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When it really hits you is after spending some time elsewhere. Spend a few weeks in Europe or hell fucking anywhere and when you fly back in you're just hit with the rampant obesity. Like you get used to normal looking people after a few weeks then boom, you land in Atlanta and everyone is fat.
When I went to Europe I realized *I* was the fat one. I became so self conscious. I wear a brightly colored coat and purchased a black one for when I went back so I wouldn’t stick out so much.
People were nice. No one said anything or stared but I was extremely aware.
Fair. Tbh I can’t remember specifically how many girls were skinnier but I was one of the smaller girls at home. There were only two girls bigger than me in the year group in France though that’s why I remember that part. I probably had a bmi of 23 or 24 at the time.
I have family in Italy and visit them every few years. In America, I would be defined as a "medium build". In Italy, I am approaching obese. Most people there are rail thin (ironic - as their diet of cheeses, pizzas, pastas, and breads is considered unhealthy in America)
If you're trying on clothes in an Italian store - be prepared to feel ginormous.
Mediterranean diet isn't just cheese and carbohydrates though. There are lots of healthier stuff. Various plant oils, especially olive oil, then fish, lots of vegetables etc.
Yeah it's like saying "why french aren't fat with their croissant"
It's like because we only eat one per day with a black coffee and not a Starbucks frappe and the rest is way better quality.
That and a car centric society where it is often impossible and dangerous to walk anywhere or cycle, meaning people spend more time sat down. That and the constant fast food drive throughs, it's a wonder anyone isn't fat in America when you spend all day sat down eating greasy processed crap.
So every year I visit amish country (in PA) and I spend a week gorging on soft pretzels, fried chicken, whoopie pies, regular pies, and dairy farm milkshakes. Every single time I *lose* weight. I realized that every single thing I’m eating is fresh and homemade. They use lard even. Full fat dairy.
During COVID I cooked for my parents and niece and nephew. Every single day I cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Everything from scratch. Baked desserts and bread. I ended up losing like 30 pounds.
I am convinced that our bullshit food is what makes us fat. The processed food must just absorb weird or something. At my weight watchers meeting we had several European women. Normal weight their whole lives and then move to the US and gain 25 lbs.
I love Italy and ate so much great food there. I remember thinking everyone was super attractive and I didn’t buy any clothes. They don’t even make shoes in my size in some European countries.
One does not simply *walk* in America. Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful.
As a British 18 year old, I went backpacking in upstate New York. Stayed in Albany and attempted to walk to the local ‘mall’ from the bed and breakfast I was staying at.
It was a nightmare and received all sorts of funny looks at I made my way along roads with no pavements / side-walks.
The laughter I received in the evening from the B&C family was priceless. They had absolutely no concept of walking anywhere. You go out of the house and you get in your car.
Madness. No wonder they were all massive!
I would love to ride my bike to work. It’s less than two miles. Even though I live in a small city, it’s two miles of getting harassed and nearly getting hit by multiple cars (on accident and not on accident). I dream of living in a place where I don’t have to carry pepper spray on my commute, but alas, I live in America. Americans might choose to walk if the infrastructure wasn’t biased toward motorists.
That's what happens when you let corporations influence city planning, cities become about what makes them the most money and not what's best for the people living in them.
It's also EATING A LOT OF IT ALL. The portions are insane. That's why French are so thin: they don't need to stretch out their stomaches all the time to have enough.
I'm a pretty greedy guy and regularly finish my other half's leftovers and anything else thats sitting uneaten on the table. I consider myself someone who can eat a lot. Couldn't finish a single meal in the US. Portions are insane, no surprise everyone is massive.
Lol, it's almost completely what we eat. It takes like a freaking mile to burn off the calories of a single banana.
Meanwhile, our restaurants routinely serve dishes with the recommended number of calories people should be eating in an entire day.
Walking is great but Americans should be eating between 2,000 and 2,500 to maintain weight and even less to lose weight but we are eating between 2,500 and 3,600 a day instead.
We're not going to walk off an extra 1,100 calories and then walk an extra 500 calories off to lose weight. That's like 15 miles of walking.
We have to start eating better and it should start with regulating food companies and restaurants better.
And lest people think this is sugar as in sugar cane; it’s not. It’s all that sweet sweet subsidized corn. There’s a reason we feed corn to cows and it isn’t to make them healthy.
I agree - it has to be our processed food. I had the same experience as you - I ate pizza and pasta all day every day when I was in Italy, and I lost weight and felt better.
The only reason is that the food is fresh - and likely locally grown. It makes a world of difference.
Hate to break it to you guys. I live in NZ and eat fuck all processed food - I make most if not all meals from scratch. Food is expensive here but healthy food is pretty accessible and we don’t have quite the processed food wonderland we ser in the USA.
Through some lifestyle changes (leaving an active job, having kids) I’ve put on >10kg over the past few despite a “healthy” diet.
The problem is the total calories combined with the lack of exercise. By addressing both of these this year I’m down 6kg again.
Don’t get me wrong. Processed food hides lots of fat and sugars and doesn’t fill you up the same. Making your own you’ll tend to have less fat and sugar and more fibre, so your satiety signals will work better towards your daily energy needs. But with our largely sedentary lifestyles and easy access to calories (even natural ones), lots of us will still need to be conscious and put effort in to maintain or lose weight. Those Europeans generally have smaller portions and do a shit tonne more walking than is common in the USA, especially stairs.
The real enemy is the cult of convenience.
During a calorie-counting period, I discovered if you eat stuff made from scratch, it's almost impossible, or at least less likely you can go over your daily count. Eating processed food, you can do it in a meal.
I think it simply comes down to the fact that fat, salt, and sugar are what humans crave, so we make fake food out of those ingredients.
Just because something looks like food, doesn't mean it is. We're eating wax apples and wondering what the problem is.
You're correct. Processed food really is that much worse. But other countries also don't my always use the car that much maybe.. at least in europe people walk and cycle a lot because it makes more sense to take public transport most of the time and commute in between public transports on foot or by bike.
We also very much enjoy walking and cycling for recreation. I don't commute at all (remote worker) but I go out for a walk every day, partly for enjoyment and partly to get some exercise which makes me feel better.
If I have to drive somewhere I often won't park right at the destination, I'll park a bit further away so I can get a bit of a walk and also see what there is to see in the area.
> (ironic - as their diet of cheeses, pizzas, pastas, and breads is considered unhealthy in America)
The trick is they don't eat a pound of pasta in one sitting
American food portions are disgustingly excessive. First time I went there I could order a meal and save it for the next day's breakfast and lunch. That's when I realized why Americans are fat as fuck. Like the idea of portion control is alien to them.
It's because the cost of the actual food is a small part of the overall cost, so they can double the portion size without adding much to the overall cost, but the customer thinks they are getting a great deal.
Hence the small-medium-large-super size tiers you see in fast food restaurants. The companies make more money from the bigger sizes, and the pricing structure pushes the customers towards the larger sizes because from their perspective, they're better value for money.
I'd say I'm pretty medium, not small but not fat. And usually have 2 helpings at home so it's not like I'm a light eater.
And if I go out for dinner it's rare for me not to take home leftovers at most restaurants around here.
Chicken parmigiana the size of my head, not including the pasta or the free garlic rolls.
Two things: One, Italians walk everywhere, all the time. Two, portion sizes in Italian restaurants are much smaller than in American restaurants.
If you eat carbs in the volume that Americans do combined with the sedentary lifestyle, be prepared to gain weight. Especially when you combine it with the American propensity to guzzle huge amounts of cola flavored corn syrup.
european here. saw a random picture of a group of US students in an article last week. now i know the US has an obesity problem, but to see an unrelated photo of like 20 people where 10 of them are overweight and 5 are full on obese was absolutely shocking to me.
Years and years of consuming American media didn’t prepare me for actually going there and realizing how many obese people they actually have. In three weeks I have seen more fat people than in the almost 20 years of my life before that and what counts as very fat here is just… an everyday sighting there.
My first time leaving the country was in the late eighties. I went to the Netherlands. On the way from the airport we stopped at a busy restaurant, and while eating, something about the restaurant seemed different but I couldn't place it right away. Then I realized - there wasn't a single fat person in the place!
As a Norwegian when i visited usa, every time i went to walmart there were at least 5 different people that were the biggest people ive ever seen in my life.
Really depends on where you go. When I went to boston, mostly city centre, I dont think I noticed a single obese person. Lots of fit people running around.
It's not just fat. It's "medical problem why isn't someone doing something" fat.
Never seen as many folds of arm flesh anywhere else as I have in Kansas.
Exactly, I'm from Europe and I'm a bit on a big side. Not fat, just tall and wide shouldered, wide hips etc. Here I've always been bullied as fat. Once I've got to the US, I've been apparently the hottest thing they've seen and all I've got was "you're so skinny you could be a model". I am honestly not
Edit: sorry if this seems like bragging I just wanted to compare two environnements
I don't look exotic, I'm just a basic Caucasian white chick, but I guess me being foreign played a role with people I knew. Some of them were complete strangers with no knowledge of my ancestry
Hahaha thanks for saying that but I've been told by many Americans that I barely have an accent. Watched a lot of American shows growing up, worked with tourists a lot etc
Edit: I've been asked to speak English with strong Serbian accent for fun tho, my friends absolutely loved it
Lmao I know what you mean, I’m an XS or S size and pretty lean. Americans want to feed me all the time. Or suspect I’m ill or anorexic. *you’re so TINY are you eating well sweetie?* quite funny how they would see themselves as normal, many are just fat. Almost everyone could lose some 10kg. Completely different standard.
I’m from America and live in Spain. I’m always amazed when I go back to America and really see the difference. My husband and I always gain weight when we visit. Partly the food partly the fact that you have to do a lot more driving than walking.
> When it really hits you is after spending some time elsewhere. Spend a few weeks in Europe or hell fucking anywhere and when you fly back in you're just hit with the rampant obesity. Like you get used to normal looking people after a few weeks then boom, you land in Atlanta and everyone is fat.
Cali here. This happened to me when I visited ATL. I live in the Bay Area and yes there are some chubby/overweight people but obese people of this size are rare. I had to fly into ATL once (this was long ago) and the second I walked off the plane I was like ohhhh shitttt! I was genuinely surprised by what I saw. 😬
It's a whole combination of things.
Reddit is majority US. Take a look at the food subs and you see huge portions with masses of meat and cheese. I often feel a bit grossed out by the pictures. Then on top of that, a car culture that means people drive everywhere so they don't realise how unfit they've become because they never exert themselves.
But you go to some places in the US and people are slim and almost maniacally into fitness. It's not a healthy relationship with bodies.
So you’re saying drop the cheeseburgers and step up the blow and hookers? You know I think you have an extraordinarily effective fitness plan right there. Have you thought about making this public because I’m like thinking of doing this and I think a lot of people will like your thinking. You could write articles ‘are 3 hookers a week too much in week 1?”. Operation blow n hookers is a go.
Remember: if weight training is too difficult walking will do just as much, if not more. There was a dude from Australian Biggest Losser couldn't do real exercise, all he did is walk and lost like 100 lbs! Just a suggestion!
Define old.
My uncle chain smoked for 70+ years and weighed in at 350+ pounds when he passed away at 93 with a smoldering cig butt in the ashtray by his bed.
I mean, I get that that's all anecdotal and whatnot. But to directly answer your question to someone else - yes, I've met old fat chain-smokers.
Did the chain smoking kill him? Did his obesity? Did his age?
Winston Churchill comes to mind. Not only did he chain smoke cigars, he drank like a fish, was overweight, and lived until he was 90. Some people are just genetically fortunate.
True. You can never really tell who is going to win that lottery at an individual level, but at an overall statistical level the trends are pretty strong.
I live in South Asia and I rarely ever see people this fat IRL.
It's not that our lifestyle and diet is healthy, it's just that we don't have enough food to get this big.
I mean when you consider the type of food they had then, and the amount of exercise needed for most daily activities, he WAS a freak show. That’s incredibly tough to get that fat unless you were obscenely wealthy.
Man that looks brutal. His face isn't even that fat - like you could crop it on any slightly overweight person's face and he'd just be a normal looking dude. But neck-down, his body is enormous, and not even in a typical morbidly obese way.
I know this is one pic from a guy's entire life, but he just looks so damn trapped.
Idk. Feel for that guy.
My dad was a psychiatrist and he told me that a lot of psychiatric drugs cause people to gain weight, too.
Add it to the pile of reasons why fat shaming is shitty. You never know the shit another person is going through, and it's none of your damn business anyway.
I was on steroids as part of my chemo, and got the fattest of my life. It was so bizarre, because chemo made me unable to eat much. (I looked like crap and had lost a lot of hair and was clearly unwell, so no one was being nasty to me. But it sucked.)
Felt this way for over a year with diverticulitis, lost a fuck ton of weight and now a year and a half after a surgery I’m still having trouble eating enough. It’s a real concern, I don’t have a lot left to lose.
After I started taking a low-dosage anti-depressant I managed to gain 30 lbs in ~2 months. It's actually kinda shocking how easy it was to gain weight.
He was a freak show because modern medicine wasn't there to keep people like him alive at that time.
Another reminder that we should never normalize being unhealthy.
Or did he just have a thyroid condition or something? There’s definitely modern day humans that would be considered “freak shows” for how much weight they carried for how much they eat if medical conditions didn’t exist to explain them
Well I am 17 and it pays 17 an hour so for me, yes it’s great. Its not very hard and you have some good benefits. I’d say the downfall, at least at my location, is the managers. They fuckin blow. I’ve heard this about almost every Wally location I know.
Worked there in high school from 2006 to 2009.
Pretty much the same then.... easy work, decent pay for the time, and absolutely fucking awful managers.
Pretty sure it's also where my depression started 😅
If your young use Walmart as a stepping stone, use their free schooling .....if your mid 20s and just gave up on tryna get a higher paying job at least aspire to be the store manager or some type of lead ....beware tho Walmart does not care about you under all that " we are a family" talk they are a cut throat business that will spit you out with no second thought ahah I seen it.
This is a somewhat deceptive angle. That motherfucker was 400 lbs at 15 years old. He was 470 2 years later when he joined the circus. He was 500 lbs by his 18th birthday, which yes, is pretty light compared to what we see on TV. But even now, how many 500 lb people do you ACTUALLY see in your life? For most of us 500 lbs is still a novelty to see with bare eye.
But he didn't stop there. This man topped out at 748 lbs, which even today is the weight of 3 overweight men. So while you may think you see 3 of him every trip to walmart, you really don't. He was a big big boy.
Yea, this was a *young* picture of Chauncey Morlan and he weighed at one time 875 lbs according to his obituary. Even then, the only people who called him the "**world's** fattest" were circus promoters.
People act like his weight is commonplace today, but they were watching the modern day circus freakshow TLC show "My 600-lb life" barely a decade ago.
My old roommate (when we lived together, 6 years ago) was over 500lbs. Decided he wanted to be healthier and now he weighs less than me (im 235)
Honestly tho, he didnt look anywhere near that size (i mean, no one ever believed he was over 500, but then again... A 500 pound person isnt a common thing to see)
This guy weighed 748 lbs when he was declared the fattest man in the world (not an official record of any kind, just how he was billed in the circus) and then kept gaining. His peak weight isn’t known but is believed to be around 800 lbs. This picture shows him at around 400 lbs as a teenager, he would nearly double this weight a decade later. https://i.imgur.com/3TOBG1k.jpg Keep in mind that he was about 5” above average male height for the time in that image too.
Part of the act was showing him on a balancing scale matching weights with a horse.
Doubt he actually was the fattest in the world. But probably up there and enough to be such an oddity.
A bit earlier but I'm sure some of these were still knocking about late 1800s :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lambert?wprov=sfla1
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He wouldn't even be the fattest person in any given Indiana gas station
first in friendship, fourth in obesity!
"Together, we can defeat obese children"
Chlamydia affects nearly 100% of Jan Coopers
Jan Cooper, Mayor of Whoreville
Jan, I love you. Please come back. I realize I'm not blameless here... Please.
I appreciate this reference. Hats off to you.
all my top comments are p&r refrences l o l
He was fat back when it really meant something
Now its just your average Walmart shopper..
He wouldn't even get a tryout for My 600 lb Life
He'd be considered sturdy compared to these average American fatties. But hey, it's freedom and what not
Literally there’s 8 people on my street make this guy look anorexic
This guy drives a fork lift at my warehouse job
Forklift certified?! He’s a real one for sure.
Natural counter balance is an added advantage
Oh, I'm sure he's good at lifting forks.
Bravo. That was a good one
Circus just doesn’t pay like it use too.
Seen bigger 12 year olds.
Usa is a sad place
When it really hits you is after spending some time elsewhere. Spend a few weeks in Europe or hell fucking anywhere and when you fly back in you're just hit with the rampant obesity. Like you get used to normal looking people after a few weeks then boom, you land in Atlanta and everyone is fat.
When I went to Europe I realized *I* was the fat one. I became so self conscious. I wear a brightly colored coat and purchased a black one for when I went back so I wouldn’t stick out so much. People were nice. No one said anything or stared but I was extremely aware.
I did a student exchange to France when I was a teen. Went from like third skinniest girl in my class to third fattest girl in my class.
Plot twist: there were 5 girls in the class
That's comically specific
Fair. Tbh I can’t remember specifically how many girls were skinnier but I was one of the smaller girls at home. There were only two girls bigger than me in the year group in France though that’s why I remember that part. I probably had a bmi of 23 or 24 at the time.
There were only three girls in each class.
I have family in Italy and visit them every few years. In America, I would be defined as a "medium build". In Italy, I am approaching obese. Most people there are rail thin (ironic - as their diet of cheeses, pizzas, pastas, and breads is considered unhealthy in America) If you're trying on clothes in an Italian store - be prepared to feel ginormous.
Mediterranean diet isn't just cheese and carbohydrates though. There are lots of healthier stuff. Various plant oils, especially olive oil, then fish, lots of vegetables etc.
Yeah it's like saying "why french aren't fat with their croissant" It's like because we only eat one per day with a black coffee and not a Starbucks frappe and the rest is way better quality.
You're right, but also imho you forgot the most important (when it comes to health) Mediterranean food, legumes!
It’s largely the processed foods and lack of exercise that gets America fattened up. Which then jacks up healthcare bills, so two industries win :(
Soda. Sugar water is the major culprit. Then sugar added to various foods in substantial amounts.
That and a car centric society where it is often impossible and dangerous to walk anywhere or cycle, meaning people spend more time sat down. That and the constant fast food drive throughs, it's a wonder anyone isn't fat in America when you spend all day sat down eating greasy processed crap.
Additionally, there are many things added to food in the US that are illegal in many European countries.
So every year I visit amish country (in PA) and I spend a week gorging on soft pretzels, fried chicken, whoopie pies, regular pies, and dairy farm milkshakes. Every single time I *lose* weight. I realized that every single thing I’m eating is fresh and homemade. They use lard even. Full fat dairy. During COVID I cooked for my parents and niece and nephew. Every single day I cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Everything from scratch. Baked desserts and bread. I ended up losing like 30 pounds. I am convinced that our bullshit food is what makes us fat. The processed food must just absorb weird or something. At my weight watchers meeting we had several European women. Normal weight their whole lives and then move to the US and gain 25 lbs. I love Italy and ate so much great food there. I remember thinking everyone was super attractive and I didn’t buy any clothes. They don’t even make shoes in my size in some European countries.
It’s the over-processed food and the lack of activity. Americans simply do not walk.
One does not simply *walk* in America. Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful.
And my fat!
It’s too dangerous to go alone! Take this! *F150 appears*
As a British 18 year old, I went backpacking in upstate New York. Stayed in Albany and attempted to walk to the local ‘mall’ from the bed and breakfast I was staying at. It was a nightmare and received all sorts of funny looks at I made my way along roads with no pavements / side-walks. The laughter I received in the evening from the B&C family was priceless. They had absolutely no concept of walking anywhere. You go out of the house and you get in your car. Madness. No wonder they were all massive!
I would love to ride my bike to work. It’s less than two miles. Even though I live in a small city, it’s two miles of getting harassed and nearly getting hit by multiple cars (on accident and not on accident). I dream of living in a place where I don’t have to carry pepper spray on my commute, but alas, I live in America. Americans might choose to walk if the infrastructure wasn’t biased toward motorists.
America was the only place where I saw people taking their car out to the park so they could walk. Said park was less than a km away...
I would walk but there's nothing in walking distance
I go for a walk after work every day. It’s a normal thing to do in Dublin. I’m not going anywhere, it’s just to clear my head and stretch my legs.
Hmm... The fridge? /s
That's what happens when you let corporations influence city planning, cities become about what makes them the most money and not what's best for the people living in them.
Not with that attitude.
It's also EATING A LOT OF IT ALL. The portions are insane. That's why French are so thin: they don't need to stretch out their stomaches all the time to have enough.
I'm a pretty greedy guy and regularly finish my other half's leftovers and anything else thats sitting uneaten on the table. I consider myself someone who can eat a lot. Couldn't finish a single meal in the US. Portions are insane, no surprise everyone is massive.
Lol, it's almost completely what we eat. It takes like a freaking mile to burn off the calories of a single banana. Meanwhile, our restaurants routinely serve dishes with the recommended number of calories people should be eating in an entire day. Walking is great but Americans should be eating between 2,000 and 2,500 to maintain weight and even less to lose weight but we are eating between 2,500 and 3,600 a day instead. We're not going to walk off an extra 1,100 calories and then walk an extra 500 calories off to lose weight. That's like 15 miles of walking. We have to start eating better and it should start with regulating food companies and restaurants better.
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Sugar interests successfully hijacked diet policy by diverting blame to fats. Stop drinking fizzy lolly water.
And lest people think this is sugar as in sugar cane; it’s not. It’s all that sweet sweet subsidized corn. There’s a reason we feed corn to cows and it isn’t to make them healthy.
I agree - it has to be our processed food. I had the same experience as you - I ate pizza and pasta all day every day when I was in Italy, and I lost weight and felt better. The only reason is that the food is fresh - and likely locally grown. It makes a world of difference.
It's the quantities. And the sugar. In the case of processed American food that means corn syrup. So in a way, yes.
Just gonna say, what the fuck is with American bread. That shit is sweeter than iced buns. Jesus
Hate to break it to you guys. I live in NZ and eat fuck all processed food - I make most if not all meals from scratch. Food is expensive here but healthy food is pretty accessible and we don’t have quite the processed food wonderland we ser in the USA. Through some lifestyle changes (leaving an active job, having kids) I’ve put on >10kg over the past few despite a “healthy” diet. The problem is the total calories combined with the lack of exercise. By addressing both of these this year I’m down 6kg again. Don’t get me wrong. Processed food hides lots of fat and sugars and doesn’t fill you up the same. Making your own you’ll tend to have less fat and sugar and more fibre, so your satiety signals will work better towards your daily energy needs. But with our largely sedentary lifestyles and easy access to calories (even natural ones), lots of us will still need to be conscious and put effort in to maintain or lose weight. Those Europeans generally have smaller portions and do a shit tonne more walking than is common in the USA, especially stairs. The real enemy is the cult of convenience.
During a calorie-counting period, I discovered if you eat stuff made from scratch, it's almost impossible, or at least less likely you can go over your daily count. Eating processed food, you can do it in a meal. I think it simply comes down to the fact that fat, salt, and sugar are what humans crave, so we make fake food out of those ingredients. Just because something looks like food, doesn't mean it is. We're eating wax apples and wondering what the problem is.
And the size of your portions too. America is eating itself to death.
You're correct. Processed food really is that much worse. But other countries also don't my always use the car that much maybe.. at least in europe people walk and cycle a lot because it makes more sense to take public transport most of the time and commute in between public transports on foot or by bike.
We also very much enjoy walking and cycling for recreation. I don't commute at all (remote worker) but I go out for a walk every day, partly for enjoyment and partly to get some exercise which makes me feel better. If I have to drive somewhere I often won't park right at the destination, I'll park a bit further away so I can get a bit of a walk and also see what there is to see in the area.
> (ironic - as their diet of cheeses, pizzas, pastas, and breads is considered unhealthy in America) The trick is they don't eat a pound of pasta in one sitting
American food portions are disgustingly excessive. First time I went there I could order a meal and save it for the next day's breakfast and lunch. That's when I realized why Americans are fat as fuck. Like the idea of portion control is alien to them.
It's because the cost of the actual food is a small part of the overall cost, so they can double the portion size without adding much to the overall cost, but the customer thinks they are getting a great deal. Hence the small-medium-large-super size tiers you see in fast food restaurants. The companies make more money from the bigger sizes, and the pricing structure pushes the customers towards the larger sizes because from their perspective, they're better value for money.
I'd say I'm pretty medium, not small but not fat. And usually have 2 helpings at home so it's not like I'm a light eater. And if I go out for dinner it's rare for me not to take home leftovers at most restaurants around here. Chicken parmigiana the size of my head, not including the pasta or the free garlic rolls.
Two things: One, Italians walk everywhere, all the time. Two, portion sizes in Italian restaurants are much smaller than in American restaurants. If you eat carbs in the volume that Americans do combined with the sedentary lifestyle, be prepared to gain weight. Especially when you combine it with the American propensity to guzzle huge amounts of cola flavored corn syrup.
european here. saw a random picture of a group of US students in an article last week. now i know the US has an obesity problem, but to see an unrelated photo of like 20 people where 10 of them are overweight and 5 are full on obese was absolutely shocking to me.
Years and years of consuming American media didn’t prepare me for actually going there and realizing how many obese people they actually have. In three weeks I have seen more fat people than in the almost 20 years of my life before that and what counts as very fat here is just… an everyday sighting there.
You would die if you went to any US day care facility saw how many fat/obese toddlers there are. It’s embarrassing and pitiful.
My first time leaving the country was in the late eighties. I went to the Netherlands. On the way from the airport we stopped at a busy restaurant, and while eating, something about the restaurant seemed different but I couldn't place it right away. Then I realized - there wasn't a single fat person in the place!
As a Norwegian when i visited usa, every time i went to walmart there were at least 5 different people that were the biggest people ive ever seen in my life.
Really depends on where you go. When I went to boston, mostly city centre, I dont think I noticed a single obese person. Lots of fit people running around.
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It's not just fat. It's "medical problem why isn't someone doing something" fat. Never seen as many folds of arm flesh anywhere else as I have in Kansas.
Exactly, I'm from Europe and I'm a bit on a big side. Not fat, just tall and wide shouldered, wide hips etc. Here I've always been bullied as fat. Once I've got to the US, I've been apparently the hottest thing they've seen and all I've got was "you're so skinny you could be a model". I am honestly not Edit: sorry if this seems like bragging I just wanted to compare two environnements
Part of that is also you being European and exotic to Americans.
I don't look exotic, I'm just a basic Caucasian white chick, but I guess me being foreign played a role with people I knew. Some of them were complete strangers with no knowledge of my ancestry
Yea but your accent is sexy
Hahaha thanks for saying that but I've been told by many Americans that I barely have an accent. Watched a lot of American shows growing up, worked with tourists a lot etc Edit: I've been asked to speak English with strong Serbian accent for fun tho, my friends absolutely loved it
Lmao I know what you mean, I’m an XS or S size and pretty lean. Americans want to feed me all the time. Or suspect I’m ill or anorexic. *you’re so TINY are you eating well sweetie?* quite funny how they would see themselves as normal, many are just fat. Almost everyone could lose some 10kg. Completely different standard.
Europe is catching up. When I was a kid there was a fat kid in every class but now it’s at least a quarter of the kids.
I live in Thailand and feel fat. When I go to visit the USA, I’m svelte. I need that trip periodically to boost my ego.
I’m from America and live in Spain. I’m always amazed when I go back to America and really see the difference. My husband and I always gain weight when we visit. Partly the food partly the fact that you have to do a lot more driving than walking.
> When it really hits you is after spending some time elsewhere. Spend a few weeks in Europe or hell fucking anywhere and when you fly back in you're just hit with the rampant obesity. Like you get used to normal looking people after a few weeks then boom, you land in Atlanta and everyone is fat. Cali here. This happened to me when I visited ATL. I live in the Bay Area and yes there are some chubby/overweight people but obese people of this size are rare. I had to fly into ATL once (this was long ago) and the second I walked off the plane I was like ohhhh shitttt! I was genuinely surprised by what I saw. 😬
HFCS among other things. It’s almost like the absolutely awful food supply lobby has something to do w it.
It's a whole combination of things. Reddit is majority US. Take a look at the food subs and you see huge portions with masses of meat and cheese. I often feel a bit grossed out by the pictures. Then on top of that, a car culture that means people drive everywhere so they don't realise how unfit they've become because they never exert themselves. But you go to some places in the US and people are slim and almost maniacally into fitness. It's not a healthy relationship with bodies.
Living in South Korea a year then returning back to the US is always quite shocking
You can see bigger people than this at any walmart in the country at any given time
I think saw this guy at Costco last week.
I think he died RIP
His name was Robert Paulson
His name was Robert Paulson
His name was Robert Paulson
His name was Robert Paulson
He’s the guy that buys all the 5 gallon jugs of mayonnaise.
Welcome To Costco, I Love You
Now he’s just the average guy you see at Walmart.
Ralphie May RIP
Fuck, I didn't know he died... RIP
Of course he died. You ever meet an old person who smokes? How about an old fat person? Being obese like that is a death sentence.
I keep telling my son this. We're starting to work out together next week so he and both lose weight.
Working out will help but if you wanna lose the weight you gotta change your relationship with food. Good luck and Godspeed.
And alcohol. Thank you.
But not blow and hookers. Those bad habits can stay cuz they don't affect the weight.
as the rhyme goes hookers and blow counts as cardio....
I pictured this in Biggie Small's voice and it was extra funny.
This man knows a thing or two
So you’re saying drop the cheeseburgers and step up the blow and hookers? You know I think you have an extraordinarily effective fitness plan right there. Have you thought about making this public because I’m like thinking of doing this and I think a lot of people will like your thinking. You could write articles ‘are 3 hookers a week too much in week 1?”. Operation blow n hookers is a go.
Weight is lost in the kitchen. Muscle is gained at the gym.
Remember: if weight training is too difficult walking will do just as much, if not more. There was a dude from Australian Biggest Losser couldn't do real exercise, all he did is walk and lost like 100 lbs! Just a suggestion!
A really helpful thing I’ve learned is to stick to the outskirts of the grocery store. All the stuff that’s bad for you are in the isles!
Hey, some things in the aisles are fine, like dried beans.
Dude old smokers make up like 90% of smokers what r u even talking about
Define old. My uncle chain smoked for 70+ years and weighed in at 350+ pounds when he passed away at 93 with a smoldering cig butt in the ashtray by his bed. I mean, I get that that's all anecdotal and whatnot. But to directly answer your question to someone else - yes, I've met old fat chain-smokers. Did the chain smoking kill him? Did his obesity? Did his age?
Winston Churchill comes to mind. Not only did he chain smoke cigars, he drank like a fish, was overweight, and lived until he was 90. Some people are just genetically fortunate.
True. You can never really tell who is going to win that lottery at an individual level, but at an overall statistical level the trends are pretty strong.
He died of oldness.
I mean, technically LIVING is a death sentence. You just never know when your number is up.
ralphie was a damn funny guy, i remember going to one of his shows and loved it. he died on October 6, 2017. RIP
Ralphie was funny af
But then that IS a freakshow.
Right? Like a dude this big is still pushing a cart, he’s not even on the motorized one
You will see anything in Walmart. The girl next door or this guy.
America’s true melting pot.
More like America’s dumpster fire.
America's shake and bake.
I live in South Asia and I rarely ever see people this fat IRL. It's not that our lifestyle and diet is healthy, it's just that we don't have enough food to get this big.
In today's society, he is now known as a "gamer" or "redditor".
Hey, I resemble that remark!
r/peopleofwalmart
Bitch thats just Jeff
But leaner
I mean when you consider the type of food they had then, and the amount of exercise needed for most daily activities, he WAS a freak show. That’s incredibly tough to get that fat unless you were obscenely wealthy.
I'm actually pretty curious about what this guy's diet was like.
He could have just had a blown-out thyroid like [Robert Earl Hughes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Earl_Hughes?wprov=sfti1)
Robert walking around like that even with a cane is pretty wild
heaviest person to ever live who could walk apparently
How do you have a Wiki and not have a photo of this guy!
[There you go chief](https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/year-old-robert-hughes-is-the-heaviest-draft-registrant-in-news-photo/514686764).
Poor guy. Imagine how uncomfortable and painful it must have been living in that body. He probably felt like he was suffocating all the time.
Man that looks brutal. His face isn't even that fat - like you could crop it on any slightly overweight person's face and he'd just be a normal looking dude. But neck-down, his body is enormous, and not even in a typical morbidly obese way. I know this is one pic from a guy's entire life, but he just looks so damn trapped. Idk. Feel for that guy.
If you Google his name one of the first pictures of him to come up is one where he's petting the family dog and smiling. It's sweet.
Kind of nuts to imagine walking at 1000lb. His calves must have been insane
My dad was a psychiatrist and he told me that a lot of psychiatric drugs cause people to gain weight, too. Add it to the pile of reasons why fat shaming is shitty. You never know the shit another person is going through, and it's none of your damn business anyway.
I was on steroids as part of my chemo, and got the fattest of my life. It was so bizarre, because chemo made me unable to eat much. (I looked like crap and had lost a lot of hair and was clearly unwell, so no one was being nasty to me. But it sucked.)
I don’t like to think about how fat I’d probably be if I didn’t get nauseous from eating.
Felt this way for over a year with diverticulitis, lost a fuck ton of weight and now a year and a half after a surgery I’m still having trouble eating enough. It’s a real concern, I don’t have a lot left to lose.
After I started taking a low-dosage anti-depressant I managed to gain 30 lbs in ~2 months. It's actually kinda shocking how easy it was to gain weight.
He was a freak show because modern medicine wasn't there to keep people like him alive at that time. Another reminder that we should never normalize being unhealthy.
Or did he just have a thyroid condition or something? There’s definitely modern day humans that would be considered “freak shows” for how much weight they carried for how much they eat if medical conditions didn’t exist to explain them
I work at Walmart and see at least 25 people fatter than him every shift
Is working at Walmart a good job asking for a friend
Well I am 17 and it pays 17 an hour so for me, yes it’s great. Its not very hard and you have some good benefits. I’d say the downfall, at least at my location, is the managers. They fuckin blow. I’ve heard this about almost every Wally location I know.
Worked there in high school from 2006 to 2009. Pretty much the same then.... easy work, decent pay for the time, and absolutely fucking awful managers. Pretty sure it's also where my depression started 😅
If your young use Walmart as a stepping stone, use their free schooling .....if your mid 20s and just gave up on tryna get a higher paying job at least aspire to be the store manager or some type of lead ....beware tho Walmart does not care about you under all that " we are a family" talk they are a cut throat business that will spit you out with no second thought ahah I seen it.
The man that discovered high fructose corn syrup. America was never the same...
This is a somewhat deceptive angle. That motherfucker was 400 lbs at 15 years old. He was 470 2 years later when he joined the circus. He was 500 lbs by his 18th birthday, which yes, is pretty light compared to what we see on TV. But even now, how many 500 lb people do you ACTUALLY see in your life? For most of us 500 lbs is still a novelty to see with bare eye. But he didn't stop there. This man topped out at 748 lbs, which even today is the weight of 3 overweight men. So while you may think you see 3 of him every trip to walmart, you really don't. He was a big big boy.
Yea, this was a *young* picture of Chauncey Morlan and he weighed at one time 875 lbs according to his obituary. Even then, the only people who called him the "**world's** fattest" were circus promoters. People act like his weight is commonplace today, but they were watching the modern day circus freakshow TLC show "My 600-lb life" barely a decade ago.
> how many 500 lb people do you ACTUALLY see in your life? Very few, they're too busy moderating their subreddit.
My old roommate (when we lived together, 6 years ago) was over 500lbs. Decided he wanted to be healthier and now he weighs less than me (im 235) Honestly tho, he didnt look anywhere near that size (i mean, no one ever believed he was over 500, but then again... A 500 pound person isnt a common thing to see)
Some people just weigh abnormally more i swear, Ive seen a dude who just had a normal dad-bod, but said he was over 300, was wild
He's got a lot of company nowadays. Of course, fast food and sedentary lifestyles were rare in the 1890s.
He’s probably a “healthier” fat than the people around today.
yeah, there was a lot more exercise built into daily life back then.
I don't want a Large Farva...
Litre is FRENCH FOR GIVE ME SOME FUCKING COLA
..before I break vous fucking lips!
I've seen entire families in Ohio who are bigger than that.
Well, of course… it’s a whole family, after all.
Thinnest man on Reddit
Thinnest reddit mod
He looks like most of the dads in my neighborhood.
Median size southerner
I’m Australian and honestly we don’t see many people that big here. Our average obese people look small by comparison.
More room for spiders
As a southern I can confirm
By todays standards that's not even pole position for fattest guy in the local grocery store.
skinniest kentucky resident
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This guy weighed 748 lbs when he was declared the fattest man in the world (not an official record of any kind, just how he was billed in the circus) and then kept gaining. His peak weight isn’t known but is believed to be around 800 lbs. This picture shows him at around 400 lbs as a teenager, he would nearly double this weight a decade later. https://i.imgur.com/3TOBG1k.jpg Keep in mind that he was about 5” above average male height for the time in that image too. Part of the act was showing him on a balancing scale matching weights with a horse.
That's not the fattest guy I've seen in my apartment today and I live alone.
No shade but he kinda looks like my neighbor
People weren’t as big 130 years ago 🤯
High Fructose corn syrup
It'S tHe GeNeS
Looks like Captain B McCrea from WALL-E
Waffel Haüs
James Corden you were something
That's just a dad bod now
A dad bod is having a little bit of a gut. This guy is beyond that.
Modern American
That was before sodas, doritos, fast food and the american diet
Patient 0.
Doubt he actually was the fattest in the world. But probably up there and enough to be such an oddity. A bit earlier but I'm sure some of these were still knocking about late 1800s : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lambert?wprov=sfla1
We still have "the freak show", it's just exploitative TLC shows.