Charts of alcohol consumption, obesity, and physical activity in Europe | Hacker News Reader

Charts of alcohol consumption, obesity, and physical activity in Europe

washingtonpost.com

20 pointsLibertatea28 comments

There is a flaw in the obesity chart. If you will note, the highest obesity countries are actually based on measurements; the rest of them as self-reported. If you ask a person (especially a man) if they're obese, quite a few will say "no"[1]. Mixing different measurement techniques is a no-no, and makes for flawed conclusions.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority

I interpreted this as the country self-reporting, not the individuals.

Section 4, 4.1 and 4.2 gives details about how the data is collected for each country.

(http://www.oecd.org/els/healthpoliciesanddata/TableofContent...)

As an American I found the update quite interesting. Americans have a 35.9% obesity rate versus 28.5% for the most obese European country.

I'd like to understand why that is, but would guess that the US obsession with cars, parking lots and suburbs is one reason. Another might be related to the fact that Americans tend to, on average, do more poorly, on standardized education tests, which could imply that we have more people here who are ill equipped to understand how things like nutrition, calories and physiology work.

There are a lot of demographic factors in play too. The US has a much higher proportion of blacks and Hispanics than any European country. These groups are 51% and 21% more likely than whites to be categorized as obese using the usual methods. The US also has a far higher percentage of people livif in rural and suburban areas. In my own experience, my equillibrium weight when I was living in the suburbs of virginia was notably higher than when I was living in New York or Chicago.

The same is true for educational metrics, by the way. The so-called standardized testing gap between the US and European countries almost disappears when you adjust for demographics.

Could those groups higher (if they are higher, I don't know) obesity be attributed to poverty?

In general, poor Americans, are way worse off than poor people in most EU countries.

Ever visited a poor country? There aren't many obese people in poor countries for one very obvious reason.

Povertry in first world countries are different from povertry in, for example, africa. There are poor people in europe and the US, they are not poor in the sense that a african can be poor but that is not the same as they are not poor and that their behavior are not influenced by their poverty.

Let's not conflate the issue. If poverty was a contributing factor for obesity, then poor people worldwide would show higher rates of poverty. People don't get fat because they are poor, they get fat because they don't care that they're getting fat. If anything, being poor would be a disincentive for obesity - why spend money on something that you don't have to when money's in short supply? By basic logic, the poorer you are, the less obese you should tend to be. Notwithstanding the occasional actual medical condition which leads to obesity, being obese is a conscious, cultural decision, and blaming it on poverty seems ridiculous.

In first world countries there is a link between obesity and poverty. In general if you are poor you a re more likely to be fat. For example see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14684391

You also seem to imply that it's cheaper not to be fat, in many first world countries the unhealthy food seem to be the cheapest!

I know that there is a link between obesity and poverty, but correlation does not necessarily imply causation, and in this case, anyone who buys and cooks their own food will immediately recognize the causation claim to be ridiculous.

The unhealthy food being the cheapest food argument is bunkum - just go to reddit.com/r/budgetfood and try to tell them that processed food is cheaper. There is nothing cheaper than chicken thighs, rice, beans, noodles, and various veggies. Every week, I make a crock-pot of something tasty and healthy from scratch. This week, I made a wonderful soup with fresh carrots, potatoes, celery, onions, and pork loin. The total cost was about $15, and I got 7 big portions. Substitute something less expensive than pork loin, and it's even cheaper. Last week, I made a huge pot of spaghetti sauce, complete with italian sausage, fresh mushrooms, onions, garlic, and a few extra cans of whole tomatoes for about $10, and I wasn't even really trying to do that one cheaply. I got about ten portions out of that one. The week before, I made a quiche type-thing with a dozen eggs, some breakfast sausage, a bag of hashbrown potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and a bag of cheese. Total cost: about $10. Not the healthiest thing, but better than processed junk, and again, fills you up quite nicely 7-8 times. I could go on, but you get the picture, I'm sure, and this is just with a crock pot - if I had a functional kitchen, my cooking options would expand considerably.

People who eat unhealthy food don't eat it because it's cheaper than healthy food, they eat it because they don't want to cook.

But if you really want to know why poor people tend to be obese, watch what they drink: sugar. All day, every day, it's sugary drinks, from kool-aid to sweet tea to sodas - I don't know why, but for some reason poor people tend to drink a lot of sugary trash.

Which, again, is more expensive than the healthier option: water.

Leftist apologists like to trot out the 'healthy food is more expensive' argument because suggesting that poor people are obese because of their lifestyle decisions rather than their supposed status as victims of the system runs contrary to the left's general line of bullshit, which is that if there is a problem, it stems from systemic failure, and that a government policy should be implemented to alleviate that issue. Of course, not all problems can be fixed with government programs, this being one of them. People are not obese because they are victims, they are obese because they value stuffing their face with unhealthy food more than they value being fit. It really is that simple, and unfortunately, that is a social problem that no government policy can fix.

My original argument was that there was a causality between poverty and obesity which I thought you argued against but I am glad that we agree.

The underlying reasons for this link I don't think we will agree on.

I think you may be a little confused about the difference between causation and correlation. There is a correlation between obesity and poverty, but whether poverty is a cause of obesity or not is far from certain, and it is my stance that it is not a cause at all - and especially not because 'processed foods are cheaper than healthy foods.' Anyone who believes that has not spent nearly enough time in grocery stores, and anyone who believes that poor people are fat primarily because of an inability to afford healthy foods has not spent enough time around poor people.

No I am not confused. If you read my original post I only talk about correlation, not cause. I think you do the argument far to black and white but that was not what was my point.

What's really interesting is that Mexico has about a 24% obesity rate, making it lower than most obese European countries, and much lower than the US. Similarly, countries like Jamaica, which have a predominantly black population, have much lower obesity rates than the US.

The poverty angle doesn't quite fit either, as both Mexico and Jamaica, as well as many Eastern European countries (Romania, Slovakia) have much higher rates of poverty than the US; but much lower obesity. Although, there could be a link between poverty and the availability of high fat/high sugar foods.

Neither Mexico nor Eastern Europe have the incredible prevalence of cheap processed food we have in the U.S., nor the de-facto demographic segregation of particular minority groups in inner cities where that kind of food is the only thing practically available.

It's just incredibly misleading to look at the U.S. as a single country in these sorts of situations. You end up taking the average of several very different societies segregated along racial/economic lines.

Take Chicago for example. You'd think it'd be a very diverse city, given that it's about 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 hispanic. Except it's not. I was walking down Michigan Ave the other day (where the high-end retailers are) and literally 99% of the people around me were white. Chicago is actually a collection of racially segregated neighborhoods, each internally quite homogenous and with dramatically different access to healthy food, nutritional education, etc.

Another possibility is that US people tend to work longer hours and for more days of the year. Workplaces are not good conditions for exercise and food. And once away from work it is easier to go for convenience (eg fast food) due to limited time availability.

What I find most striking is that most European countries have a bigger alcohol problem than America. I might not have guessed that right away. I wonder if it's mainly due to the stronger Christian influence in America.

The fact that they all live longer, healthier lives than Americans might suggest that they don't actually have a bigger alcohol "problem"

That said, UK drinking culture is abysmal

or the fact that there are no drinking laws in most of Europe (or hardly enforced). As a 16 year old, no one will deny you a beer in Germany or France, but good luck getting a drop in the US in most places.

Why would a 16 year old be denied a beer in Germany? Sixteen is the drinking age for beer and wine. And then 18 for hard alcohol.

I think the drinking age in the USA is a joke. At 18 you are responsible enough to be given a gun and kill people in the military, but you are not yet responsible enough for alcohol.

And at 18 you are responsible enough to buy your own gun.

(Admittedly only shotguns and rifles.)

I think that's OK. Choose one: gun or alcohol. Giving both rights will not end good.

UHh what? We do have drinking laws, except they're at different ages. In the Netherlands it's 16 for beer and wine and 18 for hard liquor (>15% ABV, except wine, port, vermouth and sherry).

Not really Christian, but puritan. Alchohol is actually a big part of Christianity. It was only the Puritans that were against it. That is probably why the Puritans were kicked off to America.

But I suppose alchohol is just treated differently in Europe. It is considered almost like food. A beer or wine is part of your dinner, it is not something that you only drink on a special occasion or just to get drunk.

Lithuanian here (see charts where we are in regard to alcohol). No, it is not considered food here. We really have big problems with cheap alcohol here that you can get anywhere. In US you have various problems getting alcohol (different rules with each state but generally you can't go to any store and buy bottle of Vodka). I will simply give another link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra...

Yes, I know correlation does not mean causation, but correlation is strong here.

The UK has a severe problem with alcohol.

There are a variety of drinking cultures. There's the well known youth culture of daily drinking, and drinking to excess at weekends. This is drinking to get drunk.

This problem drinking is encouraged by 'VDEs' (Vertical Drinking Establishments) which use tactics to get people drinking more. There is a lack of seating and tables. That fits more people in, but also you're always holding your drink. This makes you drink faster. Music is loud, so you're not talking as much, which also makes you drink more.

But there's the other less known problem drinking among adult professionals who drink a couple of glasses of wine every night.

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Units_of_alcohol_cha...)

One 200 ml glass of wine at 11% is 2.2 units. 5 of those is 11 units, which is close to sensible limits of women. 10 of those is 22 units, which is over sensible limits for women, and close to sensible limits for men.

This isn't alcohol with a meal, and it's not traditional binge drinking, but it's linked to the rise in younger people with cirrhosis.

(Full disclosure: I'm a teetotaler)

Everything you described also applies to Spain. Here, it's usual to have a beer while eating (wine is less common for young people); but, usually, "drinking to get drunk" is the norm in weekends and evenings. Many people actually do it on Thursdays, even if they still have to work or have classes the following day.

Here, most people wouldn't call it a problem.

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