https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/09/09/1198047149/blue-zones-live-to-100-7-healthy-habits
"Compared with Americans, people in Okinawa are about three times more likely to reach their 100th birthday, according to Buettner's research. He introduces us to centenarians who garden, cook, sing, laugh and play. Their weathered skin and slow gaits don't stop them from living fully, albeit simply."
By comparison with Okinawans, my guess is that Americans have an absolutely appalling diet that includes vast amounts of colourants and other additives (including invisible ones like growth hormones) that are banned most everywhere else in the world, huge quantities of trans-fats (that kill people), massively more highly processed food and a vastly higher consumption of red meat. Aside from the average American diet being utterly appalling, Obesity affects huge numbers of Americans and that is a major factor in early death as it is a prime cause of Type II diabetes, heart disease and other circulatory issues and many other diseases including quite an array of cancers!
Indeed not but the average diet in most western European countries is way, WAY better that the crap Americans habitually eat. Along with a great many Europeans, I cook everything from fresh - don't eat toxic junk food like McD's and avoid high sugar beverages like sodas.
Obesity is a problem throughout the western world, to some extent, but in the USA it is an epidemic! The French are not often obese nor are the Dutch or the Germans or indeed any other European races!
@Paulos_the_fog We've never been very good Americans when it comes to diet. N and I prefer to eat simply, too. But yeah, I've seen inside the lunch boxes of elementary school kids and 75 percent of it isn't pretty.
@Paulos_the_fog Yep! Though ... pretty sure it's not just an American problem.