'The Mediterranean diet is gone': region's children are fattest in Europe - For kids in Greece, Spain and Italy, the Mediterranean diet is dead, according to the World Health Org, which says that children in Sweden are more likely to eat fish, olive oil and tomatoes than those in southern Europe.

I believe it. Any Italian grocery store will have whole aisles dedicated to "merende" or snacks for kids. These don't include the crisps. They are sugar-laden higly processed snacks. I moved to Italy in '96 and until last year, saw kids getting heavier while I also saw more fast food restaurants opening. The kids are also so controlled it's hard to see any running around free just playing. I can't tell you how many times I've heard mothers yell at their kids to stop running because they might sweat (and therefore catch a deadly disease and die ). In fact, it has become a joke in our Italian-American family to randomly yell at each other to stop sweating.

I moved to Norway where most kids are allowed to have sweets once a week, they spend all their time outside running around (even in freezing weather), and the grocery stores have a tiny area of processed snacks which don't seem popular at all. I have hardly seen any overweight kids here.

/r/europe Thread Link - theguardian.com