https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jihelvZxa7E There are a lot of studies that show how grossly overweight Americans are, with estimates ranging to 1/3 to 1/2 of the population ranging from slightly overweight to morbidly obese. So you will hear a lot of us saying that were on diets, or we need to just lose a few pounds. We join health clubs, paying recurring membership fees that go to waste (waist?) because we get too busy to go. We embrace fad diets promoted by celebrities, or pay huge amounts of money for prepared foods from companies who make money catering to us. We have television programs like The Biggest Loser which shame someone on national TV into losing weight. And an industry in surgical weight reduction techniques (gastric bypass, plastic surgery, etc.) has become one of the fastest growing areas in American medicine.
9. Guns
Few things confuse non-Americans like the love that Americans have for guns. There is more debate on what the Second Amendment to the Constitution (which speaks of the right to bear arms) means than on any other subject, and we have a lot of hot button subjects. There are more guns in private hands in America than in anywhere else in the world, where the right to own personal weaponry is severely restricted. A lot of that is due to the efforts of a powerful gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association (NRA). Official research by the U.S. government into gun-related deaths is prohibited by Congressional edict. Media research shows over 10,000 American deaths per year attributed to guns, while our neighbor to the north, Canada, records about 50 per year. Every time there is a mass shooting, new calls into restricting the sales of guns are proposed, and are beaten back by the gun lobbies as the American attention span wanes and moves on to the next subject. Nearly every major city has gun stores. If you cant find one, just stop by your local Wal-Mart.
