Every one of those points is also true in Europe (apart from possibly healthcare), unfortunately. Car dependency and car-centric development is almost everywhere, places like the Netherlands are an outlier. Fast food and ads thereof are also everywhere. Many people smoke. Etc.

Sometimes my wife convince me to try American candy/foods that we buy in these "foreign foods stores" locally, because she grew up eating some of them in her country.

And every time we check the contents by reading the nutrition-labels or checking with apps like Yuka, it turns out that the stuff Americans put in the mouth and stomach are filled with stuff that is outright illegal to put in foods here in Europe.

So if I were to guess, it would be related to what is legal to put in foods/consumables.

Therefore, things like public smoking bans (as we have in the UK) as well as public health campaigns around alcohol consumption and healthy eating become palatable. Regulating harmful foodstuffs becomes more important. The cost of smokers' adverse health was (and still is) enormous, and reducing that burden benefits everyone.

Large portion of americans eat like they have free healthcare.

My understanding for Scotland/England it is a question of alcohol/drugs to some degree. I suspect it is similar for the comparison to US.

That means poorer countries tend to have worse healthcare, and less good outcomes.

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/americans-die-younger-than...

Obesity is primarily caused by the 1-2000 micro-decisions we make each year about what to eat, when, and how much. A free visit to the doctor now and then is just not going to move the needle much on that one way or another for most people, most of the time. Even if it could we have to ask why a $0 doctor visit would be so much more effective than a $100 doctor visit.

No, the effects you're seeing what Europeans are more fit than Americans on average is coming from somewhere else. I think the real answer is the obvious one: Food here in Europe is simply worse tasting than in the US in general. I've been here for 5 years across twice as many countries; I've never had a pizza here that even matches Little Caesar's back at home, in terms of lighting up my little monkey neurons, to say nothing of Costco. If I ever go back home I will break and get one of the two within a week of reaching the airport.

Capitalism is an optimization process that has optimized the heck out of food reward signal. Your only real options are either to be poor enough that capitalism doesn't care about getting you the 'good stuff' - easier said than done when being poor sucks, and when the good stuff is constantly getting cheaper over time anyway - or you fight back with even harder optimization in the reverse direction. You could argue Europe is some mixture of both compared to the US.

All the baby boomer men in my family would be dead if it wasn't for the American health care system.

Even suffering heart attacks, they didn't miss a beat to get back to going out to eat, drinking beer/wine and being massively overweight.

If you go to any restaurant at night it will be packed with fat old people stuffing their face. Most on medications so that they don't have to change their lifestyle.

No country has ever had the BMI of old people that America has right now. It is a wealth curse.

https://www.nationhoodlab.org/the-regional-geography-of-u-s-...

A clear East vs. West and to a lesser extent North vs. South difference is obvious. In Western Germany, most region with very low life expectancy are those regions that were under strong economic pressure in recent decades (usually former mining areas, such as the Ruhr Area and the Saarland).

Here is a 2020 map of life expectancy: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/media/13419_main.png

And here a 2019 map of household income: https://www.wsi.de/de/einkommen-14582-einkommen-im-regionale...

Differences is smoking might also have an important impact. Here is a 2013 map: https://bilder.deutschlandfunk.de/FI/LE/_f/47/FILE_f4790b165...

This seems to imply an even closer correlation.

Of course, correlation does not imply direct causation. The underlying causalities might be various, complex and different from region to region.

So I expect the picture of future retirees will look very different between countries with growing economies and the ones with declining/stagnating economies.

Those are basically all in yellow on that map.

So I guess the positive ones are the "democratic socialist" countries?

> Social democracy and democratic socialism are related but distinct political ideologies. Social democracy, often associated with the Nordic model, focuses on regulating capitalism to create a strong welfare state and reduce inequality through social programs, while generally supporting a mixed economy with private ownership. Democratic socialism, on the other hand, envisions a more fundamental transformation of the economic system, often including greater public or worker ownership and economic democracy, while also emphasizing democratic principles.

All countries in West Europe implement social democracies. They greatly outperform the US.

Countries in Eastern Europe are still enduring their legacy of communism/democratic socialism, but 30 years ago they experienced a radical swing towards the blend of neoliberalismo professed by the US.

Lastly, you look at data showing how the US greatly underperforms in key quality of life metrics, and the conclusion you opt to extract is cherry-pick those to look down on? That's tragic.

Isn't USA a country? How is a country-by-country comparison "typical Reddit ignorance"?

I'm gonna use my typical Reddit ignorance to guess you are indeed from the USA.

The first one doesn't include a few European countries. The second is completely backwards - health generally has been on the way up across the board for decades.