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Pablo Percentil's avatar

> Now, comes obesity. On a diet of rice, wheat, dairy, and meat, it’s difficult for European and Asian peasants to get fat, especially when they live at subsistence levels and work long hours. Any person who would become visually overweight would stick out like a sore thumb, **so there was quite a bit of social pressure to stay thin even beyond the environmental difficulties**. And any society that, for whatever reason, adopted social norms that permitted obesity, would be out-competed by those who suppress it.

I think the opposite it's true. Pre-industrial peasant cultures were so poor compared to modern standards than been somewhat plump, specially as a juvenile or a female, was seen as positive and interpreted as a sign of wealth. Some boomers and genX's in southern and eastern Europe still experience their grandmas, who grew up in borderline famine condition, trying to fatten them as children. I'm sure similar experiences persist in younger cohorts in the middle east, India and East Asia.

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DeepLeftAnalysis🔸's avatar

I was not expecting China to be fatter than India, or for Czech Republic to be one of the fattest countries in Europe.

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