It helps when everywhere in that mile radius (and more) is considered walking distance in much of Europe, but Americans would rather drive.
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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I fucking promise you we don't prefer to drive, it's the only option we have. Our government fucked us
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
Having recently moved to Europe, I occasionally miss the convenience of driving but overall it's so much better.
Just getting to chill on my commute and not have to worry about traffic is so nice.
When it's very cold or rainy it would be nice to drive to the store. I do miss being able to buy a week+ worth of groceries and loading up the trunk
Overall this is still way better.
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I mean, yes that's absolutely true, but many Americans really do prefer to drive even short distances. When I lived in North Carolina people regularly drove to the other side of the parking lot to eat, shop at different stores, meet up with friends, etc. I asked several people why they didn't walk, and every single one said they hated walking and would drive or re-park if it was further than a few seconds walk.
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Anon needs to learn that the UK isn't representative of all of Europe
Europe does have an obesity crisis, and also nearly half of adults overweight. The UK is bad but not alone and not the highest.
But even then things are still not as bad as the USA. The obesity rate is about 23% in Europe compared to 43% in the US. Russia has an obesity rate of 30% skewing the European rate. For comparison other high European countries are Malta at 33%, Croatia at 31%, Ireland at 29%, Greece at 29%, UK at 27%, Germany at 21%. Lower rates are seen in Italy at 18% and France at 10%, but even those rates are not great - 1 in 10 people are obese and more are overweight.
So OP is right except the US is worse. Over a third of people are obese and many more are overweight - that is shocking even with how bad things are in Europe. It is certainly not projecting.
Edit: sorry the US obesity rate is 43% not 36%. Other figures updates to 2022 figures.
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.
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And does have an obesity problem!
"I visited europe" goes to the uk
The uk is somehow actually less european than the caucasian countries and kazakhstan which everyone criticizes for pretending to be european.
You can't rate world cuisine on England
Absolute zero is a useful reference point.
Low key amazing comment
I love how the post never mentions the country, but everyone just knows.
They did say fish and chips which is kind of an iconic British food.
Hilarious that this is true and yet the US is still somehow fatter.
There is a vast difference between eating shitty food once a day while being able to walk everywhere and eating shitty food three meals a day and not walking anywhere.
The US both massively overeats the shitty food and is very sedentary for the most part. A bit contributor is our absolutely terrible work culture that wears people out so much that they seek pleasure from food and entertainment in the few spare hours they have each week because they are constantly advertised to encouraging that behavior.
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Notice how anon never mentions seeing any fat people tho...
Can't speak for all of Europe, but I was in Germany for a couple weeks and I saw just as many fat people there that I see at home in America.
according to wikipedia the united states are 42.9% obese and germany 24.2%, what may instead be happening is either not being accurate in your headcount or that in germany obese people go outside more than in america or that maybe obesity is distributed differently, potentially similarly in both countries but you were only for example in rural areas in america but only in urban areas in germany
And yet the number of people obese in the USA is almost double that of the UK.
It’s the corn syrup more than the fried food honestly. The number of people who drink soda all day is wild.
And not just soda. Corn syrup is everywhere. So much of our food is crazy sweet.
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I used to work with a morbidly obese lady that kept a 2 litre of mountain dew at her desk at all times. She'd come in every Monday with 2 of them. It was wild to me.
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Walkable areas go a long way
Fat isn't unhealthy. Excess calories and absence of exercise is not healthy.
Also the U.K. population is unhealthy just like the U.S.
UK doesn't have the highest rate of obesity in Europe, and is similar in levels to Germany. It's a problem across Europe.
Yes! Fat by itself isn't unhealthy.
The best example is Italy, it has the lowest obesity rate of Europe, (1) but also has the highest consumption of cooking oil of Europe (2)
I was surprised in Italy when I saw how much olive oil they used while cooking. For me oil was just like a cooking aid so stuff does not stick to the pan, in Italian cuisine olive oil is not just an aid, it's part of the ingredients
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You can tell this is London. They have some weird streets where every single shop sells the same stuff.
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They walk more. That's it. That's the secret.
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.
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.
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Anon, did you look at the people?
I live in the fattest province in Canada, who is also compared to the rest of the world one of the fatter countries. But going to Tennessee and Texas, man… it’s a different beast down there. Obesity is such an issue that it makes you think something is gravely wrong down there. Idk if it’s the culture or the infrastructure or the food or what but it’s not good.
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Been to Seoul. Every place there gives you tons of side dishes that you cant possibly eat all. People are still very very thin there on average. Ofc, cant judge whole country by one city. But maybe city's landscape helps them keep themselves in shape.
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