Sorry, it just sounds like a crazy idea for me :)...

Doing more by car doesn't help either; I've stayed in places where you couldn't go to the supermarket 250 m from the hotel unless you either usd a car or risked your life. But obesity figures in Europe go up too - probabely also due to all these factors.

Oh, and pannekoeken are never eaten for breakfast. They're not like the American pancakes (fortunately, I like those much more than I should) and are eaten as lunch or as dinner.

In my (limited) experience Europe has more of a cooking and eating at home culture, where fast food is reserved for a day in the weekend. Almost anybody I know cooks at least 5-6 days a week on average whilst Americans are more inclined to go for tv-dinners of fastfood. But that observation might be very wrong 'cause I haven't been much in American homes and I haven't really compared notes on it much online.

Yes, the article is about the developing world. Anjin made a comment about differences between two parts of that segment of the world. This is what people do sometimes, they take a concept and parse it out a bit. In this case, if you didn't notice, the difference pointed out served to undermine the rather lame snarky point that you made in your post.

France and the US have relatively similar food prices. In fact, some basics, like bread, are cheaper in France. So this example shows that there is not any necessary correlation between food prices and consumption levels, or of obesity. (Obesity levels in France are about half those in the US).

Its the old causation thing, ya see. Levels of obesity, or increased consumption, associate with lower prices. But, contrary to your snark, lower prices do not necessarily lead to increased consumption (France). Oh its oh so complicated.
I can see why you prefer to stick to one-liners.

Sheesh.

I guess Tano and Anjin-san missed the part about the developed world. In other words, it isn't just America that is getting fat. I'd suggest you guys work on that reading comprehension. It is clearly a cross country study. Sheesh.

Another availability difference between the US and EU I have noticed is that there are almost no breakfast restaurants. You can pick up a sweet or savory pastry but not a whole lot else.

Not so much in the Netherlands, though, right? At least in Amsterdam -- which is admittedly touristy -- there are plenty of places to get pannenkoeken and other hearty breakfast fare.

Given my druthers, I'll take being a fat American driving a car over being a skinny Frenchman waiting on a train that's not coming until the latest strike is over,

You reallys should travel outside of Pig's Knuckle sometime. Public tranportation in France is fantastic.

I tell you Americans like the easy life and they will invent, innovate and engineer their way to that life regardless of how bourgeoisie it may be. We have no shame and have the cheap, tasty, readily available food to prove it. And if we get fat along the way, it's a price will have to pay.

Since the largest numbers of ethnic roots among whites in the United States are English and German, it seems to me that the most appropriate comparison would be between England and the United States and Germany and the United States. IIRC both England and Germany have their own obesity epidemics.

Here in Chicago, for example, the prevailing ethnic type among whites tends to be Eastern European. I think I need only point out with gentle chiding that the stereotypes for middle aged Polish people tends not to be slender.

Also, it's good business for restaurants in the U. S. to serve portions that are too large. The food itself is the least expensive part of their business and large portions convey a message of value for money (without actually giving value for money, of course).

Living in El Paso (not a place I have ever been before nor want to return to) obesity seems to be the norm likely due to the very heavy diet and complete lack of exercise.

Obesity is a growing problem in Europe as well as the US. It simply hasn't caught up yet. There is plenty of cheap fatty and quite tasty food everywhere in Europe I have been. The portions are generally a bit smaller, particularly the soft drinks (but thankfully not the beer) and the activity level is generally higher (more walking and biking, less driving even in places not so flat as here). Another availability difference between the US and EU I have noticed is that there are almost no breakfast restaurants. You can pick up a sweet or savory pastry but not a whole lot else.

Not to mention-the US is a car culture-we drive everywhere, even if it is just a block or two away. A lot of other nations aren't.

The point of the study seemed to be to parse out the factors of caloric intake and energy expenditure to see what their relative importance is amongst the obese. Only peripherally were they interested in what factors are associated with increased intake. Of course it is not surprising that lower prices associated with that.