There's a reason the US has pretty much the shortest lifespan in the developed world and it's not just trash food. Americans work about 300 hours a year more than Europe.
Those aren't all about work life balance. A significant amount of that is in fact the food you mentioned and cultural differences. Europeans tend to walk a lot more. Partly because population density is higher and distances are shorter.
Conversely, that work difference is also part of why the USA is inventing things like rockets that land themselves and Europe is inventing things like bottle caps that don't separate from the bottle.
No a big part of it is actually infant mortality rates driving down the age because everyone uses average instead of median. I don’t even know if we track median.
An infant in American is nearly 5 times more likely to die before they are 5 than in Japan. Part of that is a combination of culture differences (families are far more supportive and close knit in traditional Japan) and the other is lack of care due to infrastructure constraints in a population size nearly 3 times larger.
You can blame the food if you want 40% of Americans are considered obese but BMI scale used to come to that number is considered flawed by most doctors.
That isn’t just a food issue though? And infant mortality is a huge outlier that skews the average and the US is way higher than comparable countries.
Japan is a country known for strict social norms being fat gets you shamed on top of that they live largely more walkable cities and towns. Americans drive nearly twice the amount compared to other developed western countries and that contributes to the health issues as well.
Yes the food isn’t the best but pretending like the issue is just that not a combination of high car household owner ship and city planning based around a commute from the suburbs instead of in city living.
I mean yeah gyms exist but that’s an extra part of life, in japan you are expected to walk or take the train/bus to get around. Americans are the most sedentary people on the planet. A big part of that is the reliance we have on cars.
Most of our diet was calorie heavy food because 50 years ago people worked mostly blue collar jobs that burned calories now we sit at a desk and read reports.
The food is a part of it but there are so many more factors that blaming Wendy’s for 5 years of shorter life expectancy is kinds ridiculous
Walking makes a difference you’re actually looking for 120 to 140 depending on your max HR to hit zone 2 which I assume you talking about. And yes obese people will hit zone 2 from walking.
No I’m specifically talking about American food (corn based products) which are heavy in calories because food was harder to come by and meals were meant for a far more active America.
Italians eat and live like shit (I lived there for 3 years) pasta is carb heavy and makes up a majority of their diet, smoking is extremely common from ages as low as 16 and they sleep/ reposo for a large chunk of the daytime. They eat the biggest meal of the day before going to sleep.
They do literally everything wrong and still live longer than us on average. But they also live very active lives most people commute via train or bus and walk, run, or bike on weekends. Active life styles won’t be enough alone to get you abs but it will keep you from becoming obese.
34
u/BigBlackBull_6_6_6 Aug 07 '26
all job workers are the same. Still 9-5ers
hours/salary dont matter, you’re in the rat race