A recent post from the New York Times shows this graph, plotting the percentage of people with a BMI >= 30 versus the amount of time spent eating (per day) in various countries:
In the comments, several people question the validity of any conclusions drawn from the data, as it has a low correlation of only .18 (where 1 is a perfect correlation and 0 is no correlation). I suggest to ignore time spent, and just look at the countries starting with the fattest and heading down towards the skinniest. Anecdotaly, it appears that BMI decreases as the cultural value and significance of food increases.
The 6 fattest countries have little to no food culture in my opinion (Mexico is misleading - the culture surrounding “mexican food” greatly exaggerated by the US food industry), while most of the thinnest countries (especially Italy, France, and Japan) are usually regarded as the places where people care most about their food. (The Scandanavian countries don’t seem to fit. Though I’ve never been there, neither their food nor their food culture has ever been brought to my attention).
One of the comments in the original article noted that the heaviest countries have corn based diets, while the lowest are rice based. Interesting, isn’t it?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
makes perfect sense to me. stuff your face with processed foods and you get fat fast. slow down and eat properly and life is better.
OK, the comment I meant to post…
Scandinavian diets are pretty bland and consist of a lot of dairy items. The availability of peppers and fresh produce that would make it a little less bland isn’t very good, but the dairy in Sweden is phenomenal. Soured milk, or filmjölk, is one of the best things they have going up there (seriously, I miss it quite a lot). I felt like Swedes spent less time eating because they spent less time talking during meals and tended to reserve that kind of socialization for fika (coffee break, basically). Special dinners are pretty social but not as often. Oh, and Swedes love moderation — it’s all in the concept of “lagom,” meaning “just enough,” roughly. I also think they’re far more active than people in the US, UK, and Australia.
Also a big thanks to Courtney who passed along this link with lots of great resources on BMI and other nutrition and diet resources: http://www.themedifastplan.com/feature-articles/nutrition-and-diet-tools/