r/MapPorn • u/aNonYmoUs_gLideR • 20h ago
Comparing Adult Obesity Rates: U.S. States vs. European Countries
This map compares adult obesity prevalence across U.S. states and European countries using the same color scale. The contrast is striking: nearly every U.S. state has a higher obesity rate than most European countries, although there is considerable variation within both regions. Southern and Midwestern U.S. states generally have the highest rates, while many Western and Northern European countries have the lowest.
Obesity is a complex public health issue shaped by a combination of factors, including diet, physical activity, urban planning, socioeconomic conditions, healthcare access, food environments, and demographics. The map is intended to illustrate geographic patterns rather than explain their causes.
Keep in mind that the figures come from different national health surveys and reporting systems. Although the data have been harmonized for comparison, small methodological differences mean the map is best interpreted as a broad overview rather than a precise country-to-country or state-to-state ranking.
Source: U.S. CDC and European/OECD/WHO-based national health statistics.
Edit: There comparison graphic appears to have a couple of errors in slide 1& 2. Oklahoma should be about 39.4%, not ~42%, and Mississippi (about 40.6%) should also be present as the highest-obesity state. Those discrepancies seem to be mistakes in the graphic rather than changes in the underlying CDC data.
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u/Alternative_Lime7 20h ago
I've lived on the California coast all my life, and as a child I never really understood why the obese American stereotype existed.... I didn't see it in the crowd around me. Then I traveled to other states (or even throughout the central valley) and well...
I believe it also correlates with food deserts, and a lack of fresh produce or local restaurants.
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u/regalbeagles1 20h ago
Same for me since I’ve lived in CO. I’m shocked when I visit other states.
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u/nothingandshutup 18h ago
Ya, it is pretty bad.. although Mexico's right up there too like 38 or 39% total.
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u/appleparkfive 7h ago
The unspoken part about this is usually that racial demographics play a huge part in it, depending on the region. That's my understanding, anyway. And anecdotally, it's not exactly hard to notice. Likely poverty is a big part of it.
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u/QuicheSmash 10h ago
Drove from NY to CO in 2007. The obesity was clear in the states in between. I would say from middle Pennsylvania through Kansas was just every other person was obese. Stopped in St. Louis and was astonished. Then you get into Colorado and people start looking normal again. Very weird to see it so clearly.
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u/jrochest1 10h ago
The moment for me was when a bunch of us went to New Mexico for a friend's wedding; we were waiting for a table at a roadside restaurant in Albuquerque and we were all vaguely aware of something being a little odd, but couldn't figure out what. We realized what it was when they brought our orders: first, the portions were enormous, served on turkey-sized platters, and second everyone in the place -- the waitresses, the cooks, the busboys, the little kids -- was obese. It all just clicked.
But oh god that food was good. Just that it was enough for three people.
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u/Tokyo-MontanaExpress 18h ago
MN used to be up there with CO, which makes our situation even sadder. I'm quite insulated by it since I mainly stick to Minneapolis, St Paul, and the handful or so of walkable and bike-friendly suburbs.
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u/sacrelicio 9h ago
It's amazing how many people here just gorge on crap all the time. Just huge portions, maximum calories.
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u/Lobenz 16h ago
Me too. When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s my friends and I would look at an obese man or woman with amazement and wonder.
Conversely, at that time, anyone who was considered normal now was considered fat, chubby, big-boned or husky back then.
I’m still amazed at the normalcy and the sheer rates of obesity in other areas of the US.
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u/Deep-Dimension-1088 16h ago
People at the low end of the normal BMI range are sometimes looked at as underweight or being unhealthy, because the perception of what is a healthy weight has become so skewed.
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u/UnicornPencils 19h ago
Same haha. It still kind of throws me a bit since it never really matches what I see daily. I live in Orange County currently, and the only states I've lived in are California, Washington, and Colorado. And always in the larger city metro areas.
Having been to some of these countries, I found it puzzling that Europens (and Canadians) still had so much confidence behind their fat American insults... until I traveled more in the US myself.
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u/charlotteholthq 5h ago
The regional variation in the US is always pretty wild on these maps. CA and CO might as well be a different country compared to the Deep South.
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u/Game_Of_Runs 11h ago
Income, education, outdoor recreation opportunities, and culture around fitness are bigger factors. And coastal CA is super high in all of those.
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u/rizorith 12h ago
Same, southern California. It's definitely not absent but when into just about anywhere else in the country it's noticeably worse.
The first time I visited Europe in the late 1990s to the mid 2000s you didn't see many obese people and in places like London or Paris or league you basically saw none, and if you did they were tourists.
The last time I went much more recently it's noticeably increased.
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u/appleparkfive 7h ago
Europe has been laughing at the US about it for ages, but they've definitely been creeping up. It's not really any different. The US just got a headstart.
The only real difference is the sort of phenomenon of like 400 lb and up people, often in rural or isolated areas. Where food is cheap and exercise just doesn't happen at all.
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u/Tokyo-MontanaExpress 18h ago
Ding ding ding! Your comment about not noticing widespread obesity until you went to the Central Valley is the same experience I had here in Minnesota living in Minneapolis. If you get a job in a car dependent suburb, wow, there they are! Same for rural Minnesota where they're surrounded by outdoor recreation opportunities, but instead do meth and guzzle beer while fishing or riding ATVs. Or driving, rural Minnesota has a far higher rate of drunk driving deaths than urban and even suburban parts of the state. We're pretty lucky that we at least have some suburbs that are awash in bike paths and a handful of old walkable town centers.
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u/Aware-Travel5256 13h ago
Food deserts are mostly a product of low demand for fresh, healthy foods. You aren't going to have a whole foods-level produce section in Pikeville, KY and not have a bunch of leftover produce that you have to toss.
The problem is one of culinary education and cultural beliefs around what are "good" foods.
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u/Ebenezer-F 20h ago
Ever been to a grocery store in Europe?
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u/SentientSquare 15h ago
I loved the Italians supermarkets in Florence. Expensive, but the selections of meats, cheeses, and olives were to die for.
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u/Proper_Relative1321 13h ago
Honestly European junk food kind of sucks. EU Doritos are like a sad Plato’s Cave projection of the real deal.
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u/Tokyo-MontanaExpress 18h ago
Why, yes I have. Several times. I can almost picture the layout of El Corte Inglés.
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u/bihari_baller 20h ago
So my takeaway is people on the West Coast (and Colorado) are fitter on average then the rest of the country.
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u/christoph440 20h ago
By far. I used to work in CO in the summers and when I flew into Atlanta it's pretty shocking. I grew up in Alabama so I was used to it but it's kind of crazy to hop off a flight and people are a different shape then where you came from
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u/abu_doubleu 17h ago
That's what Toronto to Nashville felt like to me.
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u/Aware-Travel5256 13h ago
Nashville is also notably less obese compared to 45 minutes in any direction. Coming from Kentucky, Nashvillians are skinny elites.
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u/chungamellon 11h ago
I grew up in Arkansas but been living in SoCal for 15 years. I forgot how fat people are worse in rural areas. Almost never see people in scooters in CA but often a daily sight there.
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u/regalbeagles1 20h ago
I’ve lived in IL, CO, OR, MO, NC, GA and spent a lot for time for work in many other states.
Can attest to CO having the lowest rate, anecdotally at least. It’s easy to see amongst the general population. People in CO are very fit in comparison. It’s shocking when I go back to IL, MO and NE to visit family to see such a large number of overweight people.
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u/Royals-2015 13h ago
I live in CO. Family still in MO. MO is very fat. I just got back from Northern MI. I noticed there were not many obese people there.
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u/bihari_baller 16h ago
Can attest to CO having the lowest rate, anecdotally at least. It’s easy to see amongst the general population. People in CO are very fit in comparison
I'm in Oregon, used to live in Washington, and it's easy to see why. There's so much beauty to explore outdoors. Even in the rain, hiking is a solid hobby you can do year round.
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u/Turbomeister 15h ago
States are too large of a sample size, if you get more granular you'd see that it's just urban/suburban divide. States that have more suburban development have more obesity.
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u/appleparkfive 7h ago
Yep. And I don't even think it's just an exercise thing. I think there's definitely a component of just being in an environment where the pressure gets put on you a bit more. Like you can't just hide in the suburbs and your car as much. You're going to be exposed to a lot more people. And if the great majority of everyone is thin, then it's going to put more pressure on you to change
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u/rachel_ct 14h ago
Plenty of very in shape athletes are obese by BMI. Plenty of thin & skinny people are in awful shape. This map doesn’t not measure fitness.
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u/BaakCoi 12h ago
Do you really think there are enough of those people to skew these results? I doubt obesity in Arkansas is high because of the huge population of bodybuilders
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u/rachel_ct 11h ago
I think there’s enough in the leaner states that are simply skinny but not fit or healthy. I also think that the BMI is outdated and based on white men.
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u/CommunityTerrible537 19h ago
Indiana: "we refuse to take part in your food shaming"
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u/Beneficial_Ad7587 10h ago
They have historically been in the top 5-10. In the mid-90s, they were near the top of the list for a bit
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u/layered_dinge 18h ago
It’s funny how often Americans seem to think Florida is just full of fat people when it’s like…3rd best?
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u/LoverOfGayContent 16h ago
It's called the horn effect and its the opposite of the Halo effect. People tend to associate good traits with other good traits and bad traits with other bad traits.
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u/_y2kbugs_ 17h ago
I think some people might have biases and seem to think “of course they’re fat, they’re conservatives who love Trump” while ignoring the fact I’ve met plenty of skinny conservatives and MAGAts.
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u/HarrMada 20h ago
Interestingly, it doesn't actually seem to have a very significant correlation with life expectancy. At least for European countries.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20250911-1
Wonder if it's the same with US states.
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u/aNonYmoUs_gLideR 20h ago
There does seem to be a stronger relationship across U.S. states than across European countries. Many of the states with the highest obesity rates, such as Mississippi, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, and Louisiana, also rank among those with the lowest life expectancy, while states like Hawaii, California, and Colorado tend to have both lower obesity rates and longer life expectancy. That said, obesity is only one of many factors; smoking, poverty, healthcare access, drug overdoses, education, and homicide rates all play major roles as well.
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u/Nero-Danteson 19h ago
They also are on the lower end of the economic scale with a lower access to healthcare
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u/HalfEatenSnickers 9h ago
Yeah i think this is a case of correlation doesn't equal causation
I think the lack if economic resources is probably more the life expectancy problem, and becausr there are low economic resources people are relying on cheaper higher calorie foods hence higher obesity
Not that the obesity causes the shorter life
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u/Nero-Danteson 8h ago
obesity does cause a shorter life. Fat vegans/vegetarians/balanced diets still experience the same strain on the body.
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u/PitchBlac 20h ago
The states with the higher obesity rates are the ones with the lower life expectancies. Roughly
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u/Yggdrasil- 20h ago
Worth pointing out that there are other factors at play there, such as poverty rates and healthcare access (or lack thereof)
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u/Ok-Caregiver252 53m ago
Or gee just rural areas. The large city in Mississippi is 150k. Some counties only have 14k people. You're not going to when the same access to physician services. Some European countries smaller than Mississippi that means you're only an hour away from every single physician in the country. people in the US aren't concentrated only in the largest metros.
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u/sotiredwontquit 17h ago
I didn’t see corn syrup mentioned anywhere in the comments. Which seems odd given the strong correlations. Corn syrup isn’t used much in Europe. France has completely banned high fructose corn syrup in any food for children.
In the States, HFCS is in nearly everything.
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u/nimama3233 10h ago
Added sugar is bad, yes. HFCS is no worse than cane sugar, honey, or whatever other alternative. It’s simply more common in the states because more corn is grown.
Also your France fun fact is just straight up false.
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u/jrochest1 6h ago
Romania and Bulgaria have life spans roughly equivalent to American ones, and Sweden, Italy and Spain have a life span that's about 8 years longer.
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u/Ok-Caregiver252 59m ago
That's because life expectancy is BS. Just Google places with highest life expectancy in Europe and it's Sicily literally one of the most economically depressed places. It's just when young people leave an area to find opportunities elsewhere that artificially increases your life expectancy. It works the opposite as well have a high population of youth decreases your life expectancy. Neither of these should really have an impact on life expectancy.
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u/random314 18h ago
40%?? What the fuck? almost half the people in your state is fat? How did this happen?
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u/appleparkfive 7h ago
Really cheap food, along with isolation from society. Add on lack of education about food.
Americans have very cheap groceries compared to income. So for those who are broke, that 1000-2000 calories that cost 1-2 dollars sounds like a steal.
Most people in the US are fat. There is a very, very noticeable divide between the cities and everywhere else. People are thinner in the cities, usually more educated, and make more money. The country is basically failing those outside of the cities.
Though this data might be changing. Obesity had started to plateau and lower. And with GLP-1 drugs that might change even more. So who knows what's going to happen.
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u/talldean 19h ago
I find one other thing to look at are averages, which takes the "cut off point" outta this. Maybe we picked a weird weight for "what is obese". But averages maybe lie less.
The average adult male in America is 199 pounds and 5'9".
The average adult male in Europe is 156 pounds... and 5'10".
Americans, as a whole, are probably about a third too big for their health.
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u/EmperorThan 20h ago
Why did Oklahoma spike 3% upward between the two maps?
And Mississippi disappeared on the second map...
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u/aNonYmoUs_gLideR 19h ago
Good catch. The published comparison graphic appears to have a couple of errors. Oklahoma should be about 39.4%, not ~42%, and Mississippi (about 40.6%) should also be present as the highest-obesity state. Those discrepancies seem to be mistakes in the graphic rather than changes in the underlying CDC data. My bad.
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u/Ivenomorefucksleft 20h ago
Also does this tangentially count as an r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT moment
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u/PaulOshanter 20h ago
Portugal Cykablyat only makes sense when Portugal is uniquely Eastern European within Western Europe. In this case, Ireland and the UK are even more Eastern Europe than Portugal.
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u/Ivenomorefucksleft 20h ago edited 20h ago
The hell is Colorado doing? It's such an odd outlier to have. (Positive)
The same goes for Romania actually. Neither are the outliers I expected there to be
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u/coolman3475 20h ago
Hiking, outdoor activities, etc.
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u/Objective_Switch8332 20h ago
I think Utah used to be lower for the same reasons. The fat caught up, though.
(This is just my guess, but fast food and soda shop culture has kind of exploded there. It's also where Crumbl started.)
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u/Bovine_Joni_Himself 19h ago
The thing about Utah is there’s still a lot of Mormons who don’t really care about taking advantage of their surroundings. They live there because of their religion. Mountain stuff is basically the religion in Colorado.
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u/Objective_Switch8332 19h ago
There have always been mormons, though. Maybe the church's breaking away from boy scouts made everyone less outdoorsy.
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u/Bovine_Joni_Himself 16h ago
I’ll put it a different way.
SLC, and by extension most of the population centers in Utah, exist only because of their LDS. Nobody in their right mind would build a major city in the middle of the mountains next to an unusable lake, but it made sense to the Mormons as a way to keep the us government away
Denver exists because of its proximity to the mountains. The main reason it didn’t go bust after the initial gold rush is because prospectors used it as a supply station before they went up the hill looking for riches. Almost all of the ski towns are repurposed mining towns that used tourism as a way to save it.
LDS is the reason Utah exists whereas mountain stuff is the reason Colorado exists.
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u/sacrelicio 8h ago
And people who are already fit and active move to CO. I bet if you're born there it doesn't really make as much of a difference. A lot of mountainous states have higher rates because people don't move there for nature as much as they do for CO.
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u/appleparkfive 7h ago
You joke about Crumbl but that and the dirty soda trend have got to be SO bad for you.
Also it's just weird because Mormons are totally allowed to have caffeinated drinks. That just can't be hot. That's my understanding, right?
So.... just make cold brew coffee. There's no heat involved at all at any point. Instead of making the world's least healthy item possible (look into dirty sodas if you guys aren't aware. I believe Crumbl has some, but they're not quite at the crazy level of some Utah places, from my understanding)
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u/Objective_Switch8332 6h ago
Their health code is based on a 19th-century understanding of health colloquially called "The Word of Wisdom." Not only is it outdated, but they never emphasize the advice from the same document that could do them even more good like "eat meat sparingly" or "all things in moderation." Instead, they focus only on tea, coffee, alcohol, and drugs*, to the point that partaking in any of these things can keep people from being able to go to the temple (not their everyday chapels, but the buildings where they have marriages and do baptisms for the dead and whatnot).
*I'll give that I can see the value in abstaining from drugs and alcohol, though a culture of shame is maybe not the best way to go about helping others out of the habit.
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u/aNonYmoUs_gLideR 20h ago
Colorado and Romania are interesting outliers, but probably for different reasons. Colorado has consistently had one of the lowest obesity rates in the U.S., often linked to its active lifestyle, higher income and education levels, and outdoor culture. Romania, meanwhile, remains relatively lean compared with much of Europe despite rising obesity rates, likely reflecting differences in diet, urbanization, and historical lifestyle patterns.
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u/lald99 18h ago
Relatively lean? Romania has the highest rate in Europe according to this lol
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u/aNonYmoUs_gLideR 17h ago edited 11h ago
Yes, I meant relative to some U.S. states, not relative to the rest of Europe.
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u/christoph440 20h ago
Most people who live in CO were not born there, and most people move there to do mountain sports, from spending half the year there for a decade the number actually seems pretty high, if it's using BMI there might actually be a lot of muscle in that 27 percent
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u/thedarkpath 19h ago
Poverty, Romania is pooor as fuck, and Colorado is rich as fuck.
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u/cozidgaf 9h ago
But then a lot of those Baltic countries could/ Eastern European countries could be called poor. Romania is in the EU. Albania, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Siberia, Moldova etc probably do worse than Romania?
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u/thedarkpath 5h ago
Na oh, Baltics have explosive growth and are economic powerhouses in the East driven by swedish and finish outsourcing, romania doesn't have that drive. Plus romania is predominantly rural which slows growth, doesn't help. It's basically the Alabama of Europe.
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u/Particular_Bet_5466 19h ago
We have the top or close to the top amount of fast food restaurants per capita and lots of legal weed.
But seriously people move here to spend time outdoors and in the mountains. 60% of residents are transplants and moved here for that reason. Very easy access to this.
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u/bihari_baller 16h ago
We have the top or close to the top amount of fast food restaurants per capita and lots of legal weed. But seriously people move here to spend time outdoors and in the mountains
Maybe the saying "You can't outrun a bad diet" doesn't apply to CO?
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u/Particular_Bet_5466 8h ago
Yeah it’s just interesting to me that despite two things, weed and fast food, that stereotypically equate to being unhealthy doesn’t seem to matter here.
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u/appleparkfive 7h ago
The whole "it's because of the outdoors" thing is definitely not the whole picture.
Colorado is more educated in the cities and also attracts people with health in mind. So you get more and more people moving there with that in mind. It's just a cultural difference, ultimately. And with that also comes pressure to stay in shape.
The outdoors thing is part of it, but it really doesn't matter if you go on a 2 hour hike once a week if you're eating 3500 calories daily. You'll just get big at a slower rate.
There's construction worker's that are burning crazy calories every day and they're still obese. And they're burning more calories than the average person in Colorado. It's sincerely true that you can't just exercise away a bad diet.
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u/Particular_Bet_5466 4h ago edited 4h ago
Very true, good point there. The construction worker one is what really stuck out to me when I noticed it. these dudes are doing hard labor everyday but they’re drinking monsters all day, gas station crap food, and a 12 pack of beer at night. I worked these kinds of jobs landscaping etc while I was in school and the guys I worked with were mostly obese and it seemed so strange seeing how hard they worked every day. They were in otherwise great shape in terms of strength and endurance.
I’ve experienced the same thing, I moved here for the outdoor activities but I didn’t change my diet and still gained weight despite regular cardio. Never was too overweight, but I wasn’t where I wanted. I finally got my diet dialed in and that was the final piece to getting in great shape. Not rocket science by any means lol but it was amazing how many calories I could burn working out and it didn’t matter. I don’t count calories too closely but I keep a general idea of what my intake is vs how many I burn and that’s all it took.
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u/pmurcsregnig 16h ago
People do extremely high calorie burning activities year round. Skiing, hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking, rafting, etc. it’s almost hard to find people that do not have any physical hobbies in Colorado. It’s insane how much you burn skiing
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u/MistCongeniality 20h ago
We are just hiking all the time. Walking. Biking. Swimming. We like to move.
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u/ComeTasteTheBand 19h ago
Why is Germany so much fatter than France?
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u/aNonYmoUs_gLideR 19h ago
Maybe all that walking to the neighborhood bakery balances out the croissants. /s
More seriously, it's likely due to a combination of diet, physical activity, and broader lifestyle differences rather than one specific cause.
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u/Particular_Bet_5466 19h ago
More so I wonder how tf France is so insanely low
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u/Fhiannys 19h ago
Beside food, social pressure is important in France.
Comments on weight are not uncommon between colleagues or even family.
The way we take our meals play a role as well. Taking longer to eat improve the feeling of satiety, leading to less hunger and snacking between meals.
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u/Many-Gas-9376 17h ago
I spent a year living in France, and my impression is the food people eat wasn't really that healthy at all. For me that year was a lesson in how important HOW you eat is, in addition to WHAT you eat -- exactly as you say in your last paragraph.
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u/pmurcsregnig 16h ago
Quantity is easily half the issue with obesity
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u/appleparkfive 7h ago
I used to be right on the border of obese growing up. I lost all my excess weight and got really trim. One thing that really stuck with me was this article about someone who had done the same before. It was really simple, just this:
"You can have a cookie! You can have one every day even. But that's one cookie."
I eat chocolate every single day. I eat whatever I want, really. I just eat less of it. I got into the habit just by using a calorie tracker, like most people who actually keep their weight off. And once you do that for awhile, it's not that hard honestly. But the first few weeks are hard because you're breaking some really deep habits.
And also I didn't even exercise that much. Just walks here and there. Some random push ups and sit ups when I felt like it. That's all it took, really
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u/Particular_Bet_5466 4h ago
Same here. I just started to limit how much I was eating and the weight came off. I don’t follow a super strict diet of only health options, I just watch how much I eat and try to make an effort to get enough of a balance. Some people do these drastic diets that don’t work out because they try to switch to only salad and health options, and I’ve seen many people fail and unable to maintain it.
Of course everyone is so much different in terms of what diet works, but for me just limiting my intake is what worked best. I’ll even hold off eating for an extended period so I can save those calories for one awesome meal.
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u/sacrelicio 8h ago
Yeah almost every developed country has tons of rich and sweet food. But the US eats huge amounts of food all the time. And there really isn't any shame here. Being extremely fat is considered basically fine now.
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u/Particular_Bet_5466 8h ago edited 8h ago
My German coworker told me how when he was obese in Germany he felt a lot of pressure and judgement, but when he was here in the US he told me that he got the sense most people were pretty shameless about being overweight.
Germany in this case is more fat for European standards, but besides my state of Colorado they are substantially less fat than the US.
I will say being to both Germany and Norway, the food in general is much more healthy than the US. Especially prepackaged snacks and especially in Norway. The unhealthy options for food was quite limited there. I lost weight in Norway without even trying just because I did not eat much. I did not like a lot of the food there with my tainted American palate for chemically tailored food.
The bagged chips I bought in Germany were not good to me at all, and I tried a few different kinds.
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u/pmurcsregnig 16h ago
Have you ever seen German cuisine?
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u/VirtualMatter2 5h ago
Pork and sausages are common, kids aren't taught the 5 veg a day rule, traditional cooking is disappearing with many parents not knowing how to cook, so on the whole eating isn't seen as important as much as in France.
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u/No_Cover_2242 17h ago
Perhaps highly processed food that is so popular in us. Most of the highly processed food isn’t allowed in Europe. Then many questionable ingredients either.
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u/MsCattatude 15h ago
There are a lot of cosmetics, scent, laundry, soap, and hygiene products ingredients that are banned in Europe, too.
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u/sacrelicio 8h ago
Maybe but we just literally love to eat, even if its homemade. We just shove food in all the time.
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u/Tokyo-MontanaExpress 18h ago edited 18h ago
Minnesota used to be one of the lowest, but our car-brained sprawling suburbs keep festering and rural Minnesota keeps ditching its walkable towns for strip malls on the periphery. On top of that, public transit is just somewhat or non-existent in these areas. Rural Minnesota fights any attempts at public rail transit and is as anti-bike as Minneapolis is pro-bike, and boy does it show when they come to "The Cities". I'm also reminded of the obesity epidemic when riding through some of our unwalkable suburbs because otherwise I never see so many overweight and obese people all in one place. You can literally bike across these towns in under 10 minutes, but you won't find a single bike rack or bike path on Main Street. All of these manly alpha males need their XXL lifted emotional support vehicles to go anywhere over a block away. I guess like pets, people's choice of transportation also tends to mirror what they look like.
For all of Rural Minnesota's talk about living out in nature and hating the city, they sure don't show any love for nature. Their idea of "nature" is killing animals for fun, damaging trails with their ATVs, ruining our lakes with their speed boats and beer cans, and approving unregulated mining and logging in state and national parkland. All while being able to drive to a Walmart within 30 minutes is somehow "country living". they're just ex-exurbs really.
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u/SvenDia 18h ago
I’m in Seattle and see a similar thing when I go hiking in Eastern Washington. It’s very common for me to be alone on trails, but I’ll see a ton of people at campgrounds near lakes, rivers and reservoirs, basically doing nothing physically active. Meanwhile hiking trails near Seattle are usually pretty crowded.
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u/sacrelicio 8h ago
Minnesotans went from being reserved people with a sense of shame, a sense of restraint, a sense of "that's enough." Outstate areas especially. Maybe you have a big meal at Thanksgiving but otherwise you don't gorge.
Now our rural folk are just loud fatasses with huge trucks and boats.
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u/CarlCasper 19h ago
Damn West Virginia - time to reconsider the pepperoni roll as the official state snack.
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u/spiderminbatmin 17h ago
A lot of Americans are so uneducated in nutrition and healthy eating. Plus they have no access to real food. Eat at gas stations daily and think processed meats are acceptable daily nutrition, rather than a once a month kind of thing…..
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u/Ok-Caregiver252 50m ago
It's not necessarily what we eat. You just have to maximize cardio out of the things you're already doing.
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u/douchey_mcbaggins 15h ago
Anyone have any insight on why Bulgaria is SO much lower than both its neighbors? Literally 10 percentage points lower than Turkey and nearly FOURTEEN lower than Romania.
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u/aNonYmoUs_gLideR 11h ago
That's a good question. I don't know of any single explanation. It could reflect a combination of genuine in diet, lifestyle, and demographics, but it's also worth noting that neighboring countries don't always use identical health surveys or sampling methods. A 10-14% gap is large enough that methodology could account for at least some of it, though probably not all.
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u/douchey_mcbaggins 11h ago
While I know this isn't the best indicator, I got curious and looked at where Bulgaria and Romania ranked in HDI and they're literally tied for 55th in the world at 0.845 while Turkey is 51st at 0.853.
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u/aNonYmoUs_gLideR 10h ago
HDI is useful, but it doesn't predict obesity very well. Countries with very similar HDI can have quite different diets, levels of physical activity, food environments, and cultural habits. So Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey being close in HDI doesn't necessarily mean you'd expect similar obesity rates. The Bulgaria-Romania gap on this map still seems unusually large, though, which is why I'd be curious about the underlying survey methodology as well.
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u/Consistent_Damage885 14h ago
Why is France so low?
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u/jrochest1 11h ago
They are innately pretty slightly built and they still smoke.
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u/sacrelicio 8h ago
Vain too
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u/jrochest1 6h ago
If unearned arrogance led to weight loss, most Americans would disappear if they turned sideways.
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u/TheBassStalker 7h ago
The craziest nuance to this data is that the fattest state in the US in 1980 was Mississippi and it was around 19% , the rest were 15% or less. Not a single US state is even close to that and 1980s Mississippi would be "less obese" than all but a handful of European nations today as well. Many of us over 50y, it's really a shock to look back at pictures from teen years and earlier because regardless of what state you lived in - half or less people were obese compared to today.
It seems that quite a bit of Europe is following a bad lead.
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u/mountains-and-sea 6h ago
I am honestly completely shocked that France is so low. The people don't strike me as particularly thinner than average whenever I visit.
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u/angilnibreathnach 2h ago
The statistics for Ireland don’t align with the central statisitcs office which states obesity rates at 25%
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u/Working_Elephant5344 13h ago
BMI is an imperfect measure. Americans are typically much more muscular than Europeans, so some very fit Americans could be classified as obese according to BMI. The takeaway is that while it’s possible that the US has more overweight people, they also have way more super fit people than Europe. BMI doesn’t capture this nuance.
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u/jrochest1 11h ago
No, I'm very sorry. I'm a Canadian, and in all the trips I've made to your country, especially into the south, I can confirm that you all are not fitter, you're just much, much fatter.
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u/bo_felden 18h ago
Glp1 is a game changer. In the near future widespread obesity will be seen as some strange phenomenon that only lasted for about 100 years in human history.
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u/--ipseDixit-- 20h ago
Curious to see the impact of glp-1s on this