[CH19160]

In my experience travelling to, living in and studying other countries and cultures, I can tell you that there is no place on the planet with the high level of eating disorders and obesity problems found in the U.S. Upon returning to the U.S. after several months in Europe, I was shocked at how fat the majority of Americans are. In many other countries overweight people are an embarassing curiosity (because you see so few among the natives), and frequently the unfortunate subject of the stares and whispers is an American tourist. Most people in other cultures have much healthier relationships to food, eating much less fat and sugar (yet thriving on cuisines gloriously superior to average American fare), and as a result don’t develop as many obsessions over their weight and food in general. They don’t tend to develop ‘thin’ obsessions, because they don’t have the sadly warped impression that extreme thinness is the attractive alternative to obesity. They don’t need to choose from the extremes because, of those cultures that have enough food, they mainly only have well-fed, but not obese, populations. Of course, many cultures change under pervasive American influence, so it will be interesting to see if others fall into the American fat/thin trap.

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Name : CH19160, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : gen x, City : Chapel Hill, State : NC, Country : United States, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, 

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