american people as a whole don't know how to eat properly.... It's the land of fast food
This is a valid point. Fast food is bad. I do my best to avoid it. I attempt to avoid all sorts of non natural and processed ingredients. The sit down places aren't that much better in avoiding what I would call crap ingredients. The best way to eat is to select your own foods at a grocery store and prepare your own meals. Almost all of my meals are home prepared.
Boomers parents had terrible eating habits and the boomers/Gen x still kept them around. Thankfully, Millennials finally said hell no to their diets.
I think you're giving the Millennials too much credit. If the Millennials were as good as you think they are, then obesity rates would be declining. They are not. Plenty of Millennials are overweight and obese. The oldest Millennials now turning 40 too.
If we go back in time, most of the fast food places were founded between 1940 and 1959. McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Chick-Fil-A, KFC, Church's Chicken, Carl's Jr., In-N-Out Burger, and Whataburger all started during those years. Wendy's and Panda Express were big ones that started after 1960.
In the 1950s, Boomers were really young and some weren't even born yet. In the 1950s-1960s, it was the GI Generation and some Silent Generation parents actually buying the food. Additionally, in the 1950s-1960s, most of these fast food chains had smaller footprints, used better ingredients, had smaller portion sizes, and were eaten less frequently. With McDonald's look at the size of the original hamburger and cheeseburger. They are small. People would only eat one of those, a standard size fries order (small fries today) and a smaller soda.
A lot of the problems with fast food happened later on when portion sizes got bigger, chains got bigger and cheapened the ingredients, and peopel started eating at these places more often.
Because McDonalds is literally the lowest of the low in the US, it is considered trashy post drunk food by Americans. The classy restaurants in America are steakhouses, hip fast casuals, and a niche burger place.
A lot of the ingredients aren't even all that great at the fast casuals. It's still better to home prepare meals in many cases than go to a fast casual or a niche burger place. Don't buy processed garbage at grocery stores.
The chain restaurants that are sit down joints are full of sodium and bad ingredients. Look at places like Denny's, Chili's, and Applebee's. Too many artificial ingredients and too many products used with a soy-based ingredient. I have been avoiding anything with any soy.
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We can tie all of this into college sex life by looking at the student unions/dining halls on campuses of the typical public university. There are fast food locations in these student unions/dining halls. Even the more cafeteria style, non-fast food options aren't all that healthy. I didn't eat healthy when I lived on campus and ate the student meal plan food.
At bigger universities (the large public schools that are the main focus of this thread), most students are living in the dorms 1-2 years. Off campus apartments are more popular by later years. It's only in off campus apartments that people have a chance to eat healthier.
The student gyms are pretty solid at big universities.
Talking more about points near the bottom would be ideal as this discussion progresses. Processed foods, alcohol, drugs, and frequency of gym visits will affect college sex life to some extent.