Ezra Klein: Obesity in International Perspective

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May 21, 2007

Obesity in International Perspective

Okay, that title really doesn't do justice to how hilarious and oddly adorable this graphic is.

May 21, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

Look how slim the Italians are! It's all that good pasta and Brunello followed by plenty of ~~sex~~ soccer to burn it off.

I can explain Britain's waistline (or lack thereof): just about every bloody English dish worth eating contains sugar, butter, chocolate or flour--oftentimes all four.

Posted by: litbrit | May 21, 2007 5:35:27 PM

No wonder our life expectancy is lower than Europe. And all along I thought it was unequal access to health care.

Posted by: Jason | May 21, 2007 5:49:14 PM

Why such disparity, I wonder, between the Czech Republic (15%) and Slovakia (22%), which were the same country until 14 years ago?

Posted by: andrew levine | May 21, 2007 6:01:16 PM

Too bad it's just the OECD countries. I'd like to see Kuwait on there, where from what I've read they're huuuge.
Data from here, by the way (not clickable from Ezra's link).

Posted by: Allen Knutson | May 21, 2007 6:37:45 PM

Wow. The Anglosphere is FAT.

Posted by: Petey | May 21, 2007 6:46:42 PM

"I can explain Britain's waistline (or lack thereof): just about every bloody English dish worth eating contains sugar, butter, chocolate or flour--oftentimes all four."

And just to be repetitive, it's not British cooking - it's speaking English that does it...

Posted by: Petey | May 21, 2007 6:57:02 PM

The horizontal stripes in our flag only make us look fat. That and the data.

Posted by: joejoejoe | May 21, 2007 7:16:41 PM

Wow, Canada...lookin' good! Compared to us, anyway.

Posted by: emjaybee | May 21, 2007 7:49:30 PM

Look how slim the Italians are! It's all that good pasta and Brunello followed by plenty of ~~sex~~ soccer to burn it off.

Yeah, yeah, we know you're married to an Italian.

Posted by: Sanpete | May 21, 2007 7:59:37 PM

The horizontal stripes in our flag only make us look fat.

LOL. My girlfriend Jade, who's Korean, will be proud of her country's wraith-like buglet. I must try to eat more kimchee, which I love anyway.

Posted by: litbrit | May 21, 2007 8:05:01 PM

It must be good to be fat is France is at 9% and the US at 31%.

Japan and Korea must be in the 2nd or 3rd deviation. Genes or Diet? If Diet, exactly how different?

And wow, Poland and Germany at 11 and 13%. I thought potatoes, sausage and beer were fattening?

Here's the data I'd like: median consumption of high fructose corn sugar (HFCS-in sodas/Cokes/diet foods/etc.) for the same set of countries. I'll bet that the HFCS consumption maps the BMI.

Andrew: The Czechs and Slovaks are quite different in gene pool and customs - that's why they separated LOL.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR | May 21, 2007 8:14:29 PM

It must be good to be fat is France is at 9% and the US at 31%.

I can see the t-shirts now: "Better Fat Than French"

Posted by: Constantine | May 21, 2007 9:21:53 PM

"Japan and Korea must be in the 2nd or 3rd deviation. Genes or Diet? If Diet, exactly how different?"

When I lived in Japan, for the first while I was going to MacDonalds every other week to get the type of fat quotient I was used to.

After a while, I completely adjusted to Japanese diet, but it took a while before the low fat quotient and small portions ever made me feel truly full.

Posted by: Petey | May 21, 2007 9:37:11 PM

Not sure how to answer the question about the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but having lived in Prague 5 years I can tell you that eating disorders have taken hold here, perhaps with more gusto (sorry) than they have in the Slovak lands.

And regarding Korea - would that, um, figure indicate an agglomeration of numbers for famine-stricken North Korea with those of less troubled South Korea?

Posted by: Bishop | May 22, 2007 2:01:45 AM

Hey! We all know the 31% aren't fatties, they're heeeyoooge bodybuilders!

Posted by: BP | May 22, 2007 3:38:07 AM

I'd like to see the correlation between obesity and 'the service economy'. It's harder to pack on the pounds working labor or manufacturing jobs because you are generally moving around and burning more calories. Being a video clerk or a telemarketer don't exactly make for a high metabolism.

Do Americans consumer more calories or burn less? Or both?

Posted by: joejoejoe | May 22, 2007 4:31:25 AM

the chart is cute, but it's got edward tufte spinning in his grave. what? he's not dead? anyway.

Posted by: gorbles | May 22, 2007 5:25:00 AM

Slovakia was the poorer part of Czecho before the split, so it makes sense that obesity would be higher. Though I am surprised that Poland and the Czech Rep are so different, given that they have similar genetics and diets. (dumplings, beer, potatoes, pork in cream sauce, sausages...)

Posted by: ajay | May 22, 2007 6:18:10 AM

Ezra,

Its amazing you just simply post this with no mention on the potential impact of comparing health systems.

I hope that I don't need to state the obvious, but perhaps I do.

Posted by: wisewon | May 22, 2007 7:59:17 AM

What gets me is the disparity between the US and Canada, which I always saw as very similar culturally. I've spent some time in Quebec provence (particularly Montreal) and Toronto, and while that's admitedly a very small sample I did notice how similar the culture seemed at first glance. Especially outside the cities there were greasy spoons in every town. I wonder what causes the difference.

Posted by: Mac | May 22, 2007 10:32:28 AM

The whole point of all this "obesity" nonsense is precisely to deflect attention from the absurdly inefficient and dysfunctional US health care system. Anyone who understands statistics should recognize that if the median weight of a population in which the "obesity" rate is 15% increases by ten pounds, then the "obesity" rate will double. That's your crisis -- that Americans who weighed 167 pounds 25 years ago weigh 177 pounds today. There is no meaningful difference in the health of people who have BMIs in the low 30s from those in the high 20s (and people in the high 20s have the longest life expectancy in the US population), but people in the low 30s are arbitrarily labeled "obese."

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