The WHO has recently released a list of countries by their average BMI and it makes for interesting reading. Obviously of relevance to younger world travelers, “love tourists”, and mini-retirees. It confirms many stereotypes, but also throws up a couple of surprises. It is reprinted below the text for some of the bigger and more visited countries in order of the female BMI (because it’s more socially consequential than male BMI). But first, some general observations.
(1) The thinnest countries are Third World places like Bangladesh and Vietnam where it’s probably more due to malnutrition than anything else. Unless you’re into stick-like peasants in paddy hats, you should probably pass up.
(2) Japan is the best Asian First World country, and France is the best European First World country.
(3) No wonder Roosh is enjoying Romania so much.
(4) The observations about the Dutch and the Scandinavians (okay), and the Brits and the Americans (very fat) tally with my own impressions. And stereotypes. And the influence of gender feminism.
(5) Argentina WTF? Didn’t expect it to be so low.
(6) Also North Korea WTF? One might have expected it to be on the level of Bangladesh or something, if the photos of everybody there who is not called “Kim” are anything to go by. Maybe they only measured North Korean refugees in the South? Or maybe the malnutrition situation there isn’t as acute as we are led to believe?
(7) A consistent pattern is that the women in Muslim societies are consistently a lot heavier than their menfolk. This is what happens, I guess, when societal norms confine most of them to the house all day. It is also a great demonstration of why equity feminism (as opposed to gender feminism) is a really good idea – contrary to some retards in the manosphere who want to counter Gender Studies with jihad.
(8) Russia, virtually identical to Germany and Finland, doesn’t do perhaps as well as the stereotypes of leggy, high-cheeked blondes might indicate. They are forgetting another, older stereotype: That of the babushka.
(9) All the East Asian nations have managed to avoid widespread obesity (although South Korea appears to be a close case). What explains it? The cuisine, the fitness culture, or HBD? One possible explanation I’ve heard (I think on Peter Frost’s blog) is that East Asians have had millennia to adapt to eating rice – hence why they don’t get fat on carbohydrate heavy diets, in stark contrast to their genetic relatives the Native Americans. On the other hand, agriculture did nonetheless first appear in the Fertile Crescent, aka the Middle East, so logically the natives there should be just as adapted to eating bread without ill physiological effects. But they don’t, to the contrary even poor countries there like Egypt, Syria, and Iran are quite corpulent.
(10) One final, general note: A high obesity rate in a place like Mexico or Kuwait is far worse than an equivalent rate in a country like Germany or the US. Why? Because your average German or American is much older than your average Mexican or Kuwaiti, and obesity rates tend to rise with age. In other words, as its population continues to age, I will not be surprised to see places like Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey begin to greatly exceed even the United States (the fattest major First World country) in the size of their girths.
I’m surprised France fairs well, I was SHOCKED by the amount of (short) overweight people there.
Class is so important with respect to bmi that anecdotal evidence is nearly useless.
Oh, I wasn’t trying to give any “anecdotal evidence” to change something, certainly not the results of a study done by WHO. I just said I was surprised.
Australia is one of the few nations where the men are fatter than the women. Interesting.
Alcohol, And it is true for all white first world countries except the US
(1) Third world farming countries are still thin. Factory food makes you thick
(2) Japan is also the second worst First world Asian country. And SK is more an extremely rich Third World country than a First world country
(4) Cause countries like Saudi Arabia are such feminist utopias.
(5) Argentina has the same score as Chili, what you would expect from a poor, factory fed urban country. Especially with cheap meat.
(6) Everything you hear about NK is a lie. From both sides.
(8) Long legged blonds is an Anglo stereotype. Probably due to the fact that there aren’t that many blonds in the Anglosphere and the fact that people in the anglosphere are short
(9) Expensive meat and only recently become rich urbanites. Wait 10 year to see the fat Asian as stereotype. Japan is exempt because like France they see eating good food as an explicit part of being Japanese/French.
(10) Are those places not already fatter that the US? But it also depends on food science. People are now much fatter than 50 years ago and you can’t really explain that by being lazy or eating to much
(2) Japan is also the second worst First world Asian country. And SK is more an extremely rich Third World country than a First world country
??
(4) Cause countries like Saudi Arabia are such feminist utopias.
See 7.
(6) Everything you hear about NK is a lie. From both sides.
Please expound. It certainly had a famine in the mid-1990’s. Now from the demographic evidence, I am convinced that it Is the lower end estimates that are correct, but nonetheless, I do not expect a typical European-like BMI from a nation that had a famine in living memory and seems to be in a state of dearth for much of the rest of the time.
Would you trust NK statistics?
ps. You should check out their murder rate. It doesn’t make sense for a totalitarian state. Or why NK police officer want to become police men in Mexico
There are only 2 Asian first world countries on the list so it is not surprising that they are one
I am very surprised at Cuba. I assumed as a socialist country with a warm climate that they would be quite healthy. Somewhat worried to see I match up to Bangladesh or Ethiopia ! I don’t know if its due to being mostly vegetarian. I suspect a lot of obesity has to do with eating processed, american-style food. Processed fats also not good. There is no need to use margarine unless butter is unavailable. I think it was first used as a ration supplement during WWII. Unpasteurised milk I believe is better but banned now in EU. At least whole, unhomogenised milk is still allowed Too much television isn’t good for you either. I would like to see this chart correlated with avg. number of hours television watched in each country.
Or maybe the malnutrition situation there isn’t as acute as we are led to believe?
I lean towards unreliable statistics to explain this one. Unless there’s better reason to think otherwise, it should be assumed NK citizens are malnourished. In military tours and parades even Kim’s generals look emaciated.
This is what happens, I guess, when societal norms confine most of them to the house all day.
Perhaps there’s less incentive for Muslim women to keep themselves in shape considering their marriages are often arranged? I’m also curious as to what effect excessive inbreeding has on Arab attractiveness and physical health metrics because I’ve noticed Arab-Christians in America seem more physically symetrical, attractive, and psychologically happier.
They are forgetting another, older stereotype: That of the babushka.
Do you find Southern European age better than Northern and non-Balkan Slavic women? The Mediterranean diet is heavier in pro-collagen nutrients like Alpha-Lipoic acid, lycopene, Vitamin C, grape seed extract, and resveratrol than more Northerly states. Most notably, Mediterranean alcohol consumption is has been shown to be healthier because it is made from grapes and berries whereas Northern Euro alcohol is grain based.
One possible explanation I’ve heard (I think on Peter Frost’s blog) is that East Asians have had millennia to adapt to eating rice – hence why they don’t get fat on carbohydrate heavy diets,
FYI, East second and third generation Asian Americans are becoming fatter on America’s ultra-high carb diet, though we may, mercifully and at long last, be steadily moving to a healthier low/medium-carb diet considering the growing popularity of gluten free and Mediterranean diets over here.
P.S., for more information on anti-aging and longevity nutrients, I highly recommend this website’s forums which, IMO, is one of the best websites anywhere on the internet:
http://www.longecity.org/forum/
So it’s true that French women don’t get fat.
There must be something specific in anglo-saxon food industry/feminism/way of life in general that’s not very balanced.
I think I just turned francophiliac.
Well, Estonia is even thinner….
But Estonia is very small and I think still doesn’t have western quality of life…
But not having near western quality of life is an indicator of fatness. See Kuwait, South America and the US
Well, that just reinforces the notion that French have a healthy relationship with food and life, to the extend that many poorer and richer countries don’t. But why the US? It’s an epitome of the west, no?
Richer than France? It is in the top outside some fake rich countries (oil,banking)
It is indeed small, but it is among the wealthiest of the former eastern bloc countries. AK contrasted countries where thinness is likely the result of malnutrition and those where it is not – obviously Estonia belongs to the latter category.
I assumed that we will still see Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Estonia etc. get fatter as they get richer
Maybe, although I suspect that Poland, Estonia, and Hungary have reached the threshold where they can be as fat as they want to be, economically. There’s always a chance they may adopt a car and fast food lifestyle but that seems to be cultural rather than economical.
Those countries have a near German levels of car ownership unlike foe example Mexico
It is not one of the richest former Eastern Bloc countries. But it is the richest of the Former USSR
Equity feminist countries frequently have divorce rates approaching those of gender feminist countries, so it doesn’t really seem like a superior arrangement compared to traditional patriarchy aside from boner-inducement. Additionally, bear in mind that Mohammedans in general in Arabs in particular tend to be exceptionally lazy and view themselves as being above work.
I don’t see why traditional patriarchy couldn’t be compatible with slim, attractive women (or people in general). State policy could coerce widespread adoption of low carb, high-fat diets and even exercise. Furthermore, a Christian or secular patriarchal society wouldn’t be as oppressive of women as a Mohammedan women. Female schooling could be set up, but with an emphasis on teaching girls domestic skills and how to please men so they make superior wives and mothers.
The problem with traditional patriarchy countries is that they have a) high divorce rates and b) no kids. See for example Japan, Singapore, South Korea or Taiwan. Or Turkey or Iran if you use the 2018 data.
State police can’t work on diets and exercise, but it can work on what is inside factory food and how much you need to walk/bike etc. to live your life.
In traditional Islamic cultures women have more rights than in traditional Christian or secular societies.
Your female schooling idea looks like Japan. They are dying out for that exact reason
None of the countries you cited fit your hypothesis. Japan, Singapore, South Korea are equity feminist. Women have full rights to education, employment, property, inheritance,and even divorce. In case you haven’t noticed, RoK recently elected a female president. While these societies are not gender feminist, they’re not traditional patriarchies. High divorce rates are obviously incompatible with traditional patriarchy, since traditional patriarchies either prohibit divorce or make it extremely restrictive. Female labor force participation is relatively low in three of the four countries, likely a vestige of patriarchy. Bear in mind also that these are Northeast Asian societies, and Northeast Asians are the most k-selected race and thus suffer from lower sex drives.
I am not really familiar with Turkey, but Iran’s collapsing fertility rate is the result of deliberate state policy as the country grew concerned about overpopulation a generation ago. Mission accomplished, mullahs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_birth_rate
Notice a pattern? The states with the highest birthrates are African, which is unsurprising given that negroids are highly R-selected leading to high sex drives, low parental investment in offspring, and poor future orientation. Behind them? Generally Arab Mohammedan states, which are the most patriarchal in the world today.
As for traditional societies, I had in mind the contrast between contemporary Islamist states (e.g. Saudi Arabia) as compared to Western states a century ago. Perhaps this is not what you had in mind.
Your comments about diet and exercise are pretty much what I had in mind, though more direct controls are possible. For instance, residents of a particular state who exceed a given weight could incarcerated in a fat camp and compelled to lose weight.
Finally, your remarks on Japanese education are totally wrong. Since 1947 most Japanese education has been coeducational, and the rates of post-secondary educational attainment by sex have been minor for the past 20 years. Unless they’re handing out separate textbooks in the same classrooms, your claim is dubious.