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People need to stop blaming health problems in the U.S. south on diet (lemmy.nz)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by Tobirik@sh.itjust.works to c/goodoffmychest@lemmy.world
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A lot of people blame health problems in the US south on diet.

"It's not their fault. Their food is just very tasty"

Yeah. It's not just diet. It's also

  • The fact US Southern States refuse to expand Medicaid, even when the federal goverment offered to pay for it.

  • The fact they refuse to tax cigarettes. California, New York or Massachusetts tax the shit out of them. US southern states simply don't want to do it.

  • Several southern states have no state-wide smoking bans. New York City banned smoking indoors in 2003. Louisiana's capital city banned smoking indoors in 2018.

  • Strong opposition to road safety measures. New York is one of the safest state to drive in and one of the reasons is actually speed cameras (even though they are unpopular). Meanwhile, Mississsippi has the highest traffic fatalty rate in the US. Mississsippi decided to ban speed cameras and red-light cameras. Louisiana, another high fatalty state, also moved to ban them.

  • There is a religious exemption for vaccination.

  • The weakest gun laws in the US. There is no waiting period to purchase a weapon. Gun dealers aren't require to have a state licence. They aren't required to have safes and cameras. There is no ban on gun advertising. It's just a shit show.

Basically a lot of these problems have nothing to do with diet. It's political

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[-] disregardable@lemmy.zip 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It is mostly diet, though. Poor diet is the #1 cause of death in the US. It's not just a southern thing. The standard American diet is objectively unhealthy on a global scale. And when I say it's unhealthy, I mean it leads to premature deaths.

[-] bizarroland@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

Heart disease is the number one cause of death in America, and although heart disease can be exacerbated by poor diet, it is also exacerbated by lack of activity, and given that most of the American South is highly vehicle dependent, that could be at least a reasonable part of the whole.

[-] disregardable@lemmy.zip -4 points 7 months ago

If it was a reasonable part of the whole, there would be evidence showing "Walking 30 minutes a day significantly reduces heart disease risk in obese patients". But there isn't, because that's a fantasy.

[-] gustofwind@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

As far as I’m seeing walking 30 minutes a day does in fact reduce the risk of heart disease in obese patients

not to the degree of completely ameliorating the effects of a horrible diet but 30 minutes of walking benefits everyone even obese people

[-] disregardable@lemmy.zip -3 points 7 months ago

As far as I’m seeing walking 30 minutes a day does in fact reduce the risk of heart disease in obese patients

not to the degree of completely ameliorating the effects of a horrible diet

Dude. Think about what you just wrote.

[-] gustofwind@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Walking 30 minutes a day may partially offset the effects of a bad diet, yes

Do you have any research showing walking had no effect on hearth health for obese people because literally everything im seeing off google says it improves heart health

[-] ruuster13@lemmy.zip 5 points 7 months ago

Which is also political. People don't have access to affordable healthy food. So they buy cheaper things they know aren't as healthy and then get blamed for it.

[-] natecox@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

SAD is such an appropriate acronym for this. It tickles me every time I see it.

[-] Berengaria_of_Navarre@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

I've travelled round the states a bit. Louisiana had by far the best food of any of the States I visited both in terms of taste and nutritional content.

[-] hissingmeerkat@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

Poor diet isn't even the #1 cause of preventable deaths in the US. That's smoking. Followed by obesity (which isn't all poor diet). And then air pollution and accidents.

You can't just look at about a quarter of all deaths being heart disease and say that's all poor diet. Old people die of hearts failing for myriad reasons. Nor does obesity explain the next quarter of deaths to cancer, though it does complicate and contribute to those too. Nor does it explain strokes, respiratory diseases, dementia (which is largely air pollution), or even diabetes (approximately half of which are type 1 diabetes and lifestyle only affects chances of developing type 2 diabetes, it doesn't determine it).

[-] limer@lemmy.ml 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Large southern metro areas have the same life expectancy as other cities in Europe and North America. But the further one goes from those cities the lower the life expectancy .

So you are correct… but ( and there would be a but because I am commenting here), the southern recipes for adding a cup of butter and a pound of sugar are not helping

[-] Feyd@programming.dev 6 points 7 months ago

Are "southern" recipes even localized to the southern US in present day? isn't it more about ultraprocessed food? Mostly the same stuff is consumed everywhere in the US yeah?

[-] limer@lemmy.ml 6 points 7 months ago

I grew up in the south and spent many decades here: when I was a child there was still a different cuisine. But now I think the larger cities in the region has just generic North American culture, and one is far more likely to find Chinese, Indian or other influences now.

There is some southern cuisine barely surviving in the more rural areas, mostly by older people.

But yes, I think the so called southern food culture today is more of a non regional fad, like you mentioned

this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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