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Comment by banish-m4 | Hacker News Reader

Japan doesn't have carb-heavy ultraprocessed foods, social tolerance of obesity, or massive quantities.

>Japan doesn't have carb-heavy ultraprocessed foods

Without a doubt they do. One of their most important foods is rice, I don't think there are many cultures eating more carb heavy. For the processing, maybe, what is the actual difference to the US or Europe?

>social tolerance of obesit

Maybe? Although hard to quantify, certainly many Americans want to loose weight.

>or massive quantities

Japan certainly is not suffering from any food shortages and surely you can eat however much you want there.

You're tilting at windmills if you think Japanese foods approach the level of caloric density and unhealthiness of burgers, burritos, french fries, Doritos, and other shit Americans eat.

But you are just saying that things are different because they are different. What happened in the last 70 years to make obesity a mass epidemic in the West?

It clearly wasn't the mere existence of unhealthy foods, the Japanese have tons of unhealthy food as well. You can get a burger there without any issue.

US corporations managed to make food addicting by using science to formulate food in such a way as to trigger a massive spike in dopamine followed by a massive drop a short time later. Combining that with an individualistic culture that leaves many lonely and anxious, it’s no surprise that people depend on substances to make themselves feel better. The average american puts themselves to sleep with a 2 litre of cola, a bag of chips and a pint of ice cream while playing games on their cellphones way late.

If you saw a population of people injecting heroin into their veins and getting frail, would you say you have a frail ness epidemic? No. What you have now is a food addiction epidemic. You should treat it as you treat any other addiction.

Japan has the same foods available, by the same US corporations. Why are they seemingly immune to it?

>Combining that with an individualistic culture

So that is the only change since the 50s? Seems like a very weak explanation.

The US has already strongly reduced the use of a very addictive substance in the past by making it culturally unacceptable in the case of cigarettes. Japan has the same culture already with food, where there is strong cultural pressure to not abuse food. Perhaps it is time to bring back shame towards overeating?

The US has also seriously reduced the use of sugar over the last decades.

I agree that overeating should be shamed, but was that needed 70 years ago? To be honest I don't believe the cultural issue. Which percentage of US citizens believe that they should loose weight? Likely a very large proportion.

A hamburger isn't particularly unhealthy depending on what you put on it.

The sizes are different -- in America, it is pretty hard to even get a small cup of coffee -- but carbohydrates are carbohydrates: the caloric density is the same.

The stereotypical lunch for a salaryman is ramen, which is just is carbs served in a broth just dripping of fat. Go to a popular teishoku lunch hole-in-the-wall and you'll see[0] a kara-age set (fried chicken and rice), chicken nanban (fried chicken with a fatty sauce, and rice), or maybe a katsudon (fried pork on rice). The veggies you get are some pickles and then a pile of dry shredded cabbage.

The stereotype of Japanese food abroad is it's all just grilled fish and sushi but there is a LOT of fried food involved.

I'll say US portions are absolutely out of control though, I think that's the biggest thing. When my Swedish friends went to visit the US they ended up just ordering one thing at every restaurant and sharing it, and the waiters would just laugh at them.

[0] https://taku-an.com/?page_id=37

Difference of eat portions is important

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