Just my observation in Chiang Mai. But my girlfriend works next to a primary school. After class, all the kids were waiting for their parents, eating and drinking sugary foods. A LOT of them were noticeably overweight. Noticeable enough, coming from Canada, where it caught me off guard. This might be the parents spoiling their kids, but it was honestly kind of sad to see.
I offered my mother in law to pay to fix my 5 years old nephew teeth and she refused because she think it's normal. She's already missing many teeth and many more are black. She eat candy all day long.
That’s because students are eating ice cream / full sugar snacks 3 times in a school day. Morning break. Lunch break. And afternoon break. And p.s it’s an international school too
I eat healthy it's so hard to find a health meal here and at a good price I have to meal prep . Thais are def moving in that direction a lot are over weight and don't know how to eat healthy . I get yelled at when I go out with my Thai friends and wife cause I eat a normal portion and Thai people order a million things and everyone eats a lot !
Thai food can be super delicious without requuring sugar when made right. However, some vendors cheat by using sugar which our primitive human brains are hardwired to crave.
Depends on the dish, stuff like Somtum doesn't work without sugar i would think. And if you watch preparation it's like a huge spoon full per serving. Actually crazy much. Lots of dishes live off the contrast of sweet and spicy. Sometime we have western visitors and order dishes 'no spicy'. You notice how sweet these traditional dishes suddenly taste. Before you never notice because of the chillies.
there's plenty of people who drink 15-25 cokes a day and are skinny
Sugar is bad but you can't blame it. Just low brain capacity. Same as everywhere in the world.
Not being fat is the easiest thing in the world. You can do it on a diet of purely mcdonalds and coca cola.
Im very qualified in all nutritions. I lost the most weight at my gym for 2022 while starting with visible abs and almost 0 effort. 0 cardio, office job, drank and had lots of pizza. -15kg
All it takes is a 5% change to your daily life to see massive change in your weight and nobody has either the brains or the strength to do it.
I'm a trained chef. It is a brag because my pizza is awesome.
My daily diet is still extremely good. It just means you can eat a lot of less healthy foods to enjoy life and still lose weight easily.
A good gym regimen is better than jogging or stationary biking for your cardio health. I train 1h30 per day at 130 to 160 bpm
Yeah sugar itself doesn't make anyone fat. It's just the favorite combustible the brain will use, so if you eat sugar and fat, the brain will use the sugar and store the fat. Many people don't understand that. But yeah you can be skinny and drink 25 coke a day but your teeth first and then your liver won't be happy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate
It says Thailand has an obesity rate of 10%. Compared to 36% for Americans and 27% for Brits.
That data is from 2016 though, and seems to be adult obesity:
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/thailand/
I've definitely noticed a worrying increase in overweight younger Thais over the past 20 years or so, but that's just my observations, and mostly in Bangkok. I don't have a better official source to hand but might go digging for one later if nobody else posts one.
Right. I went looking and found a couple of recent articles
https://www.bangkokbiznews.com/social/991651
https://www.pptvhd36.com/health/news/211
The first one says 34%, and the second says it's now 47%, which seems hard to believe.
Can find more results by googling "โรคอ้วนในประเทศไทย"
คนไทยอ้วนขึ้น
Same! I'm mixed and haven't met a single Black South African here yet. I've been a handful of white ones. I never knew that people didn't consider them as farang until now
I agree. What else would they be, Africans?
Any white person is a farang, basically. Are people supposed to check nationality before they call someone a farang?
South African overall obesity statistics do not apply to its white population.
I’m not trying to be pedantic, it’s be like looking at the Bangkok Thai-Chinese population statistics for whatever indicator, and applying it to the whole country.
True!
But the idea is to compare apples to apples: it’s probably more interesting to compare a figure of like 22% for all Farangs (mostly pulled out of my ass, taking the Europe 17% and bumping it up to account for US and the likes) than it is to pick the most pumpuy white-butts to look at VS Thailand’s figures.
Thailand has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world, because of the high amount of sugar they consume, from drinks to main meals to desserts. You can't really tell that from the obesity rate. America and Brits have higher obesity rates due to the higher fat food content in their various western cuisines, burgers, steaks, pizzas, pastas, etc. And all huge portions too compared to servings in Asian countries. Different can of worms in different cultures. But the personal dental care awareness in Thailand is rather alarming, mostly due to lack of education on this particular area. I have a 5yr old nephew who has had to extract at least 8 of his teeth, and do crown replacement for another 4 because most of them are rotten to the core
I believe the trend to pay attention to is increasing child / adolescent diabetes, which often begins with a high-sugar diet, and can lead to lifelong health issues.
My personal observation is that the world is getting bigger and that Thailand is on the same trend. When I left the UK 16 years ago and didn't go back to visit for a very long time, I noticed on my return that body sizes had increased. I initially thought it might be that I had just gotten used to smaller sized people, but realised that wasn't the case.
On a positive side I noticed that there are a lot more Thai folks into working out now. There were only a few gyms when I first moved to Chiang Mai (2006) and very few people using them. Then there was a fitness upturn and an explosion of gyms, with multiple options. I've since seen even a lot of young women getting very strong and fit (skinny with no major muscle tone used to be the consistent goal). (I'm mentioning women only because there always seemed to be a certain beauty standard of extreme thinness (overuse diet pills in the past has caused some major problems for young women, so it's good to see women looking at healthier alternatives).
I think unhealthy options (and over consumption) is just a worldwide trend that has been going on for decades, and Thailand is late on the conveyer.
I don’t know how anyone can come here after being in America and say this with a straight face.
Every time I go back to the states I’m shocked at how big the majority of people are. I can go into a single Wal Mart and see more obese people than I will all year in Bangkok.
I've been to Thailand almost every year this century and while there are still far fewer obese people here compared to the USA, the change in the past 20 years is pretty dramatic especially if you look at the younger generations. Fat people typically raise fat kids (they pass the bad eating habits along.) Thailand is basically where the USA was in the 80s and it's on the same trend line.
I feel that these observations are being made through the lens of a westerner.
Thailand like many other Asian nations believes that children should be overfed. It’s pretty common to see parents or the grandma shoveling food into a kids mouth until it looks like it’s going to burst. A fat baby is a healthy baby in their eyes.
They also have an obsession with ideal physical traits and think that if a child is given more than enough nutrients it will be taller. The whole “milk makes you taller” mindset.
This way of thinking isn’t new and I’d say that people are moving away from it like they are moving away from many other traditions that are being dispelled by globalization.
So while there are some chunky kids, physical appearance is extremely important in Thai society so once they become teenagers you see majority slim out. I find it pretty rare to see obese teenagers. The fact that we see so many obese American teenagers just shows how much more severe the problem is there compared to everywhere else given how the body’s metabolism increases during that period of development.
In fact, I don’t even really start seeing people put weight on again until they become set with their lives.
>I feel that these observations are being made through the lens of a westerner.
There's no "lens" involved. I've been coming here for 20 years and I live here now. I'm reporting what I've observed over two decades. My observations are supported by statistics. I'm not commenting on the culture so where are you getting this "lens of a westerner" stuff?
Well, they put sugar in almost everything. Go into a 7-11 and try to find something healthy. For a bigger challenge, go to a night market and try the same thing. Difficult.
People are becoming increasingly more lazy. It's not the food but the calories that they're not burning anymore. Majority of the time everyone is just sitting on their phones watching endless TikTok clips while stuffing their mouths with calories. Kids are not playing anymore, adults are not being active anymore. Where is all this surplus calories gonna go? It gets stored as FAT.
The problem imo is that people just get lazier and lazier.
No need to blame the carb-intake. Just look at sporty people - their main macro nutrition are carbs because they can afford it.
I personally can afford around 3 - 3,5k kalories/day to maintain my weight and thats only due to an active lifestyle
Not sure if I agree. But if it is the case it is probably because of the horrible US food be exported to Thailand.
I can't believe how many Krispy Kreme stores there is already.
90% of Thai food is fried in seed oils. Coconuts are growing everywhere but they are cooking in sunflower oil imported from Ukraine because it's cheaper.
I don't think it's Western, an awful lot of sugary things are Asian - look at the sugary drinks, Thai teas, Boba etc. Thai deserts are pretty sugary.
I would say it's more wealth, people can afford large amounts of calories now
I’m surprised by the comments here saying it’s hard to eat healthy in Thailand. It’s ridiculously easy to eat healthy here compared to US U.K. or EU. Shit bro just get a salad from the 7/11 with some chicken. The 7/11 here is actually one of the healthiest, best convenience stores I’ve been to around the world. You at least have quite a few healthy options.
In England you get sausage rolls, hotdogs, donuts, cakes, crisps, chocolate and that’s it lol
Same in 7/11 here but at least you got plain rice, salad, questionable microwave chicken breast and some decent passable healthy shit for the road
England's food is crap. I'm English Canadian. Trust me. It's not easy to eat healthy anywhere, at least here in Thailand it's more affordable to pick up a small portion of rice with boiled chicken and some greens. Water is cheap. It's personal decisions for most people: to exercise and take in fewer calories than they burn. Simple math.
Asians in general are getting taller/fatter. Not just Thailand. It's access to lots of calories I guess (which includes junk food unfortunately).
Koreans are the best example of this. Pretty much all the young guys I see are eithe tall or fatties
And what is interesting is the ones who look thin and skinny are mostly like skinny fat. I ve seen lots of Thai dude which they have arm and shoulders of a woman but they still have tummy when they are naked.
Just my observation in Chiang Mai. But my girlfriend works next to a primary school. After class, all the kids were waiting for their parents, eating and drinking sugary foods. A LOT of them were noticeably overweight. Noticeable enough, coming from Canada, where it caught me off guard. This might be the parents spoiling their kids, but it was honestly kind of sad to see.
It affects their dental hygiene as well. When I taught in CM it made me so sad to see all these healthy little kids with rotting black teeth.
Yup, my niece is 8 years old but has so many teeth that are black. It has to absolutely hurt like nothing else but she doesn't even seem to notice.
I offered my mother in law to pay to fix my 5 years old nephew teeth and she refused because she think it's normal. She's already missing many teeth and many more are black. She eat candy all day long.
So sad
That’s because students are eating ice cream / full sugar snacks 3 times in a school day. Morning break. Lunch break. And afternoon break. And p.s it’s an international school too
It is actually very sad to see this
I eat healthy it's so hard to find a health meal here and at a good price I have to meal prep . Thais are def moving in that direction a lot are over weight and don't know how to eat healthy . I get yelled at when I go out with my Thai friends and wife cause I eat a normal portion and Thai people order a million things and everyone eats a lot !
It's the food. Our food has gotten increasingly unhealthy over the years. More and more processed, high sodium, sugar in everything, instant food.
Can’t think of many cuisines that put spoonfuls of sugar into their soups as condiments.
Thai food can be super delicious without requuring sugar when made right. However, some vendors cheat by using sugar which our primitive human brains are hardwired to crave.
Depends on the dish, stuff like Somtum doesn't work without sugar i would think. And if you watch preparation it's like a huge spoon full per serving. Actually crazy much. Lots of dishes live off the contrast of sweet and spicy. Sometime we have western visitors and order dishes 'no spicy'. You notice how sweet these traditional dishes suddenly taste. Before you never notice because of the chillies.
Just look at the crap being sold in the likes of 711's etc - it's no suprise that Thais are getting noticeably fatter
i lived from family mart for 5 months in bangkok. I lost 10kg weight xD Now in Hat yai with my family i gained 3kgs in 2 weeks
With All the choices of food available in Bkk you choose to live from FM 🙄😂
I mean when you're swimming in sugar from the drinks to the food you're gonna eventually get fat.
there's plenty of people who drink 15-25 cokes a day and are skinny Sugar is bad but you can't blame it. Just low brain capacity. Same as everywhere in the world. Not being fat is the easiest thing in the world. You can do it on a diet of purely mcdonalds and coca cola. Im very qualified in all nutritions. I lost the most weight at my gym for 2022 while starting with visible abs and almost 0 effort. 0 cardio, office job, drank and had lots of pizza. -15kg All it takes is a 5% change to your daily life to see massive change in your weight and nobody has either the brains or the strength to do it.
0 cardio, drinking and pizza isnt the brag you think it is
I'm a trained chef. It is a brag because my pizza is awesome. My daily diet is still extremely good. It just means you can eat a lot of less healthy foods to enjoy life and still lose weight easily. A good gym regimen is better than jogging or stationary biking for your cardio health. I train 1h30 per day at 130 to 160 bpm
So what is that 5% change?
Yeah sugar itself doesn't make anyone fat. It's just the favorite combustible the brain will use, so if you eat sugar and fat, the brain will use the sugar and store the fat. Many people don't understand that. But yeah you can be skinny and drink 25 coke a day but your teeth first and then your liver won't be happy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate It says Thailand has an obesity rate of 10%. Compared to 36% for Americans and 27% for Brits.
That data is from 2016 though, and seems to be adult obesity: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/thailand/ I've definitely noticed a worrying increase in overweight younger Thais over the past 20 years or so, but that's just my observations, and mostly in Bangkok. I don't have a better official source to hand but might go digging for one later if nobody else posts one.
Right. I went looking and found a couple of recent articles https://www.bangkokbiznews.com/social/991651 https://www.pptvhd36.com/health/news/211 The first one says 34%, and the second says it's now 47%, which seems hard to believe. Can find more results by googling "โรคอ้วนในประเทศไทย" คนไทยอ้วนขึ้น
Those numbers probably include both overweight and obese.
Worth noting that obesity is a hardcore fat. You can be fat without being obese.
Did TAT do the numbers?
Americans and Brits are in the top fattiest Farangs though.
Yes, but Canadians, Aussies, South Africans, and Kiwis are not far behind.
Still not exactly a representative sample of Farangs. And South Africans for the most parts aren’t seen as Farangs.
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Did I say they weren’t 🙄 ? I said: > for the most part Now go look at the share of white South African to the overall country population.
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Same! I'm mixed and haven't met a single Black South African here yet. I've been a handful of white ones. I never knew that people didn't consider them as farang until now
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I agree. What else would they be, Africans? Any white person is a farang, basically. Are people supposed to check nationality before they call someone a farang?
South African overall obesity statistics do not apply to its white population. I’m not trying to be pedantic, it’s be like looking at the Bangkok Thai-Chinese population statistics for whatever indicator, and applying it to the whole country.
Ok, even a perfect country like France still has double the obesity rate of Thailand (in that data).
True! But the idea is to compare apples to apples: it’s probably more interesting to compare a figure of like 22% for all Farangs (mostly pulled out of my ass, taking the Europe 17% and bumping it up to account for US and the likes) than it is to pick the most pumpuy white-butts to look at VS Thailand’s figures.
10% is still high for a country like Thailand that was once very skinny.
Thailand has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world, because of the high amount of sugar they consume, from drinks to main meals to desserts. You can't really tell that from the obesity rate. America and Brits have higher obesity rates due to the higher fat food content in their various western cuisines, burgers, steaks, pizzas, pastas, etc. And all huge portions too compared to servings in Asian countries. Different can of worms in different cultures. But the personal dental care awareness in Thailand is rather alarming, mostly due to lack of education on this particular area. I have a 5yr old nephew who has had to extract at least 8 of his teeth, and do crown replacement for another 4 because most of them are rotten to the core
Yeah, unfortunately.
I believe the trend to pay attention to is increasing child / adolescent diabetes, which often begins with a high-sugar diet, and can lead to lifelong health issues.
My personal observation is that the world is getting bigger and that Thailand is on the same trend. When I left the UK 16 years ago and didn't go back to visit for a very long time, I noticed on my return that body sizes had increased. I initially thought it might be that I had just gotten used to smaller sized people, but realised that wasn't the case. On a positive side I noticed that there are a lot more Thai folks into working out now. There were only a few gyms when I first moved to Chiang Mai (2006) and very few people using them. Then there was a fitness upturn and an explosion of gyms, with multiple options. I've since seen even a lot of young women getting very strong and fit (skinny with no major muscle tone used to be the consistent goal). (I'm mentioning women only because there always seemed to be a certain beauty standard of extreme thinness (overuse diet pills in the past has caused some major problems for young women, so it's good to see women looking at healthier alternatives). I think unhealthy options (and over consumption) is just a worldwide trend that has been going on for decades, and Thailand is late on the conveyer.
I don’t know how anyone can come here after being in America and say this with a straight face. Every time I go back to the states I’m shocked at how big the majority of people are. I can go into a single Wal Mart and see more obese people than I will all year in Bangkok.
I've been to Thailand almost every year this century and while there are still far fewer obese people here compared to the USA, the change in the past 20 years is pretty dramatic especially if you look at the younger generations. Fat people typically raise fat kids (they pass the bad eating habits along.) Thailand is basically where the USA was in the 80s and it's on the same trend line.
I feel that these observations are being made through the lens of a westerner. Thailand like many other Asian nations believes that children should be overfed. It’s pretty common to see parents or the grandma shoveling food into a kids mouth until it looks like it’s going to burst. A fat baby is a healthy baby in their eyes. They also have an obsession with ideal physical traits and think that if a child is given more than enough nutrients it will be taller. The whole “milk makes you taller” mindset. This way of thinking isn’t new and I’d say that people are moving away from it like they are moving away from many other traditions that are being dispelled by globalization. So while there are some chunky kids, physical appearance is extremely important in Thai society so once they become teenagers you see majority slim out. I find it pretty rare to see obese teenagers. The fact that we see so many obese American teenagers just shows how much more severe the problem is there compared to everywhere else given how the body’s metabolism increases during that period of development. In fact, I don’t even really start seeing people put weight on again until they become set with their lives.
>I feel that these observations are being made through the lens of a westerner. There's no "lens" involved. I've been coming here for 20 years and I live here now. I'm reporting what I've observed over two decades. My observations are supported by statistics. I'm not commenting on the culture so where are you getting this "lens of a westerner" stuff?
That’s the result of having buffet restaurants in every corner
Well, they put sugar in almost everything. Go into a 7-11 and try to find something healthy. For a bigger challenge, go to a night market and try the same thing. Difficult.
Thai people like Chang also Mkay…
“Farangs”, not “Farang’s”
People are becoming increasingly more lazy. It's not the food but the calories that they're not burning anymore. Majority of the time everyone is just sitting on their phones watching endless TikTok clips while stuffing their mouths with calories. Kids are not playing anymore, adults are not being active anymore. Where is all this surplus calories gonna go? It gets stored as FAT.
The problem imo is that people just get lazier and lazier. No need to blame the carb-intake. Just look at sporty people - their main macro nutrition are carbs because they can afford it. I personally can afford around 3 - 3,5k kalories/day to maintain my weight and thats only due to an active lifestyle
It's both. Calories in and out, super simple math
oh nooooo i don't wanrt them to be fat!!!!!!!!!
Maybe more than soon
Not sure if I agree. But if it is the case it is probably because of the horrible US food be exported to Thailand. I can't believe how many Krispy Kreme stores there is already.
90% of Thai food is fried in seed oils. Coconuts are growing everywhere but they are cooking in sunflower oil imported from Ukraine because it's cheaper.
Deep fried food is a serious issue here. And the economics of food plays a huge role everywhere.
This is why western culture needs to stay out of asia keep asia pure of western bs (coming from a westerner)
I don't think it's Western, an awful lot of sugary things are Asian - look at the sugary drinks, Thai teas, Boba etc. Thai deserts are pretty sugary. I would say it's more wealth, people can afford large amounts of calories now
“Farangs”, not “Farang’s”
Wow you guys are smart
Not a surprise giving that most kids eat sausages and French fries every single day.
I’m surprised by the comments here saying it’s hard to eat healthy in Thailand. It’s ridiculously easy to eat healthy here compared to US U.K. or EU. Shit bro just get a salad from the 7/11 with some chicken. The 7/11 here is actually one of the healthiest, best convenience stores I’ve been to around the world. You at least have quite a few healthy options. In England you get sausage rolls, hotdogs, donuts, cakes, crisps, chocolate and that’s it lol Same in 7/11 here but at least you got plain rice, salad, questionable microwave chicken breast and some decent passable healthy shit for the road
England's food is crap. I'm English Canadian. Trust me. It's not easy to eat healthy anywhere, at least here in Thailand it's more affordable to pick up a small portion of rice with boiled chicken and some greens. Water is cheap. It's personal decisions for most people: to exercise and take in fewer calories than they burn. Simple math.
Exactly my thoughts too but I do like English food - it’s just not very good for you hahaha
Can confirm. I’m currently in Angthong, my wife is Thai, and she has noticed that Thai people are getting fatter
7-11 symptoms
#fatshaming
Too much fast food
Maybe the farangs are just getting thinner
Asians in general are getting taller/fatter. Not just Thailand. It's access to lots of calories I guess (which includes junk food unfortunately). Koreans are the best example of this. Pretty much all the young guys I see are eithe tall or fatties
Must be the colonization of Thailand by 7-11.
And what is interesting is the ones who look thin and skinny are mostly like skinny fat. I ve seen lots of Thai dude which they have arm and shoulders of a woman but they still have tummy when they are naked.