Edited due to dead links:

Cultural differences are alwasy fun to explore. Having been on a diet for the past few months* a breif discussion about pizza in the silleness chat got me to thinking about obesity and differing cultural attitudes towards food.

I think we all know this picture:


Well, that picture is a load of crap. We eat pretty much the same foods here in Europe that Americans get. We all go to McDonals, we all eat pizza and pastas, in terms of what we eat there are no major differences.

Still:
Obesity in Europe: 15.5% of the adult population (double what it was 20 years ago).
Obesity in America: 33.8% of the adult population (up around 40% from 20 years ago).


The reason for the increase is simple:


This is a trend that (like many others) started in America and has since migrated towards Europe. As a result American food portions are now siginifcantly larger than ours.

As an example lets take the sizes of pizza (based only on two retail chains, so not very scientific but it is just to illustrate the point):
In America Seious Pizza's MEDIUM (smallest size they have):
18" (45 CM) at $11.95 (9.40 euros).

In The Netherlands New York Pizza's LARGE (doesn't get any bigger):
35 CM (14") at Euro 12.49 ($15.89)

So the smallest American pizza is 28.6% larger than the biggest one here in The Netherlands and costs 25% less.

And it isn't just pizza:




Volume and availability. In America there is one McDonalds restaurant for every 20,000 people. Here in The Netherlands there is one for every 75,000 people. Combine this with larger portions and lower prices (BigMac index) you can see where the higher level of obesity in the US has come from.

Now we KNOW this trend is migrating towards Europe as our food culture becomes more and more influenced by Ameican attitudes and hollywood movies. Personally I feel we need to stop this. Quickly. But how?

Several countries have started implimenting "fat taxes" on high fat and sometimes high sugar foods. However, since these foods are already more expensive here than in America I don't see this making a significant impact on people's consumtion of them. And as I mentioned: it isn't what we eat that's causing the problem anyway. It's how much we're being served.

So how do we get industry to sell smaller packagings in the supermarkets? Since they make their profits through bulk sales smaller packagings cut severely into their operating income as it increases packaging costs dramatically. This also leads to greater amounts of packaging material ending up in land fills, with all the enviormental consequences thereof.how do we get restaurants to serve smaller meals? In higher end restaurants it shouldn't be much of an issue. In fast food chains (which represent the majority of food establishemnts) customers tend to equate price with volume. A decreas in volume will have to be followed by a decrease in price or customers will not accept it. Since this results in a decrease in profits the fast food chains won't do it (unless public opinion forces them too: McDonalds removed Supersize from it's menus after the documentary Super Size Me came out).

And how do we get restaurants to serve smaller meals? In higher end restaurants it shouldn't be much of an issue. In fast food chains (which represent the majority of food establishemnts) customers tend to equate price with volume. A decreas in volume will have to be followed by a decrease in price or customers will not accept it. Since this results in a decrease in profits the fast food chains won't do it....

Unless public opinion forces them too. McDonalds removed Supersize from it's menus after the documentary Super Size Me came out. Other restaurant chains (Wendy's and Buger King) only changed the labeling but the precident is there.

Can we change people's attitudes towards food? Educate them that smaller portions are better? Can we force a change in our culture to prevent this problem from spreading further? Since this would amount to large scale social engineering... do we really want to?




*I'm 1m70 (5'7") and my starting BMI was 31.3 (obesity is officially defined as a BMI of 30 or above) or 91.7KG (201lbs). Currently at 28 (81kg/178lbs.). Target is 75KG (165lbs), a BMI of 26. Yes, that is officially still on the heavy side but I like myself that way.