Does just immigrating to the USA lead to weight gain?
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My daughter credits her walking to controlling her weight (paper route). We've discussed how much more walkable many European cities are.0
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As to why, I believe it's access to abundance of food and affordability where they didn't have it before.
Also the institution of American lifestyle in the workforce (long hours, long commutes, high stress, super competitiveness, etc.) are probable contributors to it too.
Initially I thought it was just more processed foods, but the same foods are available in the Philippines too.
Feel free to chime in on this especially if you have friends or relatives that immigrated here in the last 10 years.
I think you hit the nail on the head on those points there.0 -
Just because not everyone gets fat when they move to the US, i still think that moving to the US is going to make it quite likely for a lot of people so i'm in agreement with the OP.
The women who wrote French women don't get fat got fat in the US and only returning home did she start to address it becuase her family were so shocked by her. She explained it as being due to not have regular home cooked meals anymore. French has a good healthy food culture. America has a generally unhealthy food culture. It is hard work to eat well in the us but not so much in more traditional countries.
This is not to say that you can't get fat in France of other cultures. But you are more likely to get fat in the US.0 -
eatgoodeat wrote: »Interesting thread @ninerbuff
. My brother and I came over here with my parents when we were just 6 and 3 from Laos and I'd have to say "yes". We have cousins who are close in age to us over there and they are tiny compared to us. Really my whole family over there is tiny both in height and weight.
With easy accessibility to food and convenient transportation our first few months in state, my family became healthy and then over indulgent as time went on. Both my brother and I struggled with being overweight until we became athletes when we were younger.
My parents grew up as village people so they grew and raised everything they ate. Lived a harder laborious life with just enough food to just sustain, sometimes even less. Today, my mom is a diabetic and overweight. My dad on the other hand always seems to slip into the underweight side from year to year as he gets older but he wasn't ever overweight just healthy range.
This thread kind of cracks me up because just yesterday, my mom laughed and commented on the quantity of food I was weighing just for myself and made the comment "u know der fewt u take feed der whole family" referencing the homeland.
I like you - you make me smile, or rather your mom does
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As to why, I believe it's access to abundance of food and affordability where they didn't have it before.
Also the institution of American lifestyle in the workforce (long hours, long commutes, high stress, super competitiveness, etc.) are probable contributors to it too.
Initially I thought it was just more processed foods, but the same foods are available in the Philippines too.
Feel free to chime in on this especially if you have friends or relatives that immigrated here in the last 10 years.
I think you hit the nail on the head on those points there.
+1. Weakening of labour laws & unfettered capitalism are bad for tummies.0 -
I moved to the US 13 years ago and gained 45 pounds or so in 5 years. The main change in my lifestyle was going from walking 2 hours a day to being sedentary (need the car to go anywhere here). And I ate out a lot too, and with US portion sizes and the difference in food quality (all the fried food), well, there you go.
Other than that I had to change my diet a lot, as my diet was a lot of fresh bread, deli meat, croissants, cheese, pastries, and puddings, none of which are really easy to find here (I could pretty much never settle for the Americanized pastries), even less affordable. So I switched to pizza, chips, and ice cream. Probably comparable calorie-wise though...
ETA: I went to the UK a few times to stay with different families for a week and their diet was pretty horrible as well, honestly, lol.0 -
I gained 25 pounds in one year after moving to usa from India...rven when I tried to eat healthy.The food here is just messed up I think..gmo and what not.
Nope. Its always gonna come down to calories consumed . if you eat at a surplus , you'll gain weight. Even if its healthy foods.0 -
my dad's wife moved to the US 10 years ago from Vietnam, and she hasnt gained much since coming here. However, she eats pretty much exclusively Vietnamese style food. She says American food is "make you fat".0
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I think a lot of it is the kind of food people eat when they get here.
I don't believe it's just the fast food. They have versions of fast food in the Philippines (and just about every industrialized country in the world) where people have total access to it, but affordability wise, not many can do it often.Plenty of people come here and don't gain weight. So, No, being in the US doesn't mean you are fated to fatness.
A friend of mine from India plumped up on Burger King. He fell in love with Whoppers, which is a big no-no in India. It's a religious thing, no beef. His family - including his wife, to whom he's been married for fifteen years - does not know he eats beef. They cannot figure out why he's plump and think it's an American thing, lol.
He will eat BK at work and then go home and eat again, to cover up the fact that he ate.
I thought that when his parents died, he'd fess up about the Whoppers, but no. His son also eats beef and he doesn't know this. The son doesn't know Dad is doing it and Dad doesn't know the son is doing it. They both take great pains to hide it from each other. I don't *think* the wife is doing it, but I don't know her that well.
I'm patiently waiting for them all to find out. When either the son or the dad get outted, surely the other will admit it. I think. I've been waiting for many years for all of this beef eating to come to a head.
But everyone blames America for his fatness when BK and crazy lies are the true culprits. Maybe that is America being to blame, though.
Also there's no national law in India banning the slaughter of cows and selling and eating meat. It's harder to obtain and do in some states, but states like Goa eat meat regularly.
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I didn't say there was a law in India about meat. It's just a big thing for my friend. His parents couldn't know he ate beef. His wife cannot know, none of the people they know can know. We are all sworn to secrecy. I'm not even sure exactly what the deal is, just that we cannot tell. It's a huge thing, his big, deep, dark secret.
I tend to think that if/when it comes out, it won't be as big a deal as he thinks, but he's kinda convinced it would be the end of the world if people found out that he liked his cheeseburgers. He wants to lie, so we don't tell. It's been going on for over 25 years, so he may get through his whole life without having his secret revealed, lol. I tend to think that it must come out at some point, but I've been thinking that for a long time and it hasn't happened yet.0 -
LOL thanks @suziecue20 my mom makes me laugh all the time, she a funny ladysuziecue20 wrote: »eatgoodeat wrote: »Interesting thread @ninerbuff . My brother and I came over here with my parents when we were just 6 and 3 from Laos and I'd have to say "yes". We have cousins who are close in age to us over there and they are tiny compared to us. Really my whole family over there is tiny both in height and weight.
With easy accessibility to food and convenient transportation our first few months in state, my family became healthy and then over indulgent as time went on. Both my brother and I struggled with being overweight until we became athletes when we were younger.
My parents grew up as village people so they grew and raised everything they ate. Lived a harder laborious life with just enough food to just sustain, sometimes even less. Today, my mom is a diabetic and overweight. My dad on the other hand always seems to slip into the underweight side from year to year as he gets older but he wasn't ever overweight just healthy range.
This thread kind of cracks me up because just yesterday, my mom laughed and commented on the quantity of food I was weighing just for myself and made the comment "u know der fewt u take feed der whole family" referencing the homeland.
I like you - you make me smile, or rather your mom does
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Any weight gain will come from a caloric surplus.
Albeit , its likely easier to over consume here in the USA . but it still comes down to calories.
Yes, there are bigger portions. But its up to the individual to consume the larger portions or not.
Yes , highly processed foods are readily available here and inexpensive. But again, it comes down to the individual. Its their choice to consume them and their choice to consume high quantities.
It's very unfair to blame a country as a whole ( I saw a comment saying there's something wrong with the food supply here)
Its about taking responsibility for your own actions. American foods do not cause weight gain alone. To gain weight, one must eat at a surplus. The reasons as to why people have chosen to eat at a surplus, will vary .1 -
Lol more like the Vietnamese Pho I eat in america makes me fat. Since weighing my food, I never knew how many calories I was consuming in a bowl. A big bowl can easily be over 1000 cals. and you are more likely to eat 2 bowls a day when it's made.melimomTARDIS wrote: »my dad's wife moved to the US 10 years ago from Vietnam, and she hasnt gained much since coming here. However, she eats pretty much exclusively Vietnamese style food. She says American food is "make you fat".
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I think american style food is calorically dense in general, and our portions served when dining out are apparently larger than other places. Having never traveled (well, I have been to canada quite a few times) I cant say for sure. I know my father's wife tends to eat a different style of food, that seems less calorically dense.0
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I'd agree that it's mostly portion sizes. I live in Europe and was amazed (and maybe a bit disgusted) with how big restaurant portion sizes are in the US. Also, in many countries outside the US, people walk and cycle more than in the US, where people mostly drive.0
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MarziPanda95 wrote: »I'd agree that it's mostly portion sizes. I live in Europe and was amazed (and maybe a bit disgusted) with how big restaurant portion sizes are in the US. Also, in many countries outside the US, people walk and cycle more than in the US, where people mostly drive.
Bicycles RULE in the Netherlands (I love that country) but then its so flat there's not much effort involved - different scenario bike riding in South Wales where there's a mountain around every corner.
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eatgoodeat wrote: »
Lol more like the Vietnamese Pho I eat in america makes me fat. Since weighing my food, I never knew how many calories I was consuming in a bowl. A big bowl can easily be over 1000 cals. and you are more likely to eat 2 bowls a day when it's made.melimomTARDIS wrote: »my dad's wife moved to the US 10 years ago from Vietnam, and she hasnt gained much since coming here. However, she eats pretty much exclusively Vietnamese style food. She says American food is "make you fat".
She eats Pho for breakfast often. I think that is one of those big breakfast, light/no lunch deals.0 -
Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »I'd say yes. I've seen it time and again. Portion sizes, heavily processed calorie dense foods, along with calorie dense, nutrient poor drinks. And more sedentary lifestyles.
Recipe for fat disaster!
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I think it's because eating habits and customs have changed so dramatically more than increased food availability or a lack of exercise. I think those things play a part, of course, but its become not only normal to eat all hours of the day and night we're encouraged to and told it's healthy.
Here are some of the differences I see from when I grew up (and obese children with adult diseases were rare):- Snacking between meals was rare and frowned upon lest you "spoil your appetite"
- Sending a child to bed without dinner was a perfectly acceptable punishment
- Telling a child to eat now or you'll be hungry later and actually letting a child be hungry if they didn't eat their meal
- Bringing "emergency food" -- snacks and drinks -- with you outside of the house wasn't a thing. You waited until you got home to eat or drink.
- Taking a walk after dinner "to help your food digest" was a thing
- You didn't eat after dinner or dessert
- Eating out was a special occasion
- Eating some fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, starches etc. was good enough. No one had it in their head in order to be healthy you had to consume so much of everything or a particular number servings .
It was just a completely different attitude towards eating that has been completely eroded by government food recommendations and food industry marketing.0 -
I also have to believe that eating out when I was younger, that restaurants (with the exception of the fast food ones) seemed to be more family owned and not chained. The "mom and pop" restaurants seemed more to focus on creating their own dishes, unlike chain restaurants where their preprepped and just need to be either heated or cooked for a short time. Almost every modern city in the US has places like Chevy's, IHOP, Applebee's, Chili's, etc. who more than likely have vendors who sell them lots of preprepped foods. Again, most menus are calorie dense foods with subpar nutritional values and huge portions. My wife and I ALWAYS split something and if there is something else we want, we take it home and not eat it there.
When I was in the Philippines with family for a wedding, my cousins were making fun of the portions we were getting at other fast food places (Jollibee's and Chowking) versus what you get in the USA for the price.
But no one is forcing food down anyone's throats. It's still comes down to personal responsibility of how much you eat.
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The thing is, if you're cooking at home a lot and move to the US, you won't see much of a difference, except probably in your every day activity level as you can't really walk everywhere.
It's for people who tend to eat out a lot that it's an issue. Sure, we don't have to finish our plates, but most people do, it's a fact.AlabasterVerve wrote: »I think it's because eating habits and customs have changed so dramatically more than increased food availability or a lack of exercise. I think those things play a part, of course, but its become not only normal to eat all hours of the day and night we're encouraged to and told it's healthy.
Here are some of the differences I see from when I grew up (and obese children with adult diseases were rare):- Snacking between meals was rare and frowned upon lest you "spoil your appetite"
- Sending a child to bed without dinner was a perfectly acceptable punishment
- Telling a child to eat now or you'll be hungry later and actually letting a child be hungry if they didn't eat their meal
- Bringing "emergency food" -- snacks and drinks -- with you outside of the house wasn't a thing. You waited until you got home to eat or drink.
- Taking a walk after dinner "to help your food digest" was a thing
- You didn't eat after dinner or dessert
- Eating out was a special occasion
- Eating some fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, starches etc. was good enough. No one had it in their head in order to be healthy you had to consume so much of everything or a particular number servings .
It was just a completely different attitude towards eating that has been completely eroded by government food recommendations and food industry marketing.
Lot of it is true but will really not affect people who move here that much. It's kinda funny though, I'm French, and even moving here, I almost never brought snacks for my kids anywhere (or it's a cereal bar and a water bottle or something). All the other moms I've met don't go anywhere without snacks (bags of goldfish and random other things, juice boxes etc). My French mom friends giving their kids snack when going out = 1 or 2 cookies, 1 scoop of ice cream etc. Here even the smaller sizes of ice cream are 2 or 3x the same size.
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