Study shows Brits Healthier than Americans

[veganwitch]

I heard on National Public Radio the past two mornings about a study recently done comparing the health of middle age British people to American people. The study, supposed to be in latest Journal of American Medical Association, showed that British were much healthier. I really wasn't surprised to hear that. We have a major obesity problem here. What did surprise me was that the study didn't think eating habits were the difference in the results. It showed that lifestyle habits, for example walking more, made the difference.

I was interested to know if others think Brits are healthier? And if so, why?

Another interesting thing was they mentioned was that chip sandwiches (french fries sandwich) are very popular. What I want to know is HOW DO I MAKE ONE???

[tipsy]

this was the front page of the lifestlyles section of our newspaper yesterday.

its true. i work too much....

any brits wanna adopt a cute american???

[Risker]

I'm not suprised we're healthier either, I would definately put it down to diet more than lifestyle, last time I was in America I felt ill a few times after eating due to the amount of sugar and calories.

Chip butties are different depending on who you ask, the basic ingredients are bread and chips. The bread could be pretty much any savoury bread product, then you just stuff it with chips.

Optional extras are butter (vegan spread for us), vinegar, ketchup, salt or whatever you fancy.

Here's an example one;

[veganwitch]

its true. i work too much....

Right, I forgot that part of the study. Americans start their work day too early and work too late and don't get enough vacation time. When my husband and I heard that part we turned to each other in the car and said "We must be British". We are NOT morning people, but our jobs seem to require it.

[veganwitch]

Love that chip buttie pic Risker. Thanks for the info.....course now I want fries/chips. Dinner decision for tomorrow is SOLVED!

[mophoto]

that sandwich looks so healthy

it does look good, though. i call it a carb sandwich when i eat potatos and bread

[poppy seed]

So where's the ketchup...?!?

[Pilaf]

The answer is simple: in Britain, people walk on a daily basis. There's a much higher density and percentage of pedestrians over there than here in the US. A girl I talk to a lot from Britain commented that she was amazed how few people walk even two blocks to the store in America. In her words "no wonder you lot are so dreadful fat. You never get any exercise".

[mophoto]

exactly!!!!!!!!

[eve]

In the US they drink lots more coffee, every day. Plus their air is far more polluted than most other big cities.

[Wildflower]

I heard this too, but missed part of it yesterday as they ran the weekly emergency broadcast test in the middle of it!

I love walking, but I can't really walk anywhere as I risk being murdered or run over by a car as we have no sidewalks here in america. Oh yeah, and I work 14 miles away from where I live. I do live on a man made lake with a path around it, I walk on it with my dog. It is my dream to live somewhere where I can walk everwhere!

I went to college in a very nice neighborhood, I walked everywhere and it was great. Everyone thought I was crazy for walking alone though, even during the day in a town with zero crime and average house values of over a million dollars.

I happen to be very fortunate to get a lot of vacation
(4 weeks and 10 holidays) where I work - but I am too busy to take it as I already work 15 hours a day plus weekends! Noone can take it all, and we are not able to carry it over to the next year so we lose it. That much vacation is VERY unheard of here, I feel guilty even sharing it as usual vacation is NONE! Maybe a week or two after years of service. I also get sick time, everywhere else I have worked I got none and it was sooo hard.

Normal working hours are 8-5 here, which I don't agree with. I come in at 9, and since I don't get lunch I leave at 5 when I can. Usually I stay really late, so I refuse to feel guilty. a 9 hour standard day should be illegal. And I should get paid for lunch as I am salaried.

Oh yeah, my comment about lunch - I very very rarely have time to take a lunch. I eat at my desk while on conference calls for meetings or take lunch to catch up. It sucks.

Sorry - I am burned out, so this got me started!

[Stu]

Tomato ketchup is a legally-required ingredient of a chip buttie.

Oh, and they have to be proper fat chips; not those little thin ones that you have in America.

[Stu]

we have no sidewalks here in america.

Serious?

I happen to be very fortunate to get a lot of vacation (4 weeks and 10 holidays) where I work...

That's about standard here. Four weeks is the minimum annual leave, plus we tend to get all the Bank Holidays etc.

I already work 15 hours a day plus weekends!

Serious?

I come in at 9, and since I don't get lunch I leave at 5 when I can.

You don't get lunch!?!? Once again... serious?

Why in God's name do Americans love their country so much? I just don't get it. There seems to be this blind patriotism, yet your country treats you (and everyone else) like shit.

I don't mean to stick the knife in or whatever; I'm just amazed! Why do you put up with it?

[antman]

And I moan about my job... 10 hour days and with only four weeks holiday has never struck me as good, but I get 3 days off a week and a healthy lunch break.

I also do a lot of walking in my job, but also a helluva lot of passive smoking. I'll probably be talking through a hole in my neck soon...

[Pob]

Mushy peas, gravy, curry sauce are all possible extras for the chip buttie, too.
Ketchup is definitely a requirement, though.

My holidays were 33 days per year, plus 8 bank holidays
I had trouble fitting all those in. I've now got 26 days standard (pay increased to cover the other 7) but I can trade holidays/pay for any number between 20 and 30.

Standard hours are 7.5 per day + 1 hour unpaid lunch.

Sick pay was up to 9 months full pay, then 3 years at 50% pay.
Now it is 6 months full pay, then 5 years at 75% pay.

I hadn't realised the US had crap working conditions

[Cumin]

I heard this story on BBC radio 4 this week, and I was suprised. They are normally telling us brits how we work the longest hours, eat the worst food, and do the least exercise. Maybe that's just compared to other europeans.

Regarding holidays... I used to work for a large US company and was shocked to hear about the small amount of days off a year they got (approx 10). However, then I heard about sabaticals. These guys used to get extra 4 weeks off every couple of years that they took in one lump. Sounds nice, but most of them spent it looking for a new job
Do any of you in the US get these sabaticals?

[aubergine]

The answer is simple: in Britain, people walk on a daily basis. There's a much higher density and percentage of pedestrians over there than here in the US. A girl I talk to a lot from Britain commented that she was amazed how few people walk even two blocks to the store in America. In her words "no wonder you lot are so dreadful fat. You never get any exercise".

I read somewhere that people in NYC are generally healthier because they tend to walk everywhere.

[Xenius13]

This makes me glad I've never owned a car and live eight blocks from the nearest bus stop. Also, we do have sidewalks in this part of the US.

[veganwitch]

Why in God's name do Americans love their country so much? I just don't get it. There seems to be this blind patriotism, yet your country treats you (and everyone else) like shit.

I live here and I don't get the blind patriotism thing either. Most days I feel embarrased to be an American. But that is another thread.

As much as I complain about my job, as far as time off goes I have it great. I only work 185 days of the year. Weekends off, regular hours 8-2:20, summers off, plus 3-4 weeks of vacation off during the school year.

That is the ONLY reason I work as an educational technician. That and the fact that my husband teaches so we are at the same school. But the pay is worse than crap. I get paid by the hour and only get paid for 10 legal holidays plus 2 personal days and 10 sickdays every year.

To me though time off is more important than money. Lately more and more I 've been questioning why I work there but if I get what I consider a "real job" I will have to work all year with probably 2 weeks vacation, if that.

I agree with Wildflower about the lack of sidewalks. It's taking your life in your hands to walk the roads where I live. Most likely a drunken redneck will swerve off the road in his obscene pickup and flatten me.

Sorry it was a bit of a rant. I am getting burned out and fed up too.

[Pilaf]

I read somewhere that people in NYC are generally healthier because they tend to walk everywhere.

Well, see, I don't live in NYC. I live in butt[censored] nowhere in Tennessee, like five miles from the nearest town.

So I drive.. but...er yeah. I'd like to live in a bigger city, like Nashville. I'd get more walking in. I'm visiting New York next year to meet a friend from the internet. I expect to get a lot of walkin' in that week.

[Wildflower]

Serious?



That's about standard here. Four weeks is the minimum annual leave, plus we tend to get all the Bank Holidays etc.



Serious?



You don't get lunch!?!? Once again... serious?

Why in God's name do Americans love their country so much? I just don't get it. There seems to be this blind patriotism, yet your country treats you (and everyone else) like shit.

I don't mean to stick the knife in or whatever; I'm just amazed! Why do you put up with it?

Yes, we don't have very many sidewalks or areas to ride bikes here. Most of our houses are in these things we call subdivisions. Most subdivisions have sidewalks so it is easy to walk from house to house and kids can roller skate and what not, but they don't do you any good as we don't typically have stores/shops/bars/other places of businesses mixed in with our housing areas. SO, if you want a sidewalk that will lead you to something you may need to walk to (your job, the store) good luck! More urban areas (Chicago/NY) do have sidewalks. But typically, if you are between a housing area and a downtown area, there is not going to be a way for you to walk or ride a bike between the two. Not all housing subdivisions have sidewalks either, it is the more modern/affluent ones and even urban ones.

Also remember, we are very spread out here. Most people have many miles between where they live, work, and shop. For example, I work and live in the same city (a urban area). I work 14 miles from where I live. It takes me about 40 minutes to drive there. I think we can all agree this is too far to walk, but if I was very fit and wanted to cycle to work, there is not a bike path/sidewalk to cycle on, and we do not allow cyclists on our expressways. I suppose if I worked it out, I could find side streets to cycle on, but most of our roads are not meant for cyclists, and I would risk getting run over and run off the road into the ditch.

Ok, so where I shop - I live around 8 miles maybe from my local co-op, and 1 mile from the regular grocery store. There is no sidewalk to follow to the regular grocery store. It is not a very busy street, so I could walk along side the road. I live 2.2 miles from the gym. I do have sidewalks but only for part of this, then busier roads which I couldn't really walk along the side of (no shoulder). I could cycle there, but I also live in an area of the city with elevated crime, and probably shouldn't.

I work in a downtown area, it does have areas of the road with bicycle lanes, and most of it has a sidewalks/paths. I do walk around downtown. I work in a slightly bad area of the city though. One woman I work with had her car stollen in the middle of the day from our parking lot. My boss's car was broken into during the day and his stereo was stolen. All this, and we have security patrolling the building/lots. Despite this, I refuse to think it is that bad of an area so I do chose to walk alone during the day and with people at night.

[Wildflower]

OK, lunches and working hours. Yes, Stu, I really was serious. I very rarely take a lunch break at work. It is not so much that I am not allowed, it is just the culture of our company, so it makes it hard to explain. I work a office kinda job - think sitting down at your pc all day, lots of boring meetings, high stress, etc. My hours are not monitored by anyone, so one could say I *choose* to work that much. I work so many hours lately because I am on a very large project (45 million dollar budget) and we have very tight deadlines. All of us are given way more work then we can get done. We have low efficiency (due to being overtired, overworked, etc) which means everything takes longer than it should.

Basically, I am given a job and expected to do it in the time alloted. No one stops and breaks for lunch. Most days, I eat something at my desk while working. People schedule meetings through lunch, I have meetings every week from 12:30-2 each Tuesday/Wednesday. Infact, I have meetings most of the day, everyday. We are spread out in different locations and time zones across the US, and my meetings are over the phone with maybe a few people at my location in the room with me. Because of this, it is hard to coordinate meeting times that are good for everyone (our east coast is a hour ahead, our west coast is 2 hours behind where I am in the middle).

So...I may get to eat lunch, but I don't get to 'take a lunch break' Again, I could days when I don't have meetings or days when I don't need to get someone something right away...those days are limited. Last week I went to lunch - even walked there! But taking that time meant that I didn't finish some things I needed to do and had to do them later. The work doesn't go away, there is too much.

We are all overworked here, my company is probably worse than most. I don't take on too much, I am given too much. I can't push back, and I can't just not do the work. It is accepted that people will "do what it takes to get it done." Due dates are set by management, and there is no NOT meeting them. We do things half assed just to get them done, and then it makes more work to re-do them or compensate for the half assed-ness later.

I don't work that many hours every day, but due to this latest project I am on, I have been on some days. I work at home on nights/weekends to finish up (I have a work laptop and I can remote in the our systems). I carry a pager and get paged/called on days off when I try to escape to lunch, when I am in the bathroom and when I leave work.

It is all the culture of the company, and the fear of failure and getting fired that makes us do this. It is probably a result of our company, as many US companies, not being willing to pay for skilled people and not willing to pay for enough people to do a job.

The saddest thing about my story, is that I don't work as many hours as many other people I work with. This actually leads to me feeling somewhat guilty! How sick is that! Others I work with pull all-nighters on a regular basis. Oh, and also, when people work all night and all weekend, it makes those who don't feel like they were out on vacation. I have logged off of my email at 2AM, logged back in at 7AM, and had tons of unread messages! Some with weekends, everyone else is working, you have 200 new emails when you come in Monday.

Sorry for the extremely long rant. Everywhere here isn't like this, but many places are. I personally hate the company I work for. They treat us like shit! I am not fond of living in the US right now either. I am anti-bush, and it is embarrasing to call myself american. I hate our whole culture. I hate paying all of my spare money for education and healthcare. I hate our high crime rates and general disregard for human rights - of our own people, and the rest of the world.

[Wildflower]

LOL - for anyone who actually read my sob story, and I had just posted it when someone from work just called me at home!

Do any of you in the US get these sabaticals?

Nope, never heard of anyone getting that outside of the higher education field except my friend's husband gets a 6 week sabatical when he has put in 25 years at his company.

[veganwitch]

LOL - for anyone who actually read my sob story, and I had just posted it when someone from work just called me at home!

I read it Wildflower and I shall read it everytime I start gripping about my "lousy" job. I wouldn't last two minutes at your job. They'd either fire me because I took a real lunch and didn't get my work done or I'd just run out of the office screaming at the top of my lungs one day, LOL!

[eclectic_one]

I pretty much agree with everything you guys have mentioned...Americans generally get less vacation time, less exercise, etc. It is also true that Americans eat more fast food, more genetically engineered food, drink more soft drinks, and use more dairy products than most of the rest of the world. (I do know on the "dairy" part that there are a few countries that use more.) [I just saw a study comparing France to the U.S. and though their health is still better than ours, it's getting worse and the researchers blame it on fast food consumption.] Our country's gov't also allows toxic waste to be used on crops (i.e., human waste, agricultural waste, etc.)--it was considered toxic waste until the 90's when it was changed to acceptable as a fertilizer. Our country's gov't also allows much more air/water pollution that just about anywhere else. We also have a gov't that allows pharmaceutical companies to outright lie and manipulate the populace into taking tons of medications (many of which are unnecessary and many which are dangerous)--especially those that are "name-brand" instead of generic. We also have a medical industry (partly funded/manipulated by the drug companies) that only pushes pills instead of suggesting more natural remedies or changes in diet/exercise.

[Wildflower]

I read it Wildflower and I shall read it everytime I start gripping about my "lousy" job. I wouldn't last two minutes at your job. They'd either fire me because I took a real lunch and didn't get my work done or I'd just run out of the office screaming at the top of my lungs one day, LOL!

Thank veganwitch. I guess I went a bit overboard with my post.

I feel so stupid explaining it, and that I still work there. What am I thinking? Well, I would love to find a new job, but the other truth is unemployment here in the US is still fairly high and it took me awhile to find this job...

We will see, if I had time, I could update my resume and find a newer, better job!

[DianeVegan]

Wildflower, your job really does suck (and I don't even know what you do for a living).

About comparing America to Britain - it's like comaring the state of New York to the rest of America. As others have pointed out, the U.S. is very spread out. It should really be the United Sprawl of America because that's what it has become. We have built up such a dependency on automobiles that I don't know how we'll ever turn it around. And most suburbs have wide roads which make biking dangerous (studies show people drive faster on wider roads, I swear I read that somewhere) so now kids can't even ride their bikes around but need to be driven. No wonder childhood obesity has soared.

[Wildflower]

Wildflower, your job really does suck (and I don't even know what you do for a living).

I am a project manager for a financial services company. I manage very large scale technical projects.

Lots to do, and everything being financial related means no room for error.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention we have a blood pressure machine at work and we get to go home if our bp gets too high! It is very a la the movie Wallstreet. Anyone see that movie? That's the kinda work I do, sorta, only on the technical back-end side.

The cool thing is, we are so busy, noone notices if I am there or not, so I can come and go when I want, and work from home whenever (I carry a 2 way pager, a cell phone, and have a laptop, so I am always "there"). This morning I carpooled with my boyfriend, so I left work when he was ready at 1pm, and am logged in working from home. I like to work from home.

[Blueshark]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention we have a blood pressure machine at work and we get to go home if our bp gets too high!

That is really terrible. I would imagine it would be a company requirement to prevent against legal action from an injured employee.

It is the ugly, disturbing side of the corporate machine.

[Stu]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention we have a blood pressure machine at work and we get to go home if our bp gets too high!

Heh, I'd be taking measures to raise my blood pressure, and checking it on that machine on the hour, every hour.

[eve]

The following is part of a news item on obesity in the US, in todays UK Observer:

"Of the country's 7.5 million former soldiers, sailors and airmen on government benefits, 70 per cent are overweight and 20 per cent have diabetes, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The growing health crisis has prompted Washington to set up the first nationwide fitness campaign to encourage ex-servicemen and women to slim and help reduce the estimated annual $117bn cost of obesity to American taxpayers."

Would be interesting to know the sort of campaign they have in mind.

[treehugga]

I hope this doesn't offend anyone and I'm only basing it on tv exposure re America, but they seem to be portrayed as a neurotic race who are constantly in long term therapy. Maybe their stress levels are connected if this is the case. I think Britain may have more of a 'get on with it and over it' attitude. America appears so divided with the 'haves and have nots' appearing so extreme. The pressure to try and aquire celebrity like status and the crap govt ethics would make me really unhealthy I'd imagine and the orange cheese of course - what the hell is that! I think in Britain they burn off a lot of energy trying to keep warm .

[treehugga]

I think the hotdogs and donuts also have a lot to answer for in the US.