My Eastern Europe observation.

[pipee_pl]

Hello everyone,
Hopefully I am posting this in the proper place as I am still wading through the boards.
I just wanted to relay a personal experience about living in Warsaw and food.
This is my second time living in Warsaw, the first was 97 and 98. 99, 00, 01 we returned to canada and have been living here since 02 or approximately--we have been here for 2 and a half years.
Now the first time I was living here I noticed a huge difference in the people as compared to North America. First of all a lot of blondes but everyone was stick thin, it was unbelievable. I was probably about 25 to 30 lbs overweight and then i was pregnant.
but this is my observation, in hindsight. People didn't eat out, the grocery stores although communism was gone, compared to north american standards were bare. for me not being able to buy kraft dinner was a tragedy.
polish people ate their soup, their meat and their potatoes- and i can't forget the pierogies. there was mcdonalds, kfc, pizza hut, burger king, taco bell but they were not busy- except mcdonalds.
now, my second tour of duty, so to speak, the thing that my husband and i have noticed is how fat people have become. burger king and taco bell left poland but the other fast food restaurants will have a line up at any point of the day, they just got breakfast at mcdonalds about 3 months ago so people would eat big mac and fries for breakfast before this.
the kids are fatter, younger, and all of the typical diet foods are starting to pop up.
people in the grocery stores are buying the convenience foods which are slowly creeping into the country. frozen pizzas and french fries are very popular as is coke and any kind of sugar cereal--it is disgusting.
exactly 2 years ago i read the book "fast food nation" and since that point we no longer eat fast food- don't miss it one bit, if you read the book you will know why.
parents send their kids to school with lunches consisting of white bread, chocolate spread and a chocolate bar- i am not joking either. a snack during the day is chocolate.
now i understand during communism the only thing that was in the stores was vinegar and now that there are all these "western" products people are buying them but you would think that eastern europeans would learn from the mistakes of north america and other western countries like germany and england.
so this is my bit, sorry it is so long but i often think about this and how i wish someone could have done a study of some sort to see what foods poles were consuming that corelated to their weight increase.
i know sugar is in almost everything- i was on the hunt this past week and some things like meat which i didn't think had sugar, most definately did. and the preservatives as well.
but i am interested if anyone else has made any observations of a country while travelling.

[not2late]

Thanks for sharing your observations with us.

I've come to believe that eating "traditionally" is the best way to go for your general health and well-being. What do I mean by "traditional"? I mean, eating minimall processed foods. Eating foods that aren't soaked in preservatives and/or additives. In other words, eating wholesome foods.

Another problem is portion size. I think we have the tendency to eat huge portions of everything. Take for example, those huge muffins in many bakeries, or those 32 ounce sodas. Interestingly, a couple of years ago, my mother gave me a set of "everyday" dinnerware from the late 1950s. I compared the size of those pieces of china to a set I had bought around 2000. The 1950's dinner plate is 1/2 inch smaller than the 2000 dinner plate: 1/2 chicken breast on the 1950s plate looks huge. That same 1/2 chicken breast on my 2000 plate looks skimpy. The 1950s bowl holds only 1/2 cup: the 2000 bowl hols a cup and a half. The 1950s coffee cups holds alittle less than 2/3 cup. The 2000 coffee cup holds alittle more than 1 cup.

[Desertthorn]

Great post. I live in Japan where folks are tiny and small and seeing anyone overweight is the exception to the rule. BUT and thats a big BUT, times are changing. They are using more cars now and less walking and biking. They are eating more junk and fast food and the children are becoming fatter and fatter.

Megs, you right about potion size. Here in Japan portions are still very small.

On Tuesday nights I go to Pottery class and we always stop at the 7-11 afterward. If you go to a 7-11 in the US, finding a healthy or low carb snack is pretty much out of the question, but here in Japan, there is one wall of great, healthy meal selections called bento boxes with little tid-bits of food. A slice of smoked salmon, a pickeled something, a salted cherry, a dried something, seaweed something and of course the obligatory rice something. They are delicious and also good for you. Also the Japanese desserts are low in sugar as they don't like the really sweet flavor that we like in the US.
So maybe there is hope for the rest of the world and maybe they won't blindly follow the poor eating habits of the Western world.

[Effie]

Pipee, you mentioned "Fast Food Nation".... there's another book out there worth a read entitled, "Fat Land: How Americans became the fattest country in the world" (something like that, the Fat Land part is right). I don't know if they need to spend money doing a study, I think it's pretty obvious why we're the fattest, and foreign countries following in our footsteps are also getting fatter. But, when has common sense ever played a role in eating habits anyway? </sarcasm>

[divaindubai]

That's an interesting observation from Poland! Thanks!

I'm a Canadian living in the Middle East in the United Arab Emirates, and its interesting here as far as people's eating habits and weight wise goes. One of the things you notice here, is there is a tendency to cover up more, since it is a Muslim country, so you don't often see people's body shapes as you would in the west. For instance 25% of the population here are UAE nationals and both men and women wear the national dress, which is the long white robe for men with the head covering, and for the women they wear the long black abaya (robe) with a sheera to cover their heads and sometimes they hang it over their faces so you cannot even see their faces. So when you try to see the men in their white dishdasha or Khandouras, it is hard to tell exactly because nothing really clings to their bodies, it just hangs. It does look incredibly humble though I find, especially the men's clothing! I think it looks really nice on them, but you cannot see their body shapes. YOu can obviously tell if some of them are veyr overweight but not in that much of a noticably fashoin, you have to really be watching them and then you will see.
As far as the women go, there are many Emirati women who you can tell are thin as pencil sticks, and the only thing you can see is their bright coloured dresses hanging a few inches past their abaya, or they might wear high heeled shoes or have fancy purses, and some of the abayas are a bit snug on their arms (that might be the style of the abaya), so you can tell from some of the women that they are quite slender even their arms. You can see the odd one or two Emirati woman who looks overweight, but again you cannot see any rolls of fat or too much defined areas where the fat might be, but you can just tell because she would be wearing a much bigger abaya, etc.


As far as the rest of the population, the westerners here seem to be pretty well in fit, and take good care of themselves. I believe the westerners might only make up about 10 percent of the total population of the UAE, and the rest of the population would be asians and indians/pakistanis. Of course with that you can see the Indians and Pakistani natioanl dresses are pretty loose as well, and they tend to cover up, even if they are not Muslim, so it is hard to see curves and body outlines.

All in all you don't see overweightedness or obesity really at all. I've seen the odd person who is very large/obese who sticks out int he crowd completely, but if you were to do an average crowd scan from a mall in the west, versus here, you would definitely see more people overweight/obese, in the west.

Yet there are fast food places here and many restaurants. I believe the difference here though is people tend to have maids and nannies who do the cooking from scratch so you don't have those packaged foods as much with all the preservatives, and things.

I know for instance, my family, we eat so much more healthier now, than when we were back in Canada. My children especially, before we'd stop by the 7 -11 to get a slurpee and they'd want chips or chocolate bar with that. and now I cannot remember the last time they ate a bag of chips or had a chocolate bar, yet there are small convenience stores around, but they don't have these frozen soft drink machines like the slurpee machines.

Sorry for the ramble, just thought I'd add my experience living here!!

[not2late]

Good point, divain and Desert, food is too "convenient" here because we've made it too convenient. In my area, there are some terrific "hole-in-the-wall dives" that offer home-style cooking like stews, roasted meats, steamed vegetables, etc. Their prices for a meal for 4 people is comparable to what you'd spend on a fast food meal for 4 people, yet around lunchtime and dinnertime, you'll see the cars line up at the fast food places rather than these small carry-outs. I go to a Jamaican restaurant that has the most wonderful chicken stew---alot more wholesome than those chicken nuggets. Yet, you don't see any soccermoms in that Jamaican restaurant. I mostly see retired folks.

The supermarkets in my area also sell salads, rotissiere chicken and turkey breast and some other prepared foods. A salad (which serves 4-6 people) and a rotissiere chicken costs less than $10.00. BUT, you'll have to bring it home, serve it and clean up. I think that's the problem too---people don't want to wash dishes after eating so it's easier to buy a fast food combo and toss the wrappers than it is to actually wash something.

[Desertthorn]

Megs, I cook about 3 times a week and we eat leftovers for the other days. Some how we have to retrain our children. I think its to late for our generations