When I rented a new place I made sure it had a good kitchen. Got a huge fridge with freezer, gas stove, an oven, a crock pot, and lots of healthy staples on taobao. I've added a lot of home fermented stuff to my diet (kefir, pickles) and it's made big difference in how I feel.

@redjon: Can't diagnosis, I'm not a doctor. 15 years here, no more health issues than anywhere else (I'm 74), and they are few. Often have a bronchitis problem, easily solved, in late autumn or winter, but I smoke and blame myself. I breakfast & lunch at home, eat out every night, usually at local gaifan/mixian place for 10-16 kuai, maybe 3 times a week at Sal's or Cantina. No altitude problems except when I go downhill to Chiangmai, Hong Kong, Laos or Viet Nam, where I have to adjust for 2-3 days. Psychosomatic? (I'm not accusing you of anything, just a possibility). Suggest you get a health check.

@vera that’s the ideal, food plays a huge part anywhere.

@ishmael people’s bodies are different so there is no exact go to answer, just a query among other fellow expats. Saying that you’re 74, a smoker, and still managing to make it out every night for dinner, your body must be doing something right for you compared to the average.

Gonna go with a huge diet improvement plus exercise more I think. Whatever it is, that’s will have an improvement on anyone’s general feeling lol.

@redjon: What's the average? My neighbors seem pretty much okay too.
Yes, bodies are different, so your problem isn't necessarily about Kunming, it's maybe more about you, although the continuing construction and number of private cars is bound to affect everybody (so bicycle, walk, take the bus or underground and help us all out).
Any doctor anywhere will tell you exercise is a good idea, and you can eat badly anywhere - my doctor told me to eat more fish and vegetables, sometimes I do. I see fewer overweight people here than in a lot of places I've lived.
'Laowai feeling of being here too long' - yes, psychology is bound to play a part - how bad does it get?
Again, if it's only the past year and you think it's serious, perhaps you should see a doctor. Age is increasingly a factor for everybody, although 41 is not serious if your lifestyle is okay. The altitude, almost 2 kilometers (like Denver, Mexico City, Kabul - and there are higher cities, we're not in Lhasa), will affect very, very few people seriously, especially after the first week or so when it's a very minor problem, if it's one at all, for most people - personally I feel better at this altitude now than lower - that's just me, but I don't think I'm alone.
Is it the healthiest place to live with the healthiest cuisine? I don't know, I doubt it, where would that be? But it seems good enough for most.
Somebody wrote something about baking English food - well, baking or boiling any type of food, okay I guess so, if it's only health you're after. Vegetarianism, understood & practiced rationally, is probably even better.

Best wishes.

I haven't noticed any significant difference in my health since moving here (knocking on wood), with the exception of a bout of Cixi's Revenge every year or two.

I actually had a stubborn case of athlete's foot clear up within a few months after arriving in Kunming. Maybe toxins in the shower water killed it off...

Health and happiness are two very separate things and for most people are not related.

@Dolphin

My health has suffered mostly from more than a year of bicycle travel and the illnesses I picked up on the way before I came to China.

Speaking of ridiculous (straw man alert): of course my own country has fruit and veg, but here it is abundant and a lot more affordable, so yes I am enjoying that. And the good weather, the opportunity to go out into the countryside etc as I also pointed out, and glad I am slowly getting back to good health.

As for my mental well being, well what do you know? I am in fact very happy here, quite unlike some of the regular narky commenters in the forum it seems ;-)

@tiger: I think that, for most people, health and happines are indeed related, tho they're not the same thing.
@vera: How does bicycle travel lead to suffering of health? I'd think that it would lead to health. I don't have a bicycle here, tho I've had one in many cities I've lived in and it helped keep me fit. Here I just walk a lot, which isn't bad either.

It is a different thing to take a bicycle ride in a city every now and then, and being on extended roadtrip with it for a year or more.

Same taking a stroll in the park, and running a few marathons every year.