Thursday, May 04, 2006

Healthy Brits, Happy Brits

I wouldn't file this under shocking news, but a recent study published in JAMA shows that middle-aged white British males are significantly healthier than their American counterparts. I'm not surprised, although I think there are more temptations and yummy things to eat in the UK. The biggest difference is that they don't serve them in trough sized proportions there, compared to here. When I moved to the UK I was already pretty overweight, and the loneliness of moving to a foreign country, combined with the change from being a professional to student found me snacking a lot. I was introduced to Walkers crisps, egg and cress sandwiches from Tesco, Jammie Dodgers, Chocolate Hob Nobs, and our local chip shop. I came home after being in England for 8 months and I was waddling. Salving your emotions with crap food only works so far. One of the things I really loved about where I lived was the ability to walk places, including to the Tube, which would take me even farther away. Car transport is not so compulsory in a place like England. I loved that.

I have 12 more payments to make on my car. After that, we plan on getting something compact yet large enough to carry 2 dogs. We have been test driving cars, which I feel slightly guilty about since there is no immediate intention to buy one. Selling cars has got to be one of the hardest jobs. We had a follow-up call from the man who showed us the last car we drove. That's pretty aggressive. I screened it. In any case, the car was a Honda Fit, which I joked that it could be called a Seizure. It's actually a speedy little car, but has all these nifty things you can do with the seats to fold them down and fit lots of stuff in the vehicle. It also has a system built in for the ipod. Apparently they have been in Europe and Japan under the name of Jazz. If you go to their website it flashes the phrase, "The Fit is Go."

It reminds me of the Thunderbirds cartoon, or the subliminal messages in Zoolander. The car gets 31 miles to the gallon, which is especially nice with the way gas prices are going up. I know anyone in England would tell me to suck it up, when they are paying over $5 a gallon, but this wavering gas price situation is just another reason I get annoyed at Bush.

2 comments:

Paul Saxton said...

The portion sizes is one of the things I love about America. If I lived there I would, I'm sure, be enormous. With no-one to blame but myself.

I've no idea why us white, British, middle-aged (is 38 middle-aged?) males are so fantastically slim, healthy and attractive. It's just one of those things I suppose.

Hyperher said...

Like being humble? Ha.