Are Americans really the fattest people on earth?

Short answer: No. There are several nations where the percentage of overweight/obese adults is higher than it is here, but most of them are small island nations in the Pacific that most Americans have never heard of. Are we the fattest developed nation on earth? Yes, for now.

I lived in the UK for many years and the overweight/obesity statistics there varied wildly, giving a range of 50/60 (male/female) prevalence for overweight/obesity all the way up to 60/70%. Most statistics put the UK just behind the US in terms of overweight/obesity prevalence, but I saw the occasional statistic that put the UK ahead.

You can safely say that about 30% of Americans are clinically obese and about 24-25% of British people are clinically obese. I fully believe that American obesity rates will plateau in the coming years and the British will catch up to us along with the Mexicans, the French, the Canadians, and the Australians.

When Americans go to the UK, they almost always go to London and stay in London, never leaving the city except perhaps to visit Stonehenge or Windsor Castle. London is the UK's slimmest city so if you never travel to Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, etc. you get a skewed picture of how big British people really are. They're huge. They're gigantic. They are just as big as we are. When I came back here to one of America's fattest cities in one of America's fattest states, I had anticipated people here being much bigger than people in my small city in northern Britain. I was shocked by how NOT fat people here were compared to their British counterparts. Don't get me wrong, we are a VERY fat nation...but so are the British!

Basically the British have found a silver lining in their skyrocketing obesity rates, and that is that they are not as fat as we are. YET. They have children under 10 developing type II diabetes at astounding rates, they have controversies with gastric bypass surgery on the NHS, they have controversies with the NHS having to buy new equipment (beds, hoists, etc) for super-obese patients...there were even stories about how crematoriums could not accomodate the new extra-wide coffins manufactured for the more "zaftig deceased" British.

Sound familiar? It should.

So, my fellow Americans, take heart in knowing that while we are fat, so are Europeans, Canadians, Australians, and Central Americans. When Europeans lecture you and expound on their theories as to why we are so fat...ignore them. What do they know? Their obesity rates are rising much faster than ours are (because they are catching up to us). If they knew how to fight obesity, they wouldn't be so obese themselves.

Listen to your DOCTORS, and don't feel bad when other countries point the finger. Eat healthy food. Ditch fast food. Exercise. Count calories. Live a healthy lifestyle for yourself and your children. And don't be ashamed. Just take action. A lot of us are in the same boat. There is no magic pill, no silver bullet. It's environment and lifestyle, pure and simple. Our bodies are not adapted to the abundance of food and sedentary lifestyles that we lead. Listen to your body, not cackling foreigners calling you fat. Take it slow and steady. We can take off the extra pounds. We MUST take off the extra pounds. We are at the point now where the fat is more than an aesthetic issue. We are at the point where it threatens to shorten the average life expectancy of our country. We are at the point where it will add billions in extra healthcare-related expenses to our yearly budgets. We all pay for it. We are all responsible.