[tluyben2]

It's not that bad compared to some parts of the US no, but it pains me. One of the best vacations I ever had was to Madeira (which is Portugese) many years ago. It was the time when Brasil (and some parts of PT) had metal music in the top-40 a lot and this is what they were playing in disco's. While in NL we had utter crap (depending on taste, i'm telling my story here :) going from 1-40 (or 100 for that matter), on Madeira I stood in a real discotheque with extremely pretty girls (who I only saw in these big discotheques in Amsterdam normally dancing to crap) headbanging to Slayer and Sepultura. I never saw something like that again. In one of the town squares (of Funchal) they had a deadmetal band playing and all these young and old people where standing there watching, not calling it shit, but just looking at it like it was the marching band.

Almost all girls looked amazing (I have pics, I wasn't dreaming ;). Now I went back the odd 20 years later and mostly everyone is overweight. And not 'just a bit'. It's such a contrast. Same for Spain (Andalucia) and I also saw it in Guatamala as well. I'm not condemning this, but I'm referring to the amazing difference here in 'only' 20 years.

[narag]

This is caused by the change in food prices/availability. Traditional "mediterranean" diet is healthy and didn't cause people to get fat. Now unhealthy food is much cheaper and readily available. People hasn't still learned how to manage the change. Eventually they will... I hope :-)

[tluyben2]

Also; people moved more. In Malaga I see people driving to the shops at the end of the street. No joke (and i'm not laughing). Some people walk/cycle but the majority is in the car for everything. With the crisis it became less because gas prices jumped up (they are E0.50 higher than a few years ago as you know).