Where I live (Spain) there’s a massive intergenerational gap between how our parents ate and how we eat and exercise. A huge number of people around me go to great lengths to control what they eat and make an effort to move. I see it at the beach, at the restaurant or at the gym. You can ask anyone in the older generations if younger people are physically healthier and you’d find an almost unanimous yes. Coincidentally we have one of the highest life expectancies in the world. None of this is given.
I am not sure I would rely on observations of gyms and beaches for whether people are healthier for fear of selection bias. Going to the beach and seeing mostly fit bathers is like going to the hospital and seeing mostly sick people and thinking that can be generalized to society.
Why would you ask old people if young people are healthier than they were? Surely, Spain compiles medical statistics.
Anyway, Spain appears to have the same weight issues as everywhere else:
> Coincidentally we have one of the highest life expectancies in the world
Those numbers are relying on how long the older generation lives. If the younger people are physically more active, how do you know that they will also live as long? It could be that modern expectations of what a "healthy" body should look like takes it too far, and that you will end up with a shorter life.
I see a lot of former athletes dying in their 60s/70s from heart failures and other conditions. Perhaps the body has limits to how much abuse it can take.
