[oh_sigh]

I hear this a lot and I just don't understand. People in Stockholm seem about as attractive to me as the people I see in the US in NYC. I sometimes think it is just a blonde-fetish or something.

I guess you were walking around a city and had to see thousands of people to see multiple women taller than you? The average female adult height in Sweden is still only 165cm, with > 95% of women being less than 178cm. I'd imagine 99+% of Swedish women are < 184cm.

[indigochill]

> People in Stockholm seem about as attractive to me as the people I see in the US in NYC.

I live elsewhere in Scandinavia and although I sometimes have a feeling the people are more attractive here than in the states as a general rule, I think it's actually that I have a preference for the local fashion. I tend to like Pacific Northwest fashion as well, and there are some similarities.

However, people in Scandinavia also generally walk a lot more than their US counterparts (since European cities are built for walking and American cities are generally not) so I find it plausible that they're more fit on average. I don't know if NYC is unusually walkable for an American city.

[ep103]

Generally in the more left-leaning European countries, there is a greater emphasis put on personal health, dress, and presentation. You can see it just walking down main city streets, while ever city has more and less fashionable areas, the average for self-manicurement seems to be higher in urban left/western Europe than in corresponding US cities.

Additionally, the more left-aligned European states also have a few other factors going for them. With stronger welfare states comes less homeless, and obviously impoverished people (on average) that you will see in public than say, on the streets of New York City. On the opposite side of the spectrum, people on average, simply appear to be healthier in such cities than one finds in the USA, and this is reflected in statistics like average national height.

Going further, most European cities (not all) tend to take some form of civic pride in the design and caretaking of their cities, while equivalent US cities stress some form of architectural individualism, which has its advantages, but means you are more likely to see random pieces of squalor or ugliness even in nice areas.

You put all of these things together, and one of the things people visiting Europe from the US find, is a feeling that wow: "These people are dressed more nicely than I'm used to, look healthier/taller than I'm used to, are living in nicer settings than I'm used to."

You hear it more about Sweeden (which I cannot attest to, having never been), but yeah, it lines up with the above.

This isn't to say there aren't advantages to the US system, but that's a different topic : )

[twelve40]

had to look up some numbers and at least the "look healthier" part seems to check out:

Obesity: Sweden 20.60% United States 36.20%

Life expectancy: Sweden 83.33 United States 79.11

for developed countries, that's a huge difference!

[silicon2401]

> I hear this a lot and I just don't understand. People in Stockholm seem about as attractive to me as the people I see in the US in NYC.

It's my subjective opinion. I've been to NYC multiple times and found the people totally average, same as Munich, LA, Miami, Seoul, etc.

> I guess you were walking around a city and had to see thousands of people to see multiple women taller than you?

Yes I was in a city. But again, not in LA, nor NYC, nor Seoul, nor Munich did I see that many women taller than me in as short a time

edit: another commenter made a good example, which is weight. I barely saw overweight people in Sweden. I find being overweight extremely unattractive, so that plays into my subjective view of the Swedes I saw as more attractive in general