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Why is it so Easy to be Thin in Japan?

Joseph Everett - WIL

2.3M subscribers • 6 videos on Rounds

YouTube
  • Recommended by 3 people, in Hacker News, across 3 different months.
  • Presented by Joseph Everett, as the video describes them
  • Sells products. The upload promotes a product, supplement, program or service, or the speaker sells what they recommend.
  • May be out of date. Uploaded 8 years ago, in an area where guidance changes.

For anyone, no background needed. Education, not medical advice.

24M views8 years ago3 recommendations

NutritionHeart and metabolismDiets comparedObesity and weightPublic health and policy

Joseph Everett compares the food environments of the United States and Japan to explain why obesity rates differ so drastically.

Comparing the food environment of the U.S. to Japan's. Learn my optimized Fasting protocol here: bit.ly/FastToLast ▲ Newsletter: josepheverettwil.substack.com/ ▲Patreon: patreon.com/WILearned ▲Twitter: twitter.com/jeverettlearned ▲IG: instagram.com/jeverett.whativelearned/ This video highlights the difference between the food environment of America and Japan. America's obesity rate is about 30% (biggest state is 37.7%, smallest 22.3%) whereas Japan's obesity rate is 3.5% While there's other countries on each side of the obesity spectrum, I chose to compare these two because I grew up in America and spent the last 7 years here in Japan. The places that I describe as "reasonably healthy" in Japan aren't necessarily places I recommend as "optimally healthy" - I'm simply point out that while convenient food in America ranges from very unhealthy to unhealthy, convenient food in Japan ranges from very unhealthy to pretty healthy. Big thanks to Itchban for letting me use his footage ( - ): youtube.com/itchban instagram.com/itchban Featured Music: Broke for Free - As Colorful as ever Graphiqs Groove - Deep Sky Blue For Business inquiries: joseph.everett.wil@gmail.com

Why it's here

3 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an insightful comparison of how food culture and convenience options impact obesity rates between the US and Japan.

mtgxin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds”

Speaking of Japan, I recently saw an interesting video about why Japanese people are so thin, compared to say the US: link to this video

novokin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Biohacking Lite”

Yup I agree. I call it the food gravity problem of america. Trying to eat healthy here is like trying to beat gravity: This youtube video goes into more detail about the US problem compared to japan: "Why is it so Easy to be Thin in Japan?" link to this video

presentationin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets”

Re diet: putting aside that alcohol-per-capita consumption here in Japan is less than the OECD average 1, and also how the article is actually about how the introduction of meat into the Japanese diet has caused a decrease in strokes (i.e. this is probably off-topic); it is true that if you are eating out cheaply, you'll likely find lots of rice and meat stuff like gyuudon (beef on rice), katsudon (breaded meat on rice) and what not. But a normal Japanese meal generally has a pretty good mix of stuff - some fermented side dishes (tsukemono), some veggies, miso soup, some rice or noodles, some fish, maybe some meat. Perhaps my wife is an outlier, but every meal she's cooked for our househol…

Mawrin Hacker News • Mentions

On “A day in the life of almost every vending machine”

> Are you saying these drinks machines only dispense water? Kind of? link to this video The healthy/unhealtly food availability ratio in the western world is like 10%/90% whereas in Japan it seems closer to 70%/30%. Personally, I have never seen a vending machine in the western world that had a healthy drink in it that wasn't plain water.

Mawrin Hacker News • Mentions

On “U.S. Sugar consumption trend from 1970-2021”

I'd be surprised if the ratios matched up exactly. That'd mean the only factor dictating the level of obesity is food culture. Not likely. I'm sure Japan has a variety of unhealthy foods, I don't see how that matters. That unhealthy food exists in Japan doesn't tell us anything about how much of it people actually eat. That's why I linked the video, its author talks about the experience of the average person, here's an exact link: link to this video . I cannot stress this enough, the only thing that matters is what is readily available to the average person. That's the determining factor of most people's diets, not what's theoretically possible to purchase.