This is interesting and.. quite different in one very important key way:
"Are the Japanese picking our brains?'' a congressional staffer asks. ''Yes. They're doing it very well. They're doing it legally. The question is whether we have a two-way street"
I am obese. I am a tall guy who had been athletic most of my life until moving into the corporate world and spending most of my time at work at a desk. I dont' drink or smoke. I am still quite active on the weekends and weekdays. I am in Japan currently so I walk alot.
But I've still been struggling for the past 8 years trying to lose weight and I even moved to Japan to try to put myself in an environment that generally has healthy food options.
By FAR the biggest impact I've found on my weight is coca cola and other sugary type drinks. Unfortunately I am addicted to it and have a really hard time stopping.
Right now I'm in a good spot, losing weight, and feeling pretty healthy and what helped immensely was Japan restaurants always having green tea and other healthy drink options so it could help me avoid drinking coke. I still love coke and I am always wanting that or dr. pepper or something similar. Whenever I go back to the US and go out to eat I really struggle finding drink options that are healthy and that I enjoy and its so easy to just order a soda.
I imagine that are millions of people that are like me - generally healthy but because they drink coke or other sugary drinks on a regular basis they are killing themselves. I am pretty sure that the obesity situation won't go away if people are drinking sugary drinks all the time like I was. It was super difficult for me to stop in Japan even when I was away from that type of culture.
Additionally there was another post here that I really agree with: "The good news is that maybe we got it backwards, in at least some of the cases[1]:
> Higher fasting insulin and higher c-reactive protein confound the association between BMI and the risk of all-cause mortality. The increase in mortality that has been attributed to higher BMI is more likely due to hyperinsulinemia and inflammation rather than obesity."
When COVID started I stopped going outside because of lockdowns and worry about my obesity and it really impacted my health. I started feeling much worse all the time because I wasn't' active and I became very sensitive to the food i was eating. I realized that my blood sugar was going all over the place depending on what I eat and I believe I had high levels of inflammation due to that. I then switched to a diet that balanced my blood sugar much more (Stopped eating pasta, or lots of bread, and other things that spike your blood sugar and switched to eating Kind Bars and mostly protein or green things when i felt hungry) and even before i started losing weight this made a huge difference in my standard of living and how I felt. I was still the same weight but my general health and concentration increased a lot and was one of the reasons I could start having energy to focus on losing weight.
Ridiculous comment. As if Mexicans are the only ones who speak Spanish and As if Google doesn't have a huge office in mexico city and employees tons of amazing executives from Mexico around the world.
"Are the Japanese picking our brains?'' a congressional staffer asks. ''Yes. They're doing it very well. They're doing it legally. The question is whether we have a two-way street"