MD and I walked all over Prague today, and I can tell you from direct observation that the obesity situation here is a problem. I don’t have at hand the actual statistics on this part of the world, but by my visual statistics it looks about the same as the US. There are overweight kids, adolescents and adults—just like at home. I don’t know if we exported it or if the Czechs figured out how to be obese all on their own. I do know that there are most of the fast food culprits here that there are in all US cities along with huge areas in supermarkets devoted to high-carb snack foods. There are ice cream places everywhere you look, and hordes of people eating ice cream; maybe that has something to do with it. And to top it off, everyone here smokes as well. Thin and overweight alike—they all seem to be puffing away. With all the obesity and all the smoking the air fairly hums with the sound of telomeres being stripped away.
Note: if you don’t know what a telomere is, look a couple of posts back to Obesity shortens life.
The official website of Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, low carb pioneers and authors of Protein Power.
Funny, I made the opposite observation while I was on my honeymoon in Rome in 2001. As my wife and I walked all over Rome, we were struck by the lack of obese Romans. Sure, there were some with a few extra pounds, but nothing on the order of what we find here in the states. In fact, I found this to be the easiest way to spot a fellow american tourist; just look for an obese person. I was right on the mark the vast majority of the time.