[DugwayDuke]

ThanhPhero wrote: “In Việt Nam the country still has closed borders and the government tells everyone how bad the infestation has become....”

I suspect another causative factor is the general health of the Vietnamese population. I suspect heart disease is no where near as prevalent as in the US. I’ve never met an obese Vietnamese either. Comorbidities are simply not as prevalent as in the US.

[ThanhPhero]

There ae lots of obese Vietnamese now in the big cities and some in the small towns. It is a matter of the availability of protein. People are eating far more meat now than twenty years ago. When I first went back there the only fat people were bureaucrats and government officials and I met more than a couple of people who were a bit retarded due to lifelong malnutrition. Over the years and my returns I could see the people filling out. Of course I noticed mostly the ladies. That rail thin no-shape figure was looking like American physiques after ten years or so. The youngsters are taller and getting even taller. In 2003 I was a head tabofe the crowds on the street. Now I don't stand out by my height and I meet young men who are over 6 feet. The people in the streets in Sài Gòn and Hà Nội look more like Americans with corpulence becoming more and more common. The áo dàis that are so bewitching on slim, unfortunately underfed, lasses don't look so ethereal on heavy girls.
One young woman in 2003 whom I thought of as being heavy looks now in the old pictures to have been quite thin. She is fat and prosperous now, the local capitalist in her town. Perspective has changed with prosperity. The street children before about 20đ5 were throwaway kids that two centuries ago would have been left in the forest as extra, often handicapped, mouths when there was not enough food for the other children. On the streets, at least, some of them survived, even thrived.