5 things I learnt while being in America

1. The American McDonalds, is insane. And not in the good way. They have things on their menu we have never even heard of up here, and maybe twice as many things.

2. The rate of obesity in the US is no new thing. I'm always hearing it on the radio and on the TV, and never really paid attention to it. I mean, Canada has plenty of fatties also. But down in the US, the rate is 74.1 % of overweight/obese people, and to my surprise, you can actually see it. I had settled into being a minority size wise, but down there? I could barely find someone who was average size, and I am not exaggerating. You would think that would make me feel more comfortable, more 'average', but it had exactly the opposite effect. Man, I was not feeling good down there. As a result, every store had plus size, and in fact there was no plus size section. Every single rack of clothes in every store I went into had plus size. That, is incredibly weird. I think what I felt was that instead of making efforts to change themselves, Americans had accepted and enabled their unhealthy eating habits. And that felt really awkward. Weird huh?

3. Continuing with number 2, I had always asked myself how so many Americans could be over-weight. Sounds hypocritical, but I knew why I was overweight, but couldn't understand how so many people could have applied the same lifestyle to their lives. But, I could see how easy it was to become overweight. It was ridiculous the amount of cheap unhealthy food one could find. Burgers for 40 cents, and xlarge pizzas for 5$ makes it much simpler for anyone to simply pick something up than go home, prep and cook supper and clean up afterwards. And some would say much simpler on the wallet as well. Temptation was everywhere, and it takes a strong will to say no over and over again!

4. Americans are much nicer and polite than I thought. Either that or I met some extraordinarily happy people.

5. I’ve been thinking for awhile about if the USA would be a better place to live than Canada, as they seem so intent on portraying their country as numero uno. But Canada rocks. And I’m glad to be one. Canadian that is.