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America still exports fast-food culture, fat
By Andrew Lam |
July 10, 2012, Tuesday
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EACH time I visit my homeland, Vietnam, I find that many of my relatives have gotten wealthier and progressively fatter, especially their overly pampered children.
One cousin in Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City] in particular is raising an obese child.
When asked why she was feeding him so much she simply shrugged and said, "Well, we barely had enough to eat during the Cold War. Now that I have money, I just let my son eat what he wants."
Unfortunately what that entails for her boy is access to an array of American-owned chains like KFC, Pizza Hut, Carl Jr's, and most recently, Burger King. His favorite meal? "Pizza and Coke," the boy answered with glee.
Besides the tasty draw of fatty foods and sweet sodas, there's another reason why such establishments are making inroads in countries that are otherwise known for their excellent culinary traditions.
Unlike in the US, where fast food is perceived as time saving and cheap and often the preferred meal of the working poor, in Asia places like Burger King and Pizza Hut are the fare of choice for those with disposable incomes. For a regular factory worker in Vietnam who makes around US$3 dollar a day, eating at KFC is completely out of the question.
Proof of status
For those who can afford to eat at one of Pizza Hut's air-conditsioned restaurants in a chic, sparkling shopping mall in Hanoi or Saigon, however, eating is only part of the experience. The other part is equally, if not more, important: Consuming American fast food is the proof of one's economic status in the world.
And if common sense and taste are often the first casualties in a world where Western fast food and brand name sodas proliferate at an alarming rate, the ultimate casualty is health itself. According to the World Health Organization, one billion people are malnourished in the world and another billion - many in developing countries - are overweight.
It would seem that not only are the Chinese catching up with the American economy, but with the American size as well.
According to the Chinese Health Ministry, Chinese city boys age 6 are 2.5 inches taller and 6.6 pounds heavier on average than their counterparts three decades ago.
In this regard, Vietnam too is catching up with China. While 28 percent of rural children suffer from malnutrition, according to the National Institute of Nutrition, 20 percent from urban areas suffer from the opposite: obesity. "The number of overweight and obese kids is increasing at a fast pace in Ho Chi Minh City [formerly known as Saigon] where the highest ratio of children with the problem is recorded," Do Diep, deputy direct of the Ho Chi Minh City Nutrition Center, told Tien Phong newspaper two years ago.
'Selling the entire forest'
For many Vietnamese, the irony is all too obvious. Previous generations known as boat people fled out to sea on rickety boats to escape starvation and extreme austerity during the Cold War. But they are quickly being replaced by a new generation, one that needs to go to the gym or a fat farm to drop excess weight - or if they can afford it, "flee" abroad to shop for the latest brand name items like Hermes belts and Louis Vuitton bags.
It is a situation that one intellectual in Vietnam coined as, "Selling the entire forest to buy a stack of paper."
A case in point: When asked what he wanted from the USA, a cousin in Hanoi didn't hesitate: "Starbucks coffee."
Yes, he's quite aware that Vietnam is the second largest coffee producer in the world, second only to Brazil; and yes, on practically every block in the city there's a coffee shop. "But no one has tasted Starbucks coffee in Vietnam," the cousin explained. "Everyone wants to know what it tastes like."
These days one reads quite a few articles about the decline of the American empire and the rise of Asia, and in the same breath, how the Chinese are gaining the upper hand in the global economy.
But one wonders if that's true. Because even if declining, America still manages to sell its superior lifestyles to the rest of the world in ingenious ways, from food to movies, from music to fashion - and in the area of food at least, our obesity problems as well.
Andrew Lam is editor of New America Media and the author of "East Eats West: Writing In Two Hemispheres," and "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora." His next book, "Birds of Paradise Lost," is due out in 2013.
One cousin in Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City] in particular is raising an obese child.
When asked why she was feeding him so much she simply shrugged and said, "Well, we barely had enough to eat during the Cold War. Now that I have money, I just let my son eat what he wants."
Unfortunately what that entails for her boy is access to an array of American-owned chains like KFC, Pizza Hut, Carl Jr's, and most recently, Burger King. His favorite meal? "Pizza and Coke," the boy answered with glee.
Besides the tasty draw of fatty foods and sweet sodas, there's another reason why such establishments are making inroads in countries that are otherwise known for their excellent culinary traditions.
Unlike in the US, where fast food is perceived as time saving and cheap and often the preferred meal of the working poor, in Asia places like Burger King and Pizza Hut are the fare of choice for those with disposable incomes. For a regular factory worker in Vietnam who makes around US$3 dollar a day, eating at KFC is completely out of the question.
Proof of status
For those who can afford to eat at one of Pizza Hut's air-conditsioned restaurants in a chic, sparkling shopping mall in Hanoi or Saigon, however, eating is only part of the experience. The other part is equally, if not more, important: Consuming American fast food is the proof of one's economic status in the world.
And if common sense and taste are often the first casualties in a world where Western fast food and brand name sodas proliferate at an alarming rate, the ultimate casualty is health itself. According to the World Health Organization, one billion people are malnourished in the world and another billion - many in developing countries - are overweight.
It would seem that not only are the Chinese catching up with the American economy, but with the American size as well.
According to the Chinese Health Ministry, Chinese city boys age 6 are 2.5 inches taller and 6.6 pounds heavier on average than their counterparts three decades ago.
In this regard, Vietnam too is catching up with China. While 28 percent of rural children suffer from malnutrition, according to the National Institute of Nutrition, 20 percent from urban areas suffer from the opposite: obesity. "The number of overweight and obese kids is increasing at a fast pace in Ho Chi Minh City [formerly known as Saigon] where the highest ratio of children with the problem is recorded," Do Diep, deputy direct of the Ho Chi Minh City Nutrition Center, told Tien Phong newspaper two years ago.
'Selling the entire forest'
For many Vietnamese, the irony is all too obvious. Previous generations known as boat people fled out to sea on rickety boats to escape starvation and extreme austerity during the Cold War. But they are quickly being replaced by a new generation, one that needs to go to the gym or a fat farm to drop excess weight - or if they can afford it, "flee" abroad to shop for the latest brand name items like Hermes belts and Louis Vuitton bags.
It is a situation that one intellectual in Vietnam coined as, "Selling the entire forest to buy a stack of paper."
A case in point: When asked what he wanted from the USA, a cousin in Hanoi didn't hesitate: "Starbucks coffee."
Yes, he's quite aware that Vietnam is the second largest coffee producer in the world, second only to Brazil; and yes, on practically every block in the city there's a coffee shop. "But no one has tasted Starbucks coffee in Vietnam," the cousin explained. "Everyone wants to know what it tastes like."
These days one reads quite a few articles about the decline of the American empire and the rise of Asia, and in the same breath, how the Chinese are gaining the upper hand in the global economy.
But one wonders if that's true. Because even if declining, America still manages to sell its superior lifestyles to the rest of the world in ingenious ways, from food to movies, from music to fashion - and in the area of food at least, our obesity problems as well.
Andrew Lam is editor of New America Media and the author of "East Eats West: Writing In Two Hemispheres," and "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora." His next book, "Birds of Paradise Lost," is due out in 2013.
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