F&T: Americans have it tougher than you think

And you could be next

Nov 26, 2025

I’ve been in the stupidly pretty in places city of San Francisco for most of this past week and three things have crossed my mind: the need for novelty, unexpected food poverty and financial advice.

What follows might help you to think differently about our kin across the water, but hopefully not how lucky they are to have easy access to landscapes like this.

Do humans actually need novelty to be happy?

The short answer: sort of.

Research consistently shows that fresh experiences boost attention, creativity and momentary mood – from the dopamine hit that comes with encountering something unfamiliar, to studies showing people report higher happiness on days when their routines are more varied. Novelty can make life feel more vivid, and it often gives us a sense of momentum and possibility.

But novelty isn’t a universal cure-all. The psychological picture is more nuanced: people who chase novelty compulsively often report more instability and stress, and humans also rely on familiarity and routine to feel grounded. We adapt quickly to new things – the hedonic treadmill effect – which means the thrill of change fades fast unless there’s something deeper anchoring it.

Too much novelty, or novelty without meaning, can leave us feeling scattered rather than satisfied.

So maybe the better question is: what’s the right amount of newness for a given season of your life? Most evidence points to a sweet spot – enough freshness to keep us engaged, but enough stability to keep us steady.

Novelty seems to work best when it’s intentional, aligned with our values, and balanced with time to integrate what we’ve learned. Whether you’re travelling, creating, or just trying to keep your brain from calcifying, the aim isn’t constant reinvention. It’s finding a rhythm where new experiences enrich you rather than deplete you.

The first three weeks of Mexico, like the first week of California, were a blast – constantly new and changing language and accents, places and faces. The enjoyment I found in my final weeks in both places, however, came from sit-down meals with friends – I craved that sense of slow and familiarity.

As I head back to the UK this week, I plan to keep the novelty up through researching for and chatting with podcast guests from as many disciplines and backgrounds as possible, new meals in old places and a hunt for my next gym.

How do you balance newness and routine?

US and the food-poor

I heard recently that the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin once offered the UK a lorryload of vegetables to help feed the nation during a food crisis in the 1970s.

Yes. Idi Amin.

A man best known for human rights abuses, expelling 50,000 Asians, and declaring himself the King of Scotland… trying to help us not just eat our five a day but eat full stop.

It sounds absurd. But it made me think: if even Amin – with a perfectly perverse and provocative gesture – could see we weren’t doing well, maybe we’re not always as far from collapse as we like to imagine.

And while we Brits love to scoff at the state of America – whether that’s their politics or their obesity crisis – this past month, moving from Mexico into the US, I’ve started to feel something else creeping in: not superiority. Not pity. But a kind of unease.

Because when it comes to food, health, and everyday survival, Americans have it tougher than you might think – and, statistically, we’re not far behind. Indeed, according to Newsweek, “the United Kingdom has a higher obesity rate than New Jersey, Florida and California” – and after 12 days over the length of California, I can say with some confidence: that tracks.

But it’s not just about obesity. It’s not just about food. It’s about how hard it is to access the basic building blocks of well-being. In many parts of the US, groceries cost more than takeaways. According to a 2023 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food-at-home prices have increased by 23.5% since 2020, while the cost of many fast food combos remains relatively stable.

Add to that the problem of physical access. In car-dependent cities, walkable and affordable food options are rare. The nearest supermarket might be 25 minutes away. And if you don’t have a car, you’re relying on someone who does. In San Francisco, the metro system, BART, is rapid and air conditioned…but can cost £8-9 or more in one direction. When I was in London last, that was your daily cap for multiple trips in zones 1-2.

And then there’s healthcare. Even insured Americans often delay or avoid treatment because of cost. According to the CDC’s 2022 National Health Interview Survey, nearly one in five adults in the US reported not getting medical care due to financial barriers.

The UK isn’t there yet but we’re not as far off as we think…

We still have the NHS. We still have pavements. We still have supermarkets you can walk to. But every year, something slips. While there are more cases of super-obese people in the US, our rates of people that are overweight are similar. Child poverty is up. Hospital wait times are long enough to deter attendance.

Bit by bit, we’re looking the same: more affordable than fresh, low-nutrient, high-density meals, increasingly expensive fitness subscriptions, burnout disguised as ambition, mass movement still centred on cars because, of course, the British government will only only ever continue to fuck it on the train network.

You might pay $7.25 for a reasonably filling burger at In-n-Out burger (the same as the statewide minimum hourly wage in the US right now) and a day pass for a gym is $15-$25 on average (in London, a comparable double cheeseburger costs £2.29, the minimum hourly wage is £12.21 and a day pass at a PureGym costs around £14.99; it doesn’t take a financial advisor to recognise how even a flexible gym bro might struggle with these numbers if they work out at least three times a week, travel and can’t access a fridge or kitchen.

Interestingly, sweets and chocolate are (also) prohibitively expensive – at least to a Britisher in America – so that I think it’s the more easily accessible, calorie dense, food and drinks at every meal that are tipping the scales rather than the horrendously non-cocoa containing choccies.

What’s in the bag coach? 900g of protein powder, two bananas, 220g of my now favourite mass-produced sweets, 280g of teriyaki flavoured beef jerky, two sugar-free Monsters and four Reese peanut butter cups. How much do you think they cost? Answer at the end.

The media has a lot to answer for when it comes to our perceptions of other countries – did you know that both the US and UK governments class Mexico as “dangerous”? And yet, in places like California where car use is still wilder than you can imagine if you’ve only driven in the UK – I’m talking six lanes of backed up motorway traffic in both directions last night alone – I’ve struggled to find the much lampooned fatties of tabloid shock culture. And yes, I hear some of you – I thought it myself – but even if they were contributing to the traffic and were so large in part because they weren’t walking the streets with me, that doesn’t limit the fact that, so far, regardless, all I’ve seen are typical-looking people doing their best to keep it moving.

Can you easily access fresh fruit and veg? If not, why not? Let me know what’s stopping you!
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Financial fitness

As I type this, the UK budget is about to be announced and episode 25 of the podcast is processing as a raw file.

Najinder Devgun and I found similarities between fitness and financial coaching, dug into his experience of “financial trauma” and how he works to help people through theirs in his capacity as a financial advisor who’s been there (rather than necessarily a therapist who hasn’t). I open myself up to criticism on spending a large chunk of my help to buy ISA on this trip. If you’re self-employed and/or wanting to make your money go further, you won’t want to miss this chat with Naj!

The full episode will be out audio-only on Apple Podcasts later today and in surround-sound technicolour on Spotify or YouTube from Thursday morning. Click through to your preferred platform and like, love and subscribe – it’s a massive help to me that costs you nowt!

And that’s it from me!

Much love, and I’ll see yas in the next one
J x

Fitness & Thinking

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