The store-bought junk food is pretty bad in America, to be fair. But foreigners also tend to overestimate their popularity, because American media is largely funded by product placement; The average American probably hasn’t eaten a Twinkie in months or even years.
Restaurants are where you’ll truly experience American food. You’ll be amazed at how much flavor is packed into each dish, and at how large the portions are. But the latter is largely a cultural thing; Americans typically have leftovers that they take home. Europeans will see the feast-sized portions on the table and immediately go “no wonder Americans are so fat…” In reality, Americans would expect to take half of it home.
Americans typically have leftovers that they take home
Are you just not aware of how overweight Americans are on average? As i understand it we have been conditioned to believe these insane portions are “a meal”. I was simply unable to start losing weight until i traveled to Mexico to discover and internalize what a normal meal portion is. If you go to a restaurant in the US, you should expect to see most of the people around you finishing their plates
The US’s obesity problem is more complicated than that. It’s not just that our portions are big. Americans have to work pretty long hours too. That means much of our lives we probably aren’t getting much exercise, and when we get home a lot of us don’t have a lot of energy to cook so we probably eat a lot more pre-packaged food. Stress also contributes a lot to weight gain.
And once you have gained a lot of weight, all of those problems, plus the fact that healthcare is so expensive, make it even more difficult to lose.
The store-bought junk food is pretty bad in America, to be fair. But foreigners also tend to overestimate their popularity, because American media is largely funded by product placement; The average American probably hasn’t eaten a Twinkie in months or even years.
Restaurants are where you’ll truly experience American food. You’ll be amazed at how much flavor is packed into each dish, and at how large the portions are. But the latter is largely a cultural thing; Americans typically have leftovers that they take home. Europeans will see the feast-sized portions on the table and immediately go “no wonder Americans are so fat…” In reality, Americans would expect to take half of it home.
Are you just not aware of how overweight Americans are on average? As i understand it we have been conditioned to believe these insane portions are “a meal”. I was simply unable to start losing weight until i traveled to Mexico to discover and internalize what a normal meal portion is. If you go to a restaurant in the US, you should expect to see most of the people around you finishing their plates
The US’s obesity problem is more complicated than that. It’s not just that our portions are big. Americans have to work pretty long hours too. That means much of our lives we probably aren’t getting much exercise, and when we get home a lot of us don’t have a lot of energy to cook so we probably eat a lot more pre-packaged food. Stress also contributes a lot to weight gain.
And once you have gained a lot of weight, all of those problems, plus the fact that healthcare is so expensive, make it even more difficult to lose.