If Carbs are so bad and Atkins is so great, why are Japanese people so thin?

Question

I'm a student in Health and Wellness. I am ALSO studying abroad in Japan.
Japanese people eat white rice at every single meal. In fact the Japanese word for meals is *gohan*(rice). My second observation is that Japanese people generally speaking are very thin by comparison to Americans.. or just about any population from a industrialized Country. Even the two French students here are more regular sized and not thin as they are famously described to be. Now back in the states I hear about everyone and their mother being on the low carb diet Atkins or some such derivative.
Apparently carbs are bad and should be avoided and limited.
I don't exactly buy it. I've had mostly white rice or noodles with meals every day since I got here but I've lost weight. However, Japanese portion sizes are smaller and have less calories.

So why is Atkins considered some sort of Dietary miracle?
Why does it shun the very basis of meals on almost every Continent?

Answer 1

Carbs are energy. One big factor here is that many of the Japanese eat in moderation - not the gluttonous amounts of food we seem to pack in here.

Answer 2

The Atkins Diet may help you lose weight but it makes your body work in unhealthy ways to do it. There have been lots of diets and meds that will work but the price you pay is beating up your body. Everything you do to your body when you're young, you pay for when you're older, so be cautious and treat you body the best you can. You are older a lot longer than you are young and you want to be in the very best shape. Dieting is simple. Lose weight=eat less calories that you use. Eat balanced good meals, just less and exercise more and you will not only lose but keep it off. Stay away from Fad diets and meds.

Answer 3

Adkins is a starvation diet. Just like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers.

All include extremely restricted calories. Adkins just works with your insulin better. Keeps people from feeling hungry.

I don't know anything about Japanese diets.

Answer 4

like a lot of famine ravaged eastern countries food and nutricion were hard to come by in the past -so people were generally smaller because of this- now with more food and better economy the average size is increasing.
Thats why USA people are biggest in the world on average

Even locally in the UK true cornish people still are quite small in comparision to other parts of the country due to less nutrician in days gone by.

Answer 5

It isn't. The net effect of Atkins, done properly, is calorie restriction.

Any diet that restricts calories will work, even if its distribution of those calories among the food groups is not ideal.

Answer 6

Carbs really aren't that bad for u...just as long as u throw in exercise....carbs are the fuel for our muscles...but when u dont burn it...your amino acids turn it into fat to store....hope i helped

Answer 7

go girl,its completely rediculous to say atkins is a starvation diet