Anonymous wrote:It's all the walking. Plus portions are much smaller. Literally impossible to buy too much at the grocery store - very few sweets, etc.

I don’t think they have few sweets - so many bakeries, chocolate stores, and in Italy gelato is everywhere.

Anonymous wrote:The metabolic and hormonal environments in their wombs are much healthier, for many of the reasons mentioned already. In the US many of us are on the third generation of dysfunction re: insulin, cortisol, androgens, etc. Epigentic nightmare

But in Europe there’s a lot more cigarette smoke (even second hand).

less access to fast food and cities/towns that are revolved around community/activities.

They eat a lot less, walk a lot more. That makes up for 90% if the reason. The rest would be less processed food. But even the processed foods they do eat are vastly smaller portions and not nearly as easily accessible as here.

Where are you getting your information about Europeans? I can’t speak for every country, but I lived with a French family for a year. They ate a lot of vegetables and drank plenty of water. We had a vegetable based soup often. There was a green salad with olive oil every night with dinner. The mom would set out radishes (to be dipped in salt and butter) before dinner. The serving sizes seemed small at first. The mom also bought fresh bread and produce nearly every day on her way home. The dad would get up before the family and ride his bike to the best bakery for fresh baguettes because the three bakeries on the nearby corner weren’t the very best. They mostly drank water with meals. When I would meet other teen girls for “a drink” most would have just a sparkling water or a black expresso. It’s no mystery to me why the French are thinner.

Anonymous wrote:It’s the food supply in Europe. They don’t eat food doused in Round-Up and micro-plastics.

I vote for this and the walking.

They're definitely not eating fewer vegetables. Especially if you count beans, legumes, and potatoes as vegetables.

Maybe you're focused on a stereotypical European diet, instead of an actual European diet?

Anonymous wrote:…and are all way healthier than my mc/umc peers in the us.

What gives?

Is it literally just working less and walking more — diet, working out, hydration don’t matter?

They eat waaaaaaaaaaaaay less.

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in Europe multiple times. I’m always thinner there. I walk a ton more, but I think it’s also something about the food.

I was friends with a bunch of World Bank folks in my twenties. They all felt there was more sugar here and blamed their weight loss on that.

I meant to say weight gain

The metabolic and hormonal environments in their wombs are much healthier, for many of the reasons mentioned already. In the US many of us are on the third generation of dysfunction re: insulin, cortisol, androgens, etc. Epigentic nightmare

So what?

I am American but I almost never eat veggies ("you don't make friends with salad"), never drink water, rarely work out, and while I don't smoke, I do drink a lot of soda. However I am thin. Here's what I have in common with many Europeans:

- I avoid heavily processed foods. Most of the food I eat is homemade, including all the bread and pasta and meat and other non-salad items I consume. There really are not many preservatives in my diet.
- I walk a ton. Miles a day.
- I tend to eat smaller meals (which is easy because I eat heavy things that are satisfying, like pastries, pastas, rich sauces, etc.) and I don't snack much

It's not purely genetic that I am thin because my parents and two of my siblings are obese. But they eat a lot of processed foods, including "diet" foods. And they never walk anywhere, they live in a part of the country where doing so would be very hard anyway. They do "exercise" but it's like once or twice a week they go to a class or the gym. But in between they are extremely sedentary.

I think idealized American suburban life as conceived of in the 1950s is largely to blame. Families with two cars who drive everywhere they go, meals made from processed ingredients or take out or fast food, exercise limited to what you might do in your own yard or a weekly class (that you drive to). We think a lot of this stuff is a sign of success as a person (the American Dream) but I think it's literally killing people.

Anonymous wrote:It’s the food supply in Europe. They don’t eat food doused in Round-Up and micro-plastics.

I don't think the pesticides and micro-plastics are nearly as big a problem as the chemicals that are put into our food. We are a microwave/frozen/fast food junkie nation. Our foods are filled with preservatives, artificial colors and flavors, artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, and oils. We eat far more fried foods. And we are addicted to foods where the ingredient list sounds like the order forms for chemical factories and labs. I think the heavily artificial diet full of chemical additives is a lot more to blame for the health issues like obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and a host of other health problems.

I have lived in Europe multiple times. I’m always thinner there. I walk a ton more, but I think it’s also something about the food.

I was friends with a bunch of World Bank folks in my twenties. They all felt there was more sugar here and blamed their weight loss on that.

I'd assume they are more active because they have less home space and like to get out more. And they work less, so less sedentary again. Plus they eat less.