American Fast Food Took Over Kuwait and Made its People Obese

BATTLE FOR WORLD / VICE NEWS | June 2, 2019:

The video highlights that the health threat now facing Kuwait​ is obesity — and the country’s obsession with American fast food is the likely suspect.

Set up to support the 1991 invasion of Iraq the very first McDonald’s restaurant appeared in Kuwait. Since then the fast food eatery rapidly expanded and hundreds of U.S. fast food restaurants are now in Kuwait and as a result, the country has become one of the most obese among the Arab gulf states.

“The beginning of fast food, I would say it is part of the Americanization of the culture here,” said Dr. Mohsen Bagnied, a professor at the American University of Kuwait to VICE News. And that now, Kuwait has roughly doubled the percentage of diabetic adults than the U.S.

​The U.S. fast food industry isn’t just operating in the Middle East, because American Fast food brands populate more than 100 countries around the world, occupying six continents. And other countries, for example in the European zone, are also reporting increased rates of obesity as a result of feasting on the American diet of sweet success and happiness.

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