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Much like the male's natural predisposition towards polygamy, mankind's natural craving for sweet, salty or fatty foods is rooted in our early prehistory. In the case of our diet, for tens of thousands of years of man's existence survival was based on high calorical pursuits like running with a spear to kill our food or sweating away all day in a field to harvest our food by hand, and even then we never knew when we would have periods where game was scarce or drought might limit our crops. Because of that, we naturally needed a high-calorie, high-salt, high-fat diet. The time period where we could effectively store food, and even produce and process it by machine, not to mention use all sorts of other labor saving devices like combustible fuel vehicles to get around is practically yesterday from an evolutionary perspective.
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Haywood,
FYI, a steady diet of high starch gallo pinto isn't exactly the best prescription for weight control either (absent an active lifestyle to go along with it), which is why you see so many latinas eventually spring thick J-Lo asses and thunder thighs when they hit middle-age.
JB,
Labor-saving devices like taxis may seem cheap to us or to HDR chicas who just recieved cien dollares from a gringo late at night, but for most ticos earning just $20-25/day it is still an expense that is best avoided whenever possible. Of course, the public bus system that most ticos rely on is much cheaper still, but they still need to walk between where-ever they're coming and going to/from and the respective bus stops. This may be somewhat less so than it has been in times past, but the typical tico still probably has to expend more physical effort on a daily basis than their lazy gringo cousins. However, I'll agree with your larger point: in terms of laziness, these ticos are rapidly catching up with us.
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Chilimike,
Re: the San Pedro Mall food court, while it is certainly true that the place is loaded up with the junk food american style chains and that it is those places that seem to have the longest lines of ticos, there are also plenty of stalls that offer relatively good and wholesome local cuisine and it is THOSE places that I most enjoy going. Also, during the lunch rush it is certainly true that the place is pretty packed, but I don't really think any more so than any similarly popular mall food court in the US. I'm not sure what was happening when you went there at 3PM on a Tuesday afternoon, but in my limited experience at that mall the type of crowds you described is not at all the norm. By any chance, was that a Tuesday during the unusual pre-Christmas buying period? That could explain it and, again, would not be so different than what you might see at a mall in the US at that time of year. More usually, for any of us, not being locked down to a typical eating schedule while on vacation in SJ, it is not so hard to take our lunches before or after the worst of the lunch rush and at most such times a spot can always be found, even at the coveted tables on the outdoor balcony with their wonderful view of the mountains to the south. You made the mall foodcourt sound like some sort of undesirable place to go for lunch. IMHO, nothing could be further from the truth.
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