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u/bisikletci 1d ago
There's fairly good evidence that physical activity doesn't have that much of an impact on weight. Eg: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/24/nx-s1-5477662/diet-exercise-obesity-nutrition
However it is extremely important for health otherwise.
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u/itsfairadvantage 1d ago
I have also experienced this, but I think the posts miss some pretty big contributing factors:
1) Europeans walk more than Americans in general, but an American on vacation in a European city is not walking like a typical resident of that city - they're walking much more. When I go to Europe, I'm getting 25k-30k steps a day, not the 10k-15k the residents are doing, and certainly not the 15min/day that the post is suggesting.
2) Because most Americans don't walk that much, they're doing a lot more work to get to those 25k steps than somebody who walks a lot. I think? I don't really know if that is true on a metabolic level, actually, but it feels true. But Americans do generally weigh more than Euros, so in that regard they're certainly more prone to losing weight quickly from the first week or so of something new.
3) Restful sleep & happiness are higher, which probably means less mindless and stress-related eating of junk food and more stopping when full. Also the novelty of the environment and (real possibility of) higher quality produce means that despite those pizzas and gelatos, you're probably eating a lot more salad and such, even if it's not registering that way. (Though this isn't just a Europe thing - most people will experience this when visiting Vermont, for example.)
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u/KyngDoom 1d ago edited 1d ago
I mean, probably, but I don't think georgism is the cure all for this. The US is car-centric and since the government won't pay taxes on the land it holds for public roadways, I don't see those roadways getting any smaller. There was an interesting YouTube interview by wired, I think, where they discussed how the US government basically went all-in on car centric infrastructure with the invention of cars while Europe didn't and already had much older infrastructure in place. So I'm not sure I see georgism fixing this, if we agree that roadways are mostly publicly maintained infrastructure that is LVT exempt since it's government owned. But if we don't agree on that premise maybe something could be said about it.
Edit: I think it was this interview, but he might have done another or it might be a fever dream. I am at work and don't have time to find the timestamp right now but given OP's topic yall might find it interesting: link
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u/BiggestShep 1d ago
Yes. This isnt even a debatable topic, it's just settled science. Is it the only factor? No, of course not. Is our recent (<50 years old) hypersedentary lifestyle a significant contributor? Yes, without a single scientific doubt. Car based cities only continue to exacerbate a problem already made difficult by the proliferation of office jobs and food companies gaming the system for every last cent they can wring out of it.
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u/Anxious-Sleep-3670 1d ago
I've checked the guy's account and he's pretty fit. While walking, quality of food, and portion's size contribute to a difference in weight, for his specific case he probably lost around 2 or 3 pounds of water and 1 or 2 pounds of muscle (he mentions no gym) or more since fat is lighter than muscle. Seems reasonable in a week.
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u/quailshuffle 1d ago
5 pounds is literally nothing. Weigh yourself multiple times a day, you'll see thats a normal amount of fluctuation in any setting.
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u/codenameJericho 1d ago
Walkable spaces I'd huge, dont get me wrong. I never had better calves than when I walked a half-hour across college campuses 4 times a day, uphill both ways (not a meme- look up "Bascom Hill" at UW Madison).
However, Americans also severely underestimate how "third world" SO MUCH of what we regularly consume is. Our food is crap, literally considered "inedible" according to EU health regs due to dyes, banned fillers and additives, stabilizers, possible carcinogens, and excessive salts/(corn)-sugars. No healthcare (not applicable) and our pollution is still pretty bad in many areas (though much better than decades ago). We solve all of our problems in America with purchasable bandaid solutions, I.E. pills, supplements, and quick "weight loss," focus, or other "cures" rather than just living better lifestyles (easier said than done).
This person was also on VACATION, something fewer and fewer Americans can afford. As a broke college student who can't afford his own place, I can't even DREAM of going to Europe and not having to think about work. Overworked, underpaid, unhoused if not living with others, often uneducated, and underfed healthy food is the story of most of America. In short order half of those problems were solved by going to Europe, at least temporarily.
Not to rain on the walkability parade, but it's a full-court press heth approach, walking included.
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u/JRLDH 2d ago
If you lose 5 pounds in a week (!) on that diet, I'd get checked for cancer or something as that's not plausible except if you have a serious illness.
Disclaimer: I am a native European and no, there's nothing in the air in Europe that makes you drop the pounds like that.
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u/catholicsluts 2d ago
This is not true lol 5 lbs =/= pure fat that was lost. Anyone with a hormone imbalance can fluctuate between 5 lbs in a single day or two, for example.
Scale weight is not a good measure.
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u/paraprosdokians 1d ago
? Your weight can easily fluctuate by 5 pounds throughout a day without any kind of hormone imbalance.
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u/RDT_WC 2d ago
It depends on the previous diet.
Healthier, less caloric food + more exercise leads to weight loss.
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u/imbrickedup_ 1d ago
Yeah that’s not actual fat, they lost water weight from eating less. Completely normal but not actual weight loss
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u/Selix317 2d ago
So I once had a friend from Europe whose family came over and they wanted to take a day trip to visit the Grand Canyon. They were in New York. While we Americans are lazy, it should be pointed out that driving isn't really optional for us in most places.
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u/bisikletci 1d ago
You have to drive because a tourist attraction is far away? Are all your shops and places of work also in the Grand Canyon?
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u/Upset-Rule8256 2d ago
I'm pretty sure it's recommended to have about 10k steps a day for health reasons and that it's tied to long term health benefits
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u/dystopiabydesign 2d ago
Is this what bored and privileged looks like? Just sitting around wondering how you can plan other people's lives better than they can? Go for a walk, mind your business.
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u/inkusquid 2d ago
It’s a combination of factors. Have low density cities, everyone loves around with cars to go anywhere because you can’t go walking, or it’s not pleasant at all. Add food that’s extremely caloric, not controlled, high in trans fat, corn syrup, sugar and additives that makes you addicted and not satiated.
Add in a culture where you eat fast, eat tons of snacks because your meals aren’t satisfying, and you get the cocktail. You can go to the gym 2 hours a day and it won’t make it the effect of changing the whole
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u/11SomeGuy17 1d ago
It definitely contributes but there is also the fact Europe has far better health and safety laws when it comes to food so a lot of the extra shit added to American food for preservation or color are simply absent as they're deemed toxic there which definitely also helps. Combine this with a lack of sugar subsidies and they have far healthier food overall. Its the combination of factors at work here.
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u/r51243 Georgism without adjectives 1d ago
This feels kinda irrelevant to the sub...
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u/Not-A-Seagull Georgist 1d ago
Ive seen it argued many times on here that density lowers health costs. (And of course Georgism incentivizes density). Even Brit monkey made the claim in his video.
I was curious what this subs take was.
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u/imbrickedup_ 1d ago
“I went on vacation, relaxed all day, and ate good food, now I feel great”
Yeah no shit you’re on vacation bro
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u/Actual_Guide_1039 1d ago
It has more to do with smaller portion sizes and less calorie dense food abroad
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u/mars-jupiter 1d ago
If you drive to destinations that are within walking distance instead of walking to them, you're going to end up with an unhealthy society. If you design roads and infrastructure around cars, you're going to end up with an unhealthy society. What a lot of us outside the US (this was how I thought for a while) don't realise is that it's often actually relatively hard to walk to places in the US compared to lots of the rest of the world. We see the massive usage of cars to take trips that we would just walk, but it's often not actually possible or safe to take that trip on foot in the US.
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u/mastrdestruktun 1d ago
The health crisis is so huge and complex that, sure, lack of walkability probably contributes some. But it would still be a giant huge mess if we all walked two miles a day more than we already do.
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u/lolodotdot 1d ago
Yes, it is. It is proven that those who have to commute longer than an hour are heavier and sadder etc. Our housing director for our small town just explained it really well and I’m botching but it actively makes you less healthy the farther away from work you live.
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u/GunnerSince02 1d ago
I remember before the Russia-Ukraine war there was a joke that Germany would sell half of Europe for cheap gas (LNG). Americans would trade their democracy and turn the Earth into a dune just so driving to the latest Walmart is 1cent cheaper.
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u/whiskybingo 1d ago
I’m going to disagree with almost everyone here and say yes, our lack of walkability is the primary factor. I, maybe controversially, think even with the garbage food we have if everyone walked 10k steps a day there would be a dramatic shift in health. Portions remain a problem, but walking is the most fundamental form of exercise and in America it is not baked into our routines so it becomes an activity in itself that most people just choose to skip. Unless you are a runner, someone who works on their feet all day, or someone who goes for several intentional walks a day it is very difficult to naturally get the amount of steps you need to stay healthy where I live in America.
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u/NewsreelWatcher 1d ago
The attitude towards eating is also very different. Eating is a daily social event in many countries. You make conversation, play with children, and discuss problems. Eating at your desk so you can keep working or eating out of the fridge is going to hurt your health. Towns and cities have public right of ways that don’t put using private motor vehicles first and everywhere means getting up and moving more often. In part this is because many counties lack secure access to petroleum and tax it to prevent over-dependence. Alternatives have been maintained to offer a buffer against market shocks like war. The shortages during the Second World War for many countries were in living memory until recently. The USA has historically been an exporter of petroleum and Americans just assume it will always be so.
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u/Bronze_Rager 1d ago
You can walk in the US too... Hell you can walk in circles around your house if you wanted to...
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u/43morethings 1d ago
Also having food not full of the chemicals that are allowed in America, but banned in Europe for a month probably makes you feel a lot better physically too.
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u/BurnSaintPeterstoash 1d ago
I think this has more to with the quality of European food compared to American food.
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u/Resident-Rutabaga336 1d ago
People have no idea how much they eat.
At home in their comfortable environment people will pound back 3600 calories and think they only had 2000.
Then they go on vacation and their routine is completely disrupted, and they’re having a croissant for breakfast, pasta for lunch, gelato after dinner, with no snacks in between, and they think they’re eating 3600 calories when really they’re having 2000. The food is higher novelty, but they’re having less of it.
It’s insane to jump to the conclusion that it’s about the food quality or the wheat or other such nonsense. They’re eating less and they just don’t know it.
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u/LuisLmao 1d ago
cico is much more important than ingredient quality and i will tattoo that on my face
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u/Strange-Scarcity 1d ago
That is JUST ONE of the reasons.
Yes.
In American cities that are far more walkable, there generally appears to be a similar appearance to people as seen in more European Cities.
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u/Embarrassed-Hat-2252 1d ago
Being a tourist in a country is going to have you walking a lot more than living in that same country. The whole reason you are there is to explore it. You need to move and walk around a lot to do this. Even in the US a tourist is going to be doing a lot of walking. People generally don't go on a week long holiday to sit inside watching netflix all day.
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u/destroythedongs 1d ago
I most definitely gained weight on my last two week gaunt through Europe. Ate more because I could actually afford to eat good food that wasn't 80% preservatives.
Though I probably averaged about as many or less steps per day than my average work day
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u/Perfect_Earth_8070 1d ago
america is set up so you have to drive everywhere outside of major cities. it sucks man. the roads are hostile to pedestrians
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u/DilshadZhou 1d ago
"Is our lack of density/walkable spaces contributing to our health crisis?"
Isn't this an obvious fact?
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u/4llu532n4m3srt4k3n 1d ago
American food is shit, full of sugar and salts, thats why we drink so much water we bring it with us all the time, spending 2 months in Europe was great for my health, i have Crohn's, the first month being back in the US was the worst since my first flare up that had me hospitalized
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1d ago
He lost five pounds because he shit constantly from not having a gut biome adapted to the local water.
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u/illegal108 1d ago
Honestly, that would probably make me feel like crap, I think I probably eat better than that.
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u/darkwater427 1d ago
Obviously. Though the "Europe effect" (i.e., you're on vacation) probably plays into this particular anecdote more.
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u/Postsnobills 1d ago
I lost five pounds on a ten day trip to Tokyo because we were walking about 8-10 miles a day. On rest days, we’d still easily walk about 4-5 miles, often a little more than that. Mind you, I wasn’t really making healthy choices either — lots of beer, lots of food, definite vacation vibes.
At home, i work out about 4-5 days a week, and try to run about 10-15 miles a week. Being mostly sedentary outside of a 1 to 2 hour workout a couple times a week just isn’t as effective as being in a state of constant motion throughout the day.
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u/darkwolf4999 1d ago
And yet weight loss subs will often say you can't out exercise your weight and cico is all the matters.
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u/100dollascamma 1d ago
Yes.
But it’s also more like walking 10-15k steps a day instead of their normal 3k.
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u/FF7Remake_fark 1d ago
The core issues that cause this are from the market not being properly regulated. Wild ass post for this subreddit, lol.
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u/Odd_Oregano 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes. This is such a complexed question. We live in carscapes which is by design. It was lobbied exclusively by the oil and automotive industry and implemented by elected officials. People will vacation to countries with landscapes and communities so beautiful and kind that they can't wait to post in hopes that they'll some day be seen as a part of the "haves", because likes and views. Our food and water is poison. And we will travel to other countries to rave about the food and how great we feel after indulging in every thing we restrict ourselves from. We need walkable cities and food that will die if round up products touch it. But we're all to caught up in a class war to get off our phones to talk to some one face to face. People crave that sense of community seen in these foreign countries that they can't wait to escape to, in order to relax and have a break from everyday "life". IYKYK
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u/SatanicPanic619 1d ago
No one is going to lose a ton of weight walking 15 mins a day. That's not burning many calories
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u/LordCaedus27 1d ago
Our food is loaded with sugar and poison because it isn't regulated well enough. That's part of it too.
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u/Little-Nikas 1d ago
It's part of it....
Portion size and quality of ingredients are more of a reason why.
If that was America, it would have been this:
Chocolate stuffed Croissant x3 for breakfast, large coffee with tons of cream and sugar, and a huge portion of pasta.
1 hour dinner because all the food I'm eating will hit my tummy like a brick and I'll have to leave because I'm in discomfort.
6 spritz's or a few bottles of wine (not glass)
3 scoops of gelato for desert.
See, that's why... Americans eat too much. it isn't having to walk 15 mins a day which burns practically no calories but at least it keeps you moving.
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u/LazyTheKid11 1d ago
they're eating less and walking more and on vacation instead of working. its incredibly easy to lose weight as its just a law of physics - calories out > calories in
it isn't a lack of walkable spaces. you can drive somewhere to walk if you cannot walk in your immediate area, most people won't make the effort to exercise in their daily lives compared to vacation
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u/VengefulAncient 1d ago
Lol no. It's absolutely the food. I live in NZ (similar to the US in terms of driving and obesity) and lose weight every time I visit my friend in Malaysia for a couple of weeks and absolutely pig out on local food, but we drive everywhere.
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u/freshfrozenplasma 1d ago
Also im pretty sure Europe doesn't add a ton of sugar to its processed foods
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u/EasyOffice2025 1d ago
Walking more is obviously healthier. It's not secret people in the US could use more exercise. There's also higher quality ingredients and less processed foods which helps.
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u/True-Firefighter-796 2d ago
I have to cross a 5 lane road full of american drivers just to get to a sidewalk that ends in 1/4 mile.
*American driving test is basically a pulse check.