This is a fun circuit.

Go west to the Humber Bay Arch Bridge.

Shoot up the Humber River and pass under various bridges and subway tracks.

Arrive in Weston (which, by the way, was established in 1796). Go west on Lawrence to Royal York (there are a couple of hills here that will get your bum up).

Then bomb down Royal York as fast as you can until you arrive at San Remo Bakery for coffee, donuts, cured meats, and other wonderful things that I don't normally order.

The circuit:

I know I know this, but this is still an alarming chart:

This is saying that, as of 2016, over 36% of Americans were considered to be obese. In Canada, the number was just under 30%. And in the UK, it was just under 28%, which is the highest rate in Europe.

We often talk about the health benefits of living in a walkable community. And there's lots of research to back up that this is in fact the case: obesity rates tend to be inversely correlated with higher prevalences of active transportation (walking, cycling, and so on).

But we also can't ignore diet. And here's what has happened in the UK, as well as in other Western countries:

An increased reliance on cheap, ultra-processed food, which accounts for 57 per cent of what Britons eat according to a 2019 study conducted by researchers at the University of São Paulo, suggests that the health crisis is unlikely to change anytime soon without intervention, argue campaigners.

It can be hard to eat healthy, especially if you don't have a lot of money and you live a busy life. But in my view, we need to change the course of this graph. And two very good places to start looking would be (1) our built environment and (2) the Japanese diet.

Actually, now that I think of it, Japanese cities would be a good place to look as well.

Chart: FT

I first did 23andMe back in 2015. And at that time, my ancestry composition looked like this.

At the highest level, I was 50.6% East Asian & Native American and 49.2% European. Going one level deeper, I was 43.7% Chinese, 16.5% British & Irish, 6% French & German, and 11.5% Broadly Northern European. 23andMe uses the term "broadly" when there's a DNA match across multiple places and it's not exactly sure what country or countries it might be.

Last night, I decided to log back in to 23andMe and see if anything had changed in the 8 or so years since I first did the test and, frankly, since I logged into their website. And it turns out that it has. It seemingly got more precise. I guess that's the power of more people using the product and more data. Now my ancestry composition looks like this:

So what changed? Well, at a high level I'm still half Asian and half European. But 23andMe is now telling me that my Chinese roots likely trace back to Guangdong, a southern province that borders Hong Kong. This is news to me as I'm many generations removed and I had always thought it was somewhere more northern, partially because of my height.

Apparently, I am also no longer British & Irish (0.6%). I am now 31.1% French & German and 3.3% Broadly Northwestern European (admittedly this could include Ireland). This was surprising to me since Donnelly is clearly an Irish last name. Though, my maternal grandmother did indeed have direct French roots.

Along with this, I became more southern European (13%), with Spanish & Portuguese being the most common match (5.6%). So am I more this than Irish? I don't know, these matches are pretty far removed and possibly go back 5-8 generations. At the great-grandparent level, I am, according to 23andMe, (1) Chinese and (2) French & German.

I find all of this extremely fascinating and so I think I'll spend more time exploring the site and my family tree. They are also telling me that it's time to order another sampling kit, since I did mine so long ago. I plan on doing that, as well as ordering two for my parents. Let's see what that does to my ancestry composition.

Have any of you used 23andMe and found surprising results?