The abundance of food and the ready access to food and drink feed the propensity for this part of the world to be obese...in other societies, just surviving and bodily safety are paramount then enough food to eat which is far less abundant...but the info provided by Athene bolsters the impact of the Western lifestyle on emerging nations.

Nonsense. I personally know of wome in Japan and Thailand who have died from over-dieting. The pressure to be thin in Asian societies is phenomenal.

My ex flat mate was Japanese and severely anorexic, as was her mother and several of her friends.

Eating disorders are very widespread in Asia.

Do some Internet research and you'll find a lot of information on this.

I have no proof of this, but I've always thought that it came down to our perceptions of beauty. It seems like the extremes are used as standards of beauty, and in the mind of someone that can't realize that what they see isn't real, their own bodies (which are average) seem to be ugly.

I hate to be someone that points at the media, since they do pander to the consumers, but I do think the media and how they choose their representatives of beauty does play a role.