Do you consider the USA a good country?

[Caravaggio]

When I lived in the UK, I didn't feel they ate healthier. But I did have to walk everywhere which kept my weight down. I think when you look at Asia and Europe, they tend to walk to work more while Americans just get in a car and drive off somewhere.

Fair point, exercise helps to control weight. We do walk further than Americans but we are getting heavier and more diabetic too. Ironically, the historical data show that the British were leanest and fittest during the years 1945-1950. Food was rationed and protein was very expensive after the Second World War. People who remember those times say that food was harder to get than actually during the war years. When the Americans went home the extra rations went with them.

My American relatives drive everywhere, they would certainly not contemplate walking half a mile to the shops. When in a small town they drive from one shop to the next rather than park-up and explore all the shops on foot. This strikes Europeans as very strange. Is walking associated with being a loser, an indigent? People out walking for exercise make a huge deal of walking in that particular way announcing "hey, I'm doing sporty walking".

But going out for a meal in the US is bizarre.
In Point Reyes, just above Frisco, I asked for a bottle of white wine for my wife and myself. The waitress looked aghast and said "What!?, just for the two of you".
When the food arrived even the potatoes had been sweetened with something. The portions were immense and I noticed the other American (?) customers were unable to eat theirs either. Serving too much makes people eat too much in a culture, which traditionally and quite rightly, hates waste.

 

[piasabird]

What makes a country best?
Cheap electricity?
Availability of food?
Roads?
Cars?
Personal ownership of property?
Freedom of speech?
Income level?
Affordable housing?
Free Press?
Immorality or Morality?
Taxation?
Welfare?
Food stamps?
Availability of prostitutes?
Women's rights?
Every culture has a different way of looking at things.

 

[Muse]

When I lived in the UK, I didn't feel they ate healthier. But I did have to walk everywhere which kept my weight down. I think when you look at Asia and Europe, they tend to walk to work more while Americans just get in a car and drive off somewhere.

Europe is smaller, everything is condensed relative to the USA. I haven't been there, but I do know something. In America you have to travel further, people use cars. Some places there's literally no choice. Myself, I use my bicycle or even roller skates to get around day to day.

The issues with food are IMO becoming better known. 50 years ago sugar didn't have the bad name it's been getting recently, same with corn syrup.

Why don't Americans walk more? IMO the cities have become more dangerous. I used to walk around my town a lot, at one time it was my only means of transportation. Today, there's a big homeless problem, it's demoralizing to walk around. That didn't used to be the case. There's more violence in the streets than there used to be. The trend has been reversing the last few years, but the violence is still much greater (at least in some areas) than it was decades ago.

The UK 1945-50, well, you didn't have TV. Television has made people fatasses.

 

[Azeroth101]

Question unclear, please define "good".

 

[SlickSnake]

Yes, but it's far from perfect, and probably never will be, because the country can only be as great as it's people leading it, and nobody is ever perfect.

 

[Muse]

Question unclear, please define "good".

I see discouraging things all the time in America, in my day to day life. But the news I see and read sometimes makes America look like Heaven in comparison. If you have your health, wits, a reasonable amount of money it isn't too bad.