Alan Duff: Why is the world so fat? It's culture

When one-third of your population is obese you have a problem. Photo / 123RF

Kiwis, Aussies, Brits and especially American tourists, be warned: in this town in south/west France, there is no such thing as a cooked breakfast. Let alone a "big brekkie." Or worse, a buffet pig-out fest like you get at most hotels in the above-mentioned territories.

Americans are the worst offenders. The national sweet tooth has daily sugar consumption at close to 20 teaspoons. This is close to an epidemic. Except all the ill people are laughing - gurgle-giggling more like it as the fat around the larynx restricts actual laughter.

To see a family of obese, waddling Americans come away from the buffet plates each piled high with pancakes doused in maple syrup, for instance, is such an appalling sight I have often had a sudden loss of appetite and either left the hotel dining room, or watched in utter fascination the morbid freak show.

To see these masses of genetically connected blubber stuff their faces is truly just one-up from pigs snuffling and hoovering up whatever's before them. Whoomp! Devoured. Next course. And up they go to attack the cooked grub. And believe me, grub it is.

There is no need to give a detailed description. Suffice to say another plate piled high and as wide as the edges allow of everything. Second helping? You bet. This is a cultural thing. When one-third of your population is obese you have a problem.

Cross over Trump's imaginary wall to Mexico and it's almost double that.

The culprit? No, not sugar. Culture.

Mexican agricultural workers in California choose to drink soda and eat fast food and so suffer an 85% obesity rate. Travel through the USA and you'll know fast food underpins their entire cultural outlook. Greasy, sugary joints everywhere. And all of it, including the lettuce leaf in a burger, chemically adulterated.

Sugar is sprinkled over sugar over calorie-laden stodge. It's the culture, dude. Mexicans consume the most soft drinks in the world and have one of the worst diets and the fattest.

Food is a cultural thing on my Maori side. Eating till you're full is considered not only normal but that you're mad if you don't. Pacific Islanders have the same culture: fill up and squeeze a bit more in. I reckon that's why we brown people suffer higher obesity rates and health problems.

The notion of having to constantly feed your face appals me.

We're all caught up in our culture, whether we like it or not. As I write this, I'm meeting a few ex-pat Kiwi rugby players for lunch later on.

I love Kiwis.

But not when they're drunk - I mean pissed - and looking for a fight. My lunch companions are not like that. But they know plenty of compatriots who are.

"What chu looking at?" Familiar? "You got a problem with your eyes, bro?" Yeah, in that movie. Was it exaggerated because it's a movie? Nah, bro. It's for real. Ask any of the cuzzies. We just like to rumble. Just keep eye out on the bouncers as they love a scrap breaking out too. Same across the ditch with our Ocker half-cousins.

"What eez a boun-cier, M'sieur?" Huh? A guy there to stop fights. "But why zey fight?" Um, coz they do. "In your country you go to a bar to 'ave a fight? Non? Thees eez madness." Really, mate? Come to Enzed or Oz and tell blokes that and you, French cock, are gunna get smacked.

"Smacked? You mean like thees?" Nah, ya stupid Frog. Like this - bang! We call that a kinghit. It's part of our culture, like boozing is. Not, the writer hastens to add, of entire countries. But enough to be alarming to a European who's never seen such barbaric behaviour. Just how some of us are, mate. Ya don't like it, piss off.

The French, in a home situation, or at a restaurant, sure can get through the courses.

But most are not fat. My wife and I are main meal only and that's it. No starter, dessert, cheeses, coffee. Personally, I find multi-course a bit greedy, of wanting a taste of everything. And I am in open contempt of the snack culture, which fortunately does not prevail here.

The notion of having to constantly feed your face appals me. But then I'm guilty of over-consumption of red wine. My Pakeha father was offended at the notion of eating to get full. My Maori mother could eat boiled pork bones with spuds, kumara and watercress at six in the morning. It seems, ultimately, my father's cultural outlook won. I'm grateful.