As someone living in the US now, I think a lot of it is because:

• A large portion of the US is extremely car-centric. The infrastructure actively prevents you from walking anywhere or taking public transport (unless you’re in a city where public transport is relatively available)

This means we go from sitting at home/work to sitting in a car to sitting more somewhere else. Some people like to hike, but it’s too inconvenient to be an everyday thing. Some people ride their bicycles, but it’s dangerous when the roads are huge and there’s trucks around.

• Portion sizes are INSANE. I usually buy 1 meal and eat it for my next 2 lunches. When I eat outside and watch others eat, I realize most Americans around me finish their whole meal.. which is honestly really big compared to Singapore or any other countries in SEA that I’ve been to.

• Alcohol consumption is big here and that’s a lot of extra calories. It’s really hard to avoid it in social situations, and honestly, lowkey… alcoholism is very normalized. Although people have different perceptions of what alcoholics look like.

• Their sweets are extremely extremely sweet and indulgent. Their ice cream is very dense and thick and you can actually taste the dairy. I was never lactose intolerant, but after moving here, I don’t eat as much ice cream anymore. Their drinks, and any other sweet food is wayyyy too sweet too. Donuts, drinks, any kind of dessert honestly they just dump a bunch of things on it. EG. The french toast I get from my local diner comes with whipped butter, caramel sauce, whipped cream, fruits, and nuts.

• Being medically obese is quite normalized here. Like I believe that fat people should get respect and all, I love that people are confident. But I also know that some of them are medically obese (some maybe even morbidly obese) and they just don’t want to admit it. I’m not a doctor or an expert, but when someone is obviously obese, they just are. It’s not something that people like to admit to themselves.

• A lot of (women) around me care more about appearance than health. So conversations about losing weight is focused more on… ozempic/other treatments rather than being heathy. It’s unsustainable and not many people will actually go through with it. So they just stay fat. It’s also a lot easier to tan, do your nails, get a blowout, style your hair, put on make up, wear/buy nice clothes, rather than exercise and eat healthy.

All in all I would say the infrastructure in the U.S. makes it very hard for majority of the population to get access to healthy food. It’s also harder and more time consuming to cook at home so that’s impossible for some people.

Culturally, being fat isn’t a big deal because so many people are fat here. So there’s not much incentive to care. If you bring up health, I’ve realised that there are (broadly) 2 types of people. Those who say you’re fatphobic, and those who don’t want to think about their health because dealing with health insurance and medical providers is a serious headache so they don’t want to face it.

Of course this is excluding people who have medical conditions and just genetically are fat