[neom]

I would guess it's because the calorie density of Japanese ultra-processed food is vastly different than the US (having eaten both extensively and also former over wight guy who calorie counts daily) - that's actually basically the premise of the article. American ultra-processed food is hugely calorie dense and refined to be palatable.

[whereismyacc]

I feel like this gets at the core issue which is food being too palatable and not satiating enough? At least on the obesity / calorie overconsumption front, I think it's just that simple. 'ultra-processed foods' or 'too many carbs' or whatever other explanations people come up for are just lossy proxies for the underlying issue which is 'foods that people tend to eat too much of'.

[neom]

I would tend to agree, I mean, I had to eat a lot of healthy shit as a kid that I did not enjoy at all because my mum is a LSD, from the earth only, 60s era hippie. Healthy but not delicious. The other day I bought some packaged mac and cheese from the grocery store, it was on the big side but I didn't pay much attention, zoned out watching TV and ate the whole thing. After I was thinking, hmm, I don't feel well. Grabbed the mac and cheese box, I'd just consumed near 2k calories in a very manageable meal.