[Keith_McClary]

There was an article a few months ago stating that there are 1.1 billion overweight people on earth. That is significant because it exceeds the number starving. There have also been numerous articles on how obesity has risen in Europe including one very recent article stating that European countries have been undereporting the problem. Even if all Americans were in this 1.1 billion who makes up the other 800 million?

Fat Europe

Damn, and I thought the U.S. had a lock on the breeding of land whales.

Animportant scientific paper has proved that the concentration of all this fatness on one side of the Earth has displaced its centre of gravity, causing precession of the North Pole and disruption of the Earth's magnetic field, leading to extreme climate events and sea level changes.

[BlisteredWhippet]

Americans:

[alpha480v]

What a wonderfull long post that still doesn't prove that all Americans,every single one in the US,is fat ,like the other poster claims.Show me where every single American is fat.Thats what the point is here.

You're right. Are you happy? Not all Americans are fat.

The real pissed off American fatties are the ones that people call lazy when in reality its their lifestyle and job that is chunkifying them. For example, an American desk jocky might work hard and feel 'productive' yet appear fat (and unfairly, lazy). Its just so complicated! Who is and who is not genuinely lazy cannot be determined by fat alone.

One things for sure though, people are generally overweight. The American Diet could be said to be generally poor as well, seeing as how we're world leaders in high blood pressure, heart disease, and other food-associated cancers and ailments, including diabetes....

This I will agree with you on.People are generally overweight,and the average American diet leaves something to be desired.But there are many Americans,myself included,who are in shape,and eat very good diets.I don't understand how people can afford the fast food diet on a daily basis,that stuffs not only unhealthy,but it's expensive!

[Keith_McClary]

Americans:

Get out your ruler and check out the width to height ratios on these guys.

[BlisteredWhippet]

I think, getting back to the topic of people being jealous of America...

Its a stupid idea- that foreigners are jealous of America. Yes, there are hundreds of Mexicans willing to swim across the Rio Grande, filled with raw sewage and waste, to get here and find well-paying jobs. But isn't this just economic desperation? What is jealousy, after all, but simple vanity? Vanity is not enough to get people to swim across a river of human sewage.

To be sure, there are cultural esthetes the world over clinging to vaguely nationalistic notions of the superiority of their culture. American vs. French esthetes, for example. But the vast majority of people are not cultural esthetes. The majority are poor, and practical. Their awareness of actual American cultural values is quite simply distorted because their primary impression of such comes from agents of manufactured taste, i.e. American consumer products and the Entertainment industry.

To say that poor people of limited means might aspire to own 2 cars per family, have air-conditioning, and disposable income does not imply that they are jealous, just pragmatic. Many of the aspiring consumers in the world appreciate this. They aren't "jealous" of America at all. They don't want to move here or adopt our cultural or political values.