- #1
eNtRopY
Well, in Europe there seems to be this stereotype of Americans being fat. As much as I hate to admit it, the average American does seem to be a bit heavier than the average European. For a while this statistic bothered me because I couldn't figure out what causes it.
It's not the food we Americans eat. I mean, you can't buy anything in an American grocery store that doesn't advertise reduced fat or fat free. If you've ever been to Europe you'll notice that Europeans eat like pigs compared to Americans. I mean, first of all the servings are quite larger, secondly everything in Europe seems to involve fried meat, whole milk, and cheese. Plus, although they won't admit, Europeans like American fast food WAY more than Americans. I've gone to the McDonald's restaurant here in Germany, and I've actually seen pretty girls (I'm talking about girls who look like models) there. I mean Europeans will actually go to McDonald's for fun. The only time an American will go to McDonald's is when he / she wants to fill his / her stomach with fodder and not spend too much money doing so.
Then I thought, maybe it's the amount of exercise. Well, it seems to be the case that Americans drive around in cars more while Europeans take the public transportation system more. I wouldn't say that taking the train is exactly exercise. So, I have since disregarded this factor.
Finally, I realized what causes this phenomena. It's the leisure time. Americans seem to work about twice as much as Europeans. Seriously, at the place where I am here in Germany, nobody works on Saturday or Sunday. And, they only work a maximum of eight hours per day during the week... and really, I shouldn't say eight hours per day because they seem to take an hour lunch break and hour coffee break at some point during the day. So really, from what I've seen, I would say that Europeans only work about 30 hours per week. Can you imagine that?
When Americans get a break from work, they are usually so tired that all they feel like doing is relaxing and watching TV. Whereas Europeans seem to have enough leisure time on their hands for pursuing more active hobbies.
Well, so it goes. I guess in the end, Americans wind up being rich and fat, and Europeans wind up being poor but healthy. You can't have everything.
eNtRopY
It's not the food we Americans eat. I mean, you can't buy anything in an American grocery store that doesn't advertise reduced fat or fat free. If you've ever been to Europe you'll notice that Europeans eat like pigs compared to Americans. I mean, first of all the servings are quite larger, secondly everything in Europe seems to involve fried meat, whole milk, and cheese. Plus, although they won't admit, Europeans like American fast food WAY more than Americans. I've gone to the McDonald's restaurant here in Germany, and I've actually seen pretty girls (I'm talking about girls who look like models) there. I mean Europeans will actually go to McDonald's for fun. The only time an American will go to McDonald's is when he / she wants to fill his / her stomach with fodder and not spend too much money doing so.
Then I thought, maybe it's the amount of exercise. Well, it seems to be the case that Americans drive around in cars more while Europeans take the public transportation system more. I wouldn't say that taking the train is exactly exercise. So, I have since disregarded this factor.
Finally, I realized what causes this phenomena. It's the leisure time. Americans seem to work about twice as much as Europeans. Seriously, at the place where I am here in Germany, nobody works on Saturday or Sunday. And, they only work a maximum of eight hours per day during the week... and really, I shouldn't say eight hours per day because they seem to take an hour lunch break and hour coffee break at some point during the day. So really, from what I've seen, I would say that Europeans only work about 30 hours per week. Can you imagine that?
When Americans get a break from work, they are usually so tired that all they feel like doing is relaxing and watching TV. Whereas Europeans seem to have enough leisure time on their hands for pursuing more active hobbies.
Well, so it goes. I guess in the end, Americans wind up being rich and fat, and Europeans wind up being poor but healthy. You can't have everything.
eNtRopY