My theory has always been that it has to do with a) portions and b) exercise. I've travelled quite and bit and eaten in a lot of countries and these seem to be the two things that seem to affect weight in the US.

a) Portions - Besides Cape Town (for some strange reason!) portions of food at restaurants are much smaller in other countries compared to the US. People also usually eat family style where you order a few dishes and share - eat little bites here and there (thereby providing more variety to your diet too!) and usually eat slowly, which allows your body to digest your food more easily (it takes 20 minutes for your brain to register that your body is full - most people over-eat and don't even realize it).

b) Exercise - In the US people walk far less often because most people have a car. Also, stores are usually not close by and you have to drive to buy just about anything. In Europe and Asia there's a local market/bakery/store/etc.. usually within a few blocks. Unless you live in the city, most people don't walk very much. Also, in most countries people take the stairs whereas there are elevators or escalators in most buildings in the US.

My parents still eat rice everyday, although they've cut down since they realize that their lives aren't as active as they used to be.

I personally beleive obesity is related to stress and depression

The united states has the highest rate of productivity per worker in the world, they work long hours, and unlike Asians they get that combined with a culture that has no exercises to reduce stress like Tai Chi... heck some christian denominations teach that meditation will open the mind for demons to come in... that meditation comes from Satan. So most Americans have poor coping skills to reduce stress.

The body interprets prolonged stress in terms of preperation for famine, so it stores what it can in the fat cells, the famine never comes though. Starving the body of carbos will just make it worse... an atkins body is a body in famine. I know, I did it, and as soon as I started to eat normally I put on weight even faster and more of it.

The key to reducing weight I personally beleive comes from reducing stress, with less stress you don't binge- eat. It may mean telling your employer no sometimes or finding another profession if you have one that is killing your body, but no amount of material wealth is worth destroying your body and mind for. But it's probably more practical in today's economy to learn from the asians in terms of meditation, yoga, tai chi and make it a part of the daily regimine to whatever point you need it to keep you from entering a stressful state of mind in a stressful job.

One the body is not getting constant chemical signals that there is stress, it will no longer want to store fats the way it did.

That's my personal observation, take it with a grain of salt, it's a non-medical opinion though it's a gestalt from what I've been reading.

Hi, i do not think obesity has anything to do with bad health, it's more the stuff people take with their rice: too much meat, too much fat side dishes whereas it's very easy in the Indonesian kitchen to cook light and lean! Depends a bit on where your recipes come from, which part of Indonesia. But certainly Javanese is very good! Sio enjoy and don't worry!

Ted

My opinion, Brown Rice is healthier, almost as cheap, tastier, and more filling.
When that can't be had, I happily partake of white rice!
I try to avoid the American brands of white rice, since they tend to be even more stripped of the yummy parts of rice than the Asian white rices.

For brown rice, I genereally get Lone Pine
For white rice I generally get one of the Jasmine rices from Thailand with an elephant on the package, I don't recall the brand name off the top of my head.

I have a question...I recently found Basmati rice. I LOVE it!!
(it comes from being a typical midwestern kid with a diet of meat and potatos and not much cultural exploration in the food dept while growing up!)

Where does it fall in with all of this?

i'm half korean. i'm also diabetic, so i have a bit of a bias. :)

i can't eat white rice. it converts to sugar in the blood way too fast. when diabetics have too much sugar, we fall asleep (even going comatose). in fact, i can have the same amount of chocolate and it will take longer for me to get sleepy than it would with white rice. (chocolate has all that fat in it that slows its absorption into the blood stream...rice is pure starch. look up the Glycemic Index if you're curious.)

when i was first diagnosed, i was like "how the hell do you tell an asian person not to eat rice?!?!" some mornings, white rice w/butter and soy sauce was what mom fixed us for breakfast.

it really is all about portion control. the proper amount of meat is the size of a deck of cards...not half a plate!! the proper amount of starch is about the size of your fist...not piles and piles of it! and our family would PIG OUT.

also, (i don't know if this was mentioned) americans tend to eat junk (donuts, muffins) in the morning, and binge at night. but think about it - do you really need all those calories FOR SLEEPING? you really need those calories in the morning, when you have a busy day ahead of you.

as a diabetic, i find that eating the large meal first (like they do in most asian countries) helps keep blood sugars under better control.

i miss white rice. but it's like, do i eat the poison b/c i love it, or do i try to stay alive?

so, out of survival, i eat lo-carb. but it's all based on your body chemistry, really, and i've noticed that Asians that end up diabetic do have a very hard time metabolising white rice.

i think in the case of the French and the Italians, they also drink wine with every meal, as well as having bread or pasta (or both). drier wines lower blood sugars (so insulin doesn't store as much starch as fat). if they eat more vegetables or other fibrous foods that slow down blood sugars, that will help them stay thinner (and eat less, b/c fiber fills you up).

i'm not sure if i'd say that Asians eat less animal protein. perhaps they eat less beef, but they probably make up for it in fish consumption, which is technically an animal protein - a much leaner one. but whenever we sat down for traditional Korean, we definitely had a wide variety of vegetable dishes to eat.