We're Not Number 1!

This weekend I watched the film Super Size Me. Really great and entertaining film. No wonder it came highly recommended from both the fancy pants college educated liberals and the high school drop out factory workers. But I caught an error during the film. The director calls America the fattest country in the world. We're not. In fact we come in 9th according to a study by the World Health Organization as reported in Forbes.

Experts say it is not surprising that people across the globe are increasingly becoming overweight. They blame urbanization and the influx of Western ways of life including myriad fast food choices, little exercise and stressful jobs.

For once America can be proud of not being number 1. Out of 194 countries we only come in 9th with less than 75% of our population being overweight. Hurray for us!

If you are really into finding the thin crowd, check out places like Ethiopia and Vietnam where less than 10% of the population is fat. That's good news since I love to eat ethnic cuisine from both of these cultures. Coincidentally neither of these countries has a McDonalds. In fairness, neither does the world's fattest nation, Nauru. However they do make Happy Meal toys in Vietnam.