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When I was in the U.S. I could totally understand why people live unhealthy..
If you compare U.S. with Europe.. (this is my general observation)...
Europe
- Smaller cities with old city centres where much is doable on foot
- Cycling is more common and this is reflected by infrastructure favouring cycling (some countries)
- Okay food is relatively cheap and readily available
- Europeans take pride in regional and national foods, less Fordist produced foods
- More leisure time and time to exercise
U.S.
- Larger spread cities and shopping centres that need to be visited with car
- Car culture is necessary because of how U.S. cities were built (open, spread areas, in contrast to old medieval style in Europe)
- Unhealthy food is cheap and readily available
- Healthy food can be very expensive
- Longer work days that reduce time to exercise
Of course you have varieties in Europe and the U.S. but these observations are more or less a norm. While people have a degree of responsibility it’s also true that the very way in which U.S. cities were made will lead to drastically different outcomes!
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