<story><title>Culture shock</title><url>https://siddhesh.substack.com/p/culture-shock</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ameen</author><text>As an Indian in the states - my observation was that obesity in the US seems like a class issue. Most well-off folks are fit and working out is woven into their lifestyles. Others can&amp;#x27;t as they&amp;#x27;re probably working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet.</text></item><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>&amp;gt; There&amp;#x27;s a couple of things in there that are just correlated to the fact that the author is around young&amp;#x2F;wealthy people, like the low obesity rate, fancy cars, shirtless dudes, book-reading in public.&lt;p&gt;I mean, he was on a university campus, so fit young people reading books isn&amp;#x27;t that much of a surprise. But I agree with you, US is a nation of extremes in some ways. There are places I&amp;#x27;ve been in the US where quite literally every single person I saw was morbidly obese, including children.</text></item><item><author>e4d5</author><text>Hey, as another Indian immigrant here I do want to say that most of these observations are spot on.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a couple of things in there that are just correlated to the fact that the author is around young&amp;#x2F;wealthy people, like the low obesity rate, fancy cars, shirtless dudes, book-reading in public. I had quite a surprise when I started working at a smaller town and consistently started seeing older and grumpier people.&lt;p&gt;Culture shock is real. For me personally, I didn&amp;#x27;t feel like I was going through anything unusual in my first 3-4 months in the US, but later a lot of my choices at the time made sense through that lens.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>birksherty</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not work out or time but diet that makes people obese. They probably eat fast food, sugary drinks, packaged food a lot everyday instead of unprocessed food like meat, veg, fruits, nuts.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Poor people in India are thin and rich are fat, quite opposite, again due to diet. Indian poor can&amp;#x27;t afford fast food in chain restaurants daily, must cook which is cheaper.</text></comment>
<story><title>Culture shock</title><url>https://siddhesh.substack.com/p/culture-shock</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ameen</author><text>As an Indian in the states - my observation was that obesity in the US seems like a class issue. Most well-off folks are fit and working out is woven into their lifestyles. Others can&amp;#x27;t as they&amp;#x27;re probably working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet.</text></item><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>&amp;gt; There&amp;#x27;s a couple of things in there that are just correlated to the fact that the author is around young&amp;#x2F;wealthy people, like the low obesity rate, fancy cars, shirtless dudes, book-reading in public.&lt;p&gt;I mean, he was on a university campus, so fit young people reading books isn&amp;#x27;t that much of a surprise. But I agree with you, US is a nation of extremes in some ways. There are places I&amp;#x27;ve been in the US where quite literally every single person I saw was morbidly obese, including children.</text></item><item><author>e4d5</author><text>Hey, as another Indian immigrant here I do want to say that most of these observations are spot on.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a couple of things in there that are just correlated to the fact that the author is around young&amp;#x2F;wealthy people, like the low obesity rate, fancy cars, shirtless dudes, book-reading in public. I had quite a surprise when I started working at a smaller town and consistently started seeing older and grumpier people.&lt;p&gt;Culture shock is real. For me personally, I didn&amp;#x27;t feel like I was going through anything unusual in my first 3-4 months in the US, but later a lot of my choices at the time made sense through that lens.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>medvezhenok</author><text>Indeed - the U.S. has some of the most extreme health differences between the top end and bottom end of the income spectrum (roughly correlated to class). At the top end, the outcomes (and health measures) are better than anywhere in the world, while at the bottom end they are below most first-world nations:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.equality-of-opportunity.org&amp;#x2F;health&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.equality-of-opportunity.org&amp;#x2F;health&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>