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Maxim Lott's avatar

Having lived in both the US and Europe, I feel pretty confident that it comes down to:

-- more unhealthy food consumption

-- more driving, less walking

Miles driven per person data could surely be obtained. Maybe there is also data by country for calories per person?

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The Delinquent Academic's avatar

As a New Zealander, a big factor - excuse the pun - for us being up the fat list is that notable size of our population being Polynesian or Maori. Here's the Ministry of Health Statistics NZ: "...71.3% of Pacific, 50.8% of Māori, 31.9% of European/Other and 18.5% of Asian adults [are] obese." (Pacific = Polynesians and Micronesians).

Auckland, our biggest city, also is largest Polynesian city by population in the world. Combine the cultural factor of Polynesians finding larger woman attractive (or at least as having status) with fast-food, and ya get obese Polynesians clogging up our health system. All it's due to racism of course though. That's what we're told at school.

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