I grew up and still live in southern CA, but spent one year in the Midwest 6 years ago.
Now, normally here its almost ALWAYS temperate, sunny 90% of the time too. So basically its easy to always been walking, going places, moving. Not only that, but we have food from all over the world. Down here your diet is diverse, always changing and rotating different things, lots of healthy options to the point where its a last-last-last resort to eat fast food.
And also, its just socially expected that men dress with some effort. Like its not culturally seen as sissy for guys to spend a little extra time finding the best fit for their jeans or shirts and picking out the best conditioner and such for your hygiene, and overall there are lots of different places to get clothes so that you generally have good options to dress the way you want.
Soooo with that in mind, heres what happened when I spent a year in Indiana.
There was no more public transit, everything was far away with corn and soybean fields in between, and it was always either suffocatingly hot and muggy or cold and frigid. In other words, I NEVER walked anywhere or set out on foot or spent many days doing outdoors stuff.
On top of that, every single restaurant around me was either steak/beef or fast food, with one single Chinese buffet in town. The one single grocery store as well had a far less diverse selection. It was a food desert essentially, making healthy choices more pricey and harder to come by.
And as for clothes? Everyone shopped at Walmart basically, with a few of the people maybe leaving more often occasionally to the mall over an hour away. So it was basically expected that people werent gonna dress with much effort. And with middle American masculinity at the forefront, nobody thought it was cool to put effort in anyway.
Within that year I gained 50 pounds, basically lost all self respect because I couldnt find a way to look decent and felt no motivation to do so anyway. Moved back to CA and immediately became active again, for a tan, lost weight, naturally gained some muscle mass back, got more cleaned up and was able to style myself better.
This is what makes me happy to be in the bay area. I can literally do any activity I feel like and try different types of foods every day. Most CEmen here that live in flyover states have no idea what they are missing.
The cost of living is too high, poop problem in San Fransisco and Plague in LA, abysmal politics, and safety concerns (I don't feel safe in most large cities in the US).
Two of the safest cities in the US are Californian...San Diego and San Jose...so if you feel unsafe in either....
Anyway, that story hit home. Was very similar when I lived in Central PA. everything was chain restaurants
San Diego is alright and is more conservative than LA and San Fransisco, not too sure about San Jose though. ---
"In the name of the future moon I shall punish you"-Chibi Moon