Are Indians lazy?

I was chatting with my Indian friend over a lunch, suddenly he asked me, "Do you think we are lazy?" I said, I don't know the correct answer for this accidental question. He told me, he thinks we are generally lazy compared to other hardworking races in Asia. I said to him, may be man your right. So after returning from lunch, I gave a little thought to that crazy stereotypical question. Is he really right? Flipping through some facts, it seems Indians do less physical work than others and we are more prone to type 2 diabetes. These results were published in BBC health section.


If we look at studies which requires us to have lot more will power than anything else, we don't lag behind others. But certainly don't slog continuously than other Asians in general. Though there are some total nerds in India but those people utterly don't do exercise and tend to be overweight. I knew lot of my friends back in chennai play video games for straight eight to nine hours but if we ask them to sit and study or do some sports they flunk it (not in studies though). So what might have caused us to have such an attitude.

I think our family structure might have contributed to some extent where only one parent (especially father) tend to work and others sit and relax. Our social structure doesn't permit adolescents to do part time jobs or other works. But contemporary young people are health conscious and also have power to drive so this attitude may change very soon. There are spoil sport like video games and computer games might hinder the change of attitude. Any thoughts to this?