I completely agree with everyone that exercise and better eating would go a long way to cutting down on so many health issues. But it's not just Americans. I recently read an article that compared exercise to non-emergent angioplasty in stable angina. The article, from somewhere in Scandinavia (Norway I think), showed that they were equally effective. The interesting thing to me, though, is that they had to stop the study early because they couldn't recruit enough people into the exercise arm of the study. Most people wanted the quick fix of the angioplasty rather than the long term commitment of exercise. It's a problem in all of the first world countries.