Maybe this one relates more with the Americans because Ozempic became a trend there: Why are most people jumping on this drug? At least for me, besides all the cliches and stereotypes about the USA people, there's huge access to nutrition, gyms, surgical procedures, capital for buying healthy food, and medicine in general.
Americans are overweight. Our entire food chain is full of preservatives, carcinogens, and things that should not be consumed by living beings . I've spent small amounts of time in Europe, and each time literally just eating whatever junk food I wanted, I came home losing 10 or 20 pounds. The food outside of the US is just fundamentally better. Let's say you're a teenager and you want to buy yourself some soda, in Am…
The US does use more additives like BHA or potassium bromate (possible carcinogens—can you name others you’re thinking of?), but their link to obesity isn’t clear. As for soda, ‘hyper processed corn syrup’ I suppose just means high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)—what’s the big difference you see from sugar? Research, like this meta-analysis (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9551185/), shows HFCS and sugar are metabolically similar in typical amounts, no disaster there.
Your weight loss in Europe might be more about activity than food quality. Short trips often mean more walking and exploring, which burns calories, even if you’re eating junk.