Perception is not reality. The US is always under a microscope, so its many flaws are often overstated. Yes, we have a lot of overweight people, ignorant people, religiously zealous people, and uneducated people....but other places have many more of those types of people than we do. It's just that those other countries don't have the same global influence, so they aren't discussed as much. USA gets so much grief because, among the major global players like Germany, France, the UK, Japan, etc., it has these problems in the largest numbers. Plus human nature is to belittle the person at the top of the totem pole. As long as the US is the biggest wielder of global influence, people will accentuate and overstate its failings.
You also have to take into consideration that people that build a lot of muscle are considered obese. Gym culture is extremely popular in the USA and there's several people that become extremely built, but also hefty, which in turn puts them on the "obese" side of the BMI scale.
USA is not #1 because there are some countries with very low populations that have a higher obesity rate. Statistically it is expected that the countries with very low populations will have lowest or highest rates of anything. The USA is a very diverse place in many ways, and I am sure there are areas with the same population as Nauru that have an even higher obesity rate than Nauru.
I don't think so. From what I could dig up, the fattest place in America is Wauchula, Florida, with an obesity rate of 41.8%, which edges out Kuwait but fails to reach the heights of any of the countries in Oceania on the list. It's not just that they have small populations, they're also remarkably (and pretty uniformly) fat.
and they used to be on the quiz judging from the comments. Not sure what changed. Maybe they switched from "overweight" to "obese" or something else like that.
I think that maybe this shows why the BMI standard should be discredited as it really cannot be applied internationally as claimed. It is laughable to think that both Polynesian and Asian body types should be judged by it.
High BMI is clearly a cause in severe diseases, and kills a lot of people. If you discard it, then what would you replace it with? How would doctors check if their patience have increased risk of early death?
It's an objective measurement and the best tool we have.
The countries in Oceania with high obesity all score very low in life expectancy, with mostly only poor underdeveloped African countries below them. Their obesity is a huge problem, and cause early death. To just dismiss it as "BMI should be discredited" is VERY irresponsible of you.
There is no better tool than BMI in order to address both public and private health risks due to obesity. So if you want to discard it, please inform me of what you would replace it with!!!!!
While coro maybe overstated the point, he's actually right that BMI is not the best way of measuring how fat or out of shape someone is. It's an overly simplistic formula and people with wider, squatter bodies will be labeled as obese more easily using it. It also doesn't factor in how much muscle mass your body has so champion body builders would be severely obese going by BMI. Better ways of measuring include looking at hip:waist ratio, air displacement of your total body mass (can figure out how dense you are), the skinfold thickness test (pinch some fat off your body), or a DEXA scan or other more technologically advanced ways of measuring your body fat %. BMI is *a* tool but it's far from the best and it does run in to some problems applied across many different body types.
That being said, Polynesians are obese and unhealthy and this is mostly the product of poor diet and little exercise, not just different body types.
As for the diet - I have not been to many Pacific islands before outside of the Philippines (and the Filipino diet consists of a lot of rice, a lot of fried stuff, and a lot of fast food), but my friends who have worked or built residences in places like Samoa, Guam, and the Marshall Islands tell me that they eat a ton of SPAM and other fatty processed canned foods.
You kidding? Bland spaghetti? Go to Jollibee, order spaghetti, and you'll get a heart attack from all the sugar. The rest is pretty accurate, but don't forget the pork and beef included.
I was thinking of Jollibee specifically. The spaghetti sauce they use is basically ketchup. No texture. No flavor. No herbs or spices. And then many other fast food chains have copied that. It's sub-Chef-Boyardee quality spaghetti. Just awful. But their spicy fried chicken is alright.
USA guessed 100% of the time. Next highest? 53% for Samoa which starts a chain of naming Pacific island nations.
I'm reminded of Top Gear where they have the non-speaking, face-shielded, character The Stig. When they came to the U.S. he walks out of his dressing trailer and his trademark white race car driver's jump suit cuts a typical fat bellied American profile.
The highest western European country is the UK at 28%. This is very high, but the USA is at a whopping 36%.
Not sure why Quizmaster felt the need to call out "western Europe" when Australia, New Zealand, much of the middle east, Hungary, Czechia, Uruguay, Argentina, Libya are all higher than "western Europe".
I believe the point he's indirectly making is that the obesity rate for Americans of European descent is 28.6%, which is not that much higher than Europeans.
I think that there would be many other countries on this listing if they could afford more decent food. Another list could be countries that have a high percentage of undernourished citizens.
Why would it be surprising? It's obviously the natural place to start guessing on this topic once you've got the US. Even if you haven't personally met any Pacific islanders, you'll have noticed when watching rugby (and American football).
The peoples of the Pacific tended to eat large meals throughout the day because they did everything by hand. Now that it's all industrialized, they're just doing the eating because that was the culture: big families, and big meals.
It seems to have a population of @5m, with @0.6m on welfare. I'd be interested to see the stats for >18-25 years of age + welfare + obese, I'd assume there's a correlation there.
NZ isn't on the list anymore, but it is on the higher end because it has a large Pacific Islander population. There are more Samoans and Tongans in NZ than in Samoa and Tonga. Their extremely high obesity rates thus push NZ much higher.
There is a pattern n the answers, first Oceania (Ignore the U.S.) than, around the Ottoman Empire (If you do not know what the Ottoman Empire is just think of around Saudi Arabia)and than, the last two are both just completely random although they are technically both island countries.
Poor Oceania, the first 8 countries are all Oceania, and there is a random Oceanian country hanging around the bottom
If you take off the BOTTOM TWO ROWS you will just get the Oceanian countries on the left and on the right countries around Ottoman Empire (Countries around Saudi Arabia basically is the Ottoman Empire *Just a reminder) / the Middle East countries
Yes, there are some cultural factors at play here. In the pacific area where food was previously scarce it was a sign of beauty - or at least of success - to be fat. To this day their idea of a good meal is loads of food on the plate. In the Arabic world, where mostly they don't drink alcohol such as champagne, a celebration takes the form of plentry of incredibly sweet pastry on a big table. For the same reason they also hold the world record in diabetes.
Oceania countries and Middle Eastern countries are dominating the list. Oh! and also the country people talk about the most as obese, USA and also The Bahamas meaning two of the richest countries surrounding the Caribbean Sea. Knew most Arabian countries are fat because of so much money except Syria, Iraq and Yemen. But how can countries that are poor (Oceanic countries) are so fat? Answer is they were once very rich like Nauru since it sold phosphate from phosphate mineral deposits on the island but when they got lower and lower, they became poor people from nobles. Anyways quiz is very good.
It has more to do with diet and lifestyle than wealth these days. You don't really need to be wealthy to be obese anymore. Low-quality, high-calorie processed food is often the cheapest stuff available, depending on where you live.
So much for the acclaimed benefits of the delicious Mediterranean diet, with 9 of the countries either on the Mediterranean or sharing most of its beneficial characteristics (ie olive oil, fruits, vegetables, beans and other legumes, nuts, herbs, and spices, proportionally less meat than stereotypical American/Canadian and northern European diets). I've recently been making a lot of Mediterranean inspired food, and questioned its "healthfulness" as I kept pouring more and more oil in.
Mediterranean diet mostly refers to the European side of the Mediterranean Sea. (Italian, Spanish, Greek). When you go east, it becomes Middle Eastern diet, and then across the sea it will be considered North-African. I have never heard someone refer to Moroccan or Algerian food as 'mediterranean'.
When I was in the USA recently I did indeed see a lot of overweight people, but then I also noticed a lot of super-fit people. Where I live in South America not many people are on either extreme to be honest, but on average maybe the health of the overall population is somewhere about the same.
What (positive) happened to Vanuatu, that it makes exception to all of its neighbors (except Fiji, which is somewhat understandable)? I actually thought, I made a typo, when it was not accepted.
I refused to believe that the USA has a significantly higher obesity rate compared to Canada and I was glad to have that confirmed. They barely missed 10th place.
It's an objective measurement and the best tool we have.
The countries in Oceania with high obesity all score very low in life expectancy, with mostly only poor underdeveloped African countries below them. Their obesity is a huge problem, and cause early death. To just dismiss it as "BMI should be discredited" is VERY irresponsible of you.
There is no better tool than BMI in order to address both public and private health risks due to obesity. So if you want to discard it, please inform me of what you would replace it with!!!!!
That being said, Polynesians are obese and unhealthy and this is mostly the product of poor diet and little exercise, not just different body types.
As for the diet - I have not been to many Pacific islands before outside of the Philippines (and the Filipino diet consists of a lot of rice, a lot of fried stuff, and a lot of fast food), but my friends who have worked or built residences in places like Samoa, Guam, and the Marshall Islands tell me that they eat a ton of SPAM and other fatty processed canned foods.
I'm reminded of Top Gear where they have the non-speaking, face-shielded, character The Stig. When they came to the U.S. he walks out of his dressing trailer and his trademark white race car driver's jump suit cuts a typical fat bellied American profile.
Not sure why Quizmaster felt the need to call out "western Europe" when Australia, New Zealand, much of the middle east, Hungary, Czechia, Uruguay, Argentina, Libya are all higher than "western Europe".
Poor Oceania, the first 8 countries are all Oceania, and there is a random Oceanian country hanging around the bottom
If you take off the BOTTOM TWO ROWS you will just get the Oceanian countries on the left and on the right countries around Ottoman Empire (Countries around Saudi Arabia basically is the Ottoman Empire *Just a reminder) / the Middle East countries
#2 guessed: Samoa with 54%
Ouch.
When I was in the USA recently I did indeed see a lot of overweight people, but then I also noticed a lot of super-fit people. Where I live in South America not many people are on either extreme to be honest, but on average maybe the health of the overall population is somewhere about the same.
Egypt is an exception and maybe technically a Midwest country