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You are shooting yourself in the foot if you are comparing a US state to say, eh, Moldova. The countries you named are only European by geography. They are on par or worse than North Africa.

That being said, life expectancy is a very bad measure in my opinion. Americans consume a shit-ton of junk food.

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Is there another way to be European than by geography?

You can compare the US to the EU (political entity vs political entity). If you're comparing to Azerbaijan you should also put Mexican states on the American side, being that it's also in the same continent.

It's almost as if people who can afford to eat better, do eat better.

This is wrong. Food is very much linked to culture. Many countries eat better than the US. Most countries in the world (except some in Africa in some situations) don't have problems feeding most of their society.

Except it isn't wrong. Indigenous food cultures know how to get their nutrition and built entire cuisines and cultures around that. Americans who live in concrete food deserts are forced to eat what's cheap and available, which is usually fast food.

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