Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These were friends of friends who live in Europe. They were French, German, Portuguese, and Swedish. Most people were 55+. They were decently well-off but not rich. Many were already retired.

Throughout the whole night, nobody compulsively looked at their phones. The only phone use was to take pictures and play music.
Not a single person was overweight.
Everyone looked 10-20 years younger. And yes one of them smoked, they all drank, they all spent time in the sun.
Everyone was vibrant and happy.
Everyone had so much energy and positivity, much more than 30-40something Americans. Nobody was tired.
Nobody complained of ailments or back problems or excessive medications.

I asked how everyone lived so well and looked so great. They said it was because they had universal healthcare, less stress, great food, and didnt feel beaten down by work throughout their lives.

America is doing it wrong.

Did these Europeans live in the US at some point? I don’t know any European that would mention universal healthcare as a reason for their wellbeing UNLESS they live or lived in a place where that isn’t the case.

I think most "europeans" know that the US is backward this way and it's hard to not think about how weird we are if you are trying to understand differences between the two places in terms of quality of life.
Also, Europeans think most Americans are weir in terms of our striving at work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty sure if you have a dinner party of 55+ aged Americans they would be similar. Relaxed, looking forward to retirement, focused on family, talking about travel, etc.

If you speak to, especially French, people in their late 20s-early 30s they are they have the same burdens as Americans. Work, pension age keeps rising (did you see Paris burning this summer?), access to good health care, complaining about politics.

It is more generational than anything else. In fact it is pretty amazing how similar the generations are even though their nationality is completely different.

Uh, emphatically no. At least not 55+ Americans on the East Coast. We’re still working so hard to pay insane college tuition, to fund our pension-less retirement. We’re sandwiched between college-bound kids and managing declining parents who need a high quality assisted living they cant afford and need meds they also cant afford and Medicare doesn’t cover.

Maybe we just got right- sized out of our pension-free job and still need to work but know we won’t get hired at the same salary because of rampant legal age discrimination.

We might be estranged from a sibling or two because of their illness that we euphemistically call a “mental health issue” One of our young adult kids likely suffers from this, too, and that continually gnaws at us. Their treatment has been spotty under our abysmal mental healthcare framework that has no available beds or providers — just pills

Notice that my hypothetical 55 year old isn’t herself sick or facing the consequences of a lifetime of bad lifestyle decisions. She’s buffeted on all sides by features of the American experience and it’s stress-inducing and unhealthy

Anonymous wrote: So, after one dinner party, you decided ALL Europeans are healthy and ALL Americans are tired out?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These were friends of friends who live in Europe. They were French, German, Portuguese, and Swedish. Most people were 55+. They were decently well-off but not rich. Many were already retired.

Throughout the whole night, nobody compulsively looked at their phones. The only phone use was to take pictures and play music.
Not a single person was overweight.
Everyone looked 10-20 years younger. And yes one of them smoked, they all drank, they all spent time in the sun.
Everyone was vibrant and happy.
Everyone had so much energy and positivity, much more than 30-40something Americans. Nobody was tired.
Nobody complained of ailments or back problems or excessive medications.

I asked how everyone lived so well and looked so great. They said it was because they had universal healthcare, less stress, great food, and didnt feel beaten down by work throughout their lives.

America is doing it wrong.

Did these Europeans live in the US at some point? I don’t know any European that would mention universal healthcare as a reason for their wellbeing UNLESS they live or lived in a place where that isn’t the case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These were friends of friends who live in Europe. They were French, German, Portuguese, and Swedish. Most people were 55+. They were decently well-off but not rich. Many were already retired.

Throughout the whole night, nobody compulsively looked at their phones. The only phone use was to take pictures and play music.
Not a single person was overweight.
Everyone looked 10-20 years younger. And yes one of them smoked, they all drank, they all spent time in the sun.
Everyone was vibrant and happy.
Everyone had so much energy and positivity, much more than 30-40something Americans. Nobody was tired.
Nobody complained of ailments or back problems or excessive medications.

I asked how everyone lived so well and looked so great. They said it was because they had universal healthcare, less stress, great food, and didnt feel beaten down by work throughout their lives.

America is doing it wrong.

Did these Europeans live in the US at some point? I don’t know any European that would mention universal healthcare as a reason for their wellbeing UNLESS they live or lived in a place where that isn’t the case.

Visited, but not lived. The mutual American friends had left the US because of the healthcare system.

Also worth mentioning: they ate sweets, but not excessively. Nobody even mentioned anything about weight or dieting.
Also absent from any dinnertime discussion was work. I couldn’t tell you what everyone did or used to do for a living. Nobody talked about Covid, money, or other people’s expectations.
They also minimally discussed politics, only to make fun of Trump and the idea that Americans could elect him to serve office from jail or something like that, and they mentioned that their own governments weren’t perfect but nobody wanted a U.S.-type system.

There are things with their lifestyle that would appeal to the political left and right. As I said, the emphasis on health and well-being over work was the main reason why everyone was so energetic and healthy and happy. Healthcare, vacation time, and fewer work hours contribute to this. But the other thing was more family-oriented culture and less obsession with identity and gender. Women were happily feminine in their own way and men were happily masculine in their own way. Nobody was complaining about The Patriarchy or sexism, they also weren’t bigoted either, just normal and not in a bind about everything.

It’s a small representative size and yes I have traveled in Europe many times before, mostly before the pandemic. But this was an interesting case where multiple people, older people, from different countries shared their experiences “in the wild” not in a tourism setting. My takeaway is that American-style capitalism, private healthcare, high fructose corn syrup and processed foods, and stress are more detrimental to our health than anything else. This is a sick country and we are doing so much wrong that it’s a complete farce to say we’re the best.
That, and there’s this overall trend in raising age of retirement, especially the actual age where retirement is feasible for most people, and lowering life expectancy, it’s like the nest egg and golden years are all a scam to make you work harder and enjoy life less.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do we really need yet another “Europe is perfect, America sucks” post on a message board dominated by people living at the top of the US pyramid?

Exactly. Another reason we don’t need one is that we can always count on a European living in the USA to jump in and tell us how great Europe is as well. Oh, the irony.

Anonymous wrote:These were friends of friends who live in Europe. They were French, German, Portuguese, and Swedish. Most people were 55+. They were decently well-off but not rich. Many were already retired.

Throughout the whole night, nobody compulsively looked at their phones. The only phone use was to take pictures and play music.
Not a single person was overweight.
Everyone looked 10-20 years younger. And yes one of them smoked, they all drank, they all spent time in the sun.
Everyone was vibrant and happy.
Everyone had so much energy and positivity, much more than 30-40something Americans. Nobody was tired.
Nobody complained of ailments or back problems or excessive medications.

I asked how everyone lived so well and looked so great. They said it was because they had universal healthcare, less stress, great food, and didnt feel beaten down by work throughout their lives.

America is doing it wrong.

Anonymous wrote:I’m sure your European friends would buckle under the American system just as easily. They’re not better; but I do agree their system is better.

Plop them here and they would be just as fat & stressed!! I hate our car dependent culture, and how capitalism/shareholders rule everything.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cheerios in the states contain chemicals not permitted in Cheerios in Europe.

Here is a crazy idea. Stop eating processed “food” for breakfast. Maybe that’s the problem here.

You can have a healthy lifestyle in the US if you try to and stop buying shelf stable garbage in the middle of the grocery store.

The point is that Europeans can buy garbage but not worry about the deleterious health impacts because their junk food isn’t poisoned.

Anonymous wrote:These were friends of friends who live in Europe. They were French, German, Portuguese, and Swedish. Most people were 55+. They were decently well-off but not rich. Many were already retired.

Throughout the whole night, nobody compulsively looked at their phones. The only phone use was to take pictures and play music.
Not a single person was overweight.
Everyone looked 10-20 years younger. And yes one of them smoked, they all drank, they all spent time in the sun.
Everyone was vibrant and happy.
Everyone had so much energy and positivity, much more than 30-40something Americans. Nobody was tired.
Nobody complained of ailments or back problems or excessive medications.

I asked how everyone lived so well and looked so great. They said it was because they had universal healthcare, less stress, great food, and didnt feel beaten down by work throughout their lives.

America is doing it wrong.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cheerios in the states contain chemicals not permitted in Cheerios in Europe.

Here is a crazy idea. Stop eating processed “food” for breakfast. Maybe that’s the problem here.

You can have a healthy lifestyle in the US if you try to and stop buying shelf stable garbage in the middle of the grocery store.

The point is that Europeans can buy garbage but not worry about the deleterious health impacts because their junk food isn’t poisoned.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cheerios in the states contain chemicals not permitted in Cheerios in Europe.

Here is a crazy idea. Stop eating processed “food” for breakfast. Maybe that’s the problem here.

You can have a healthy lifestyle in the US if you try to and stop buying shelf stable garbage in the middle of the grocery store.

Can I eat muesli?

Anonymous wrote:My father outlived all his German cousins. He moved to the US in his 20s. It was American healthcare that saved him from heart failure in his 80s and his living moderately that allowed him to live into his 90s when the cousins all died from heart disease by their early 80s.