The Laziest Countries in the World
#1, United States of America
Calories per Day: 1st out of 24 (Gold)
Television Viewing: 1st out of 24 (Gold)
Sports Aversion: 3rd out of 24 (Bronze)
Internet Usage: 3rd out of 24 (Bronze)
Word from the Couch: U-S-A! U-S-A! U.S. sports four medals in The Daily Beast’s Couch Potato Olympics, easily nabbing the top spot on our podium. Just like in the real Olympics, where America is jockeying to hold on to the medal lead, America always goes big, or doesn’t go at all. From the Wing Bowl in Philadelphia, to New York City’s historic Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest to countless county fairs across the nation featuring fried everything, gluttony is as American as an entire apple pie, and apparently all that downtime in front of televisions and computers translates into lots of sports viewing, not much sports playing.
#2, Canada
Calories per Day: 8
Television Viewing: 5
Sports Aversion: 12
Internet Usage: 1 (Gold)
Word from the Couch: Must be the snow. And the cold. Canada may not have the world’s best Internet infrastructure, and there’s plenty of hockey and skiing, but even the most die-hard winter sports enthusiast has to go inside sometime—and look up the score of the Canucks game on ESPN.com. And when it snows so much that Olympic skiing events are canceled, there’s nothing better for Canadians than snuggling up with a cup of hot chocolate and a warm computer. Canadians on average spent nearly 43 hours online in December, according to ComScore.
