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In The US - Diet, Obesity, and Fat-shaming?

It's a common idea that Americans are fat. This isn't a stereotype so much as it is a statistic. Since I can't really tell you about the American diet without talking about obesity, this story will include a lot of rhetoric about the obesity epidemic in America. Some of this chapter comes off a little ranty, and I've done more research on the topic than I care to mention. However, before we start all that, let's begin with the first meal of the day.

Breakfast:

Most American's skip breakfast. There is a stigmatism that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day", and "breakfast jump starts your metabolism in the morning so you process your calories faster." I'll talk more about the American mindset, but for now, let's focus on breakfast. Most Americans might drink coffee for breakfast. It's considered strange to drink sodas, but juice or milk and coffee (if you drink it) are considered the staple for an American Breakfast. The juices we drink are typically apple or orange juice, and sometime cranberry or some kind of cranberry / apple hybrid. Not saying other juices don't exist, but I think those would be the most common three, followed by fruit punches and other 'more koolaid than juice' juices.

For the busy parent who has to get ready for work and get two kids ready for the bus by 7:00 a.m., cereal is the most go to option. Cereal is really bad for you, but in America, marketing (more later) convinced us that it is a staple of breakfast. Grocery stores contain aisles dedicated to just every type of cereal you can imagine. They're all bad for you, whether you grab cheerios or Coco puffs, but marketing lists tons of vitamins and the box is covered in buzz words from "multigrain" to "lowers cholesterol" and has convinced America that cereal is anything but what it is, sugar and wheat mixed with milk.

The second quick American Breakfast is a poptart. Not a toaster pastry, although those exist too, but the dry, sugar-induced monstrosity heavily marketed to kids and the busy parent that you toss into a toaster. You can also fall back on equally sugar-induced granola bars that are, once again, marketed as healthy.

Now, cereal, poptarts, and granola bars probably account for 80% (random statistic pulled out of my butt) of breakfasts in the morning. However, there are other options. Eggs, meat, and toast is a very very common breakfast. The meat is almost always bacon, ham, or sausage. You can occasionally get steak, but it is rarer. Eggs can be cooked any way eggs are cooked, including put into an omelet with cheese. The bread is not fresh, but plastic bag wrapped white, rye, sour dough or something like that.

Toast can be supplemented for pancakes or waffles (especially at IHOPs or Waffle Houses), which are served with pancake syrup, a thick artificial derivative of maple syrup (yah, more sugar!). Cheese would be a weird thing to have for breakfast unless it was put over eggs, and when I say cheese, I don't mean real cheese, usually... but American cheese slices or industrialized shredded cheddar or mozzarella. Potatoes can be served in the form of hashbrowns or "breakfast potatoes" which are just thinly cut into squares and cooked (sometimes with onions). I also should give a shout-out to bagels, which are often eaten with cream cheese, as well as the infamously sugary donuts, and of course muffins. At least donuts and muffins are also big calorie offenders.

Now, I'll mention fruit can be served for breakfast too. Less so for vegetables. For some reason, in America, vegetables are associated with dinner meals. I'm not saying there are not exceptions, but with the exception of vegans and vegetarians (still 3% of the population), not too many Americans would touch a salad or fruit platter for breakfast. For me, the thought of giving a kid an apple for breakfast seems strange, although I could see an orange on someone's plate, but usually as a side item, and not breakfast in entirety.

FYI, my kids occasionally eat cereal, but I also give them toast with nothing on it for breakfast a fair amount. Please note that most bread in America is not the nice hard hardy bakery kind, but soft pre-sliced manufactured bread that comes from a plastic bag. American white bread usually also contains sugar.