Why were Americans of all ages so thin during the 1960s and 1970s?
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Anonymous
This is what living that lifestyle gets you. A week in the ICU and a three-month rehab stint because you decided to go to an Asian buffett when you knew you had a heart condition and were overweight. Idiots. She should be ashamed. 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5899695/Woman-sues-Texas-buffet-frequented-1million-getting-Fried-Rice-Syndrome.html |
WOW it's so hard and you deserve a medal for being so much better than those porch-sittin', Ellen-watchin' country folk!
Anonymous
People were thin. Perhaps where you and some others lived who keep saying the same thing there was a community of fat people and that is your view of the world. You were ahead of your time by being fat back then, eating garbage, and not exercising. Now we've all caught up to you. Amazing that you are also unable to distinguish between the weight difference over time. A 160 pound male four decades ago would be considered thin by today's standards. |
Anonymous
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Some is genetics. I come from family where women were heavy....even in the 1960s and 1970s. My mother in 70s lose 100 lbs in a year and gained it back in a year and then repeated the pattern 4 times.
And yes I have food issues, but doing better thank you. I wasn't fat back in mid 70s when I graduated high school but she made me think I was. |
Anonymous
PPs are being so pedantic. It's obvious OP meant so thin (relative to today). |
Anonymous
A parent after my own heart! I got the stink eye for telling my kid he couldn’t have a cupcake after his soccer game. The same soccer game where he spent most of it standing around. The one where he sat down for five mins on the field to tie and retie his cleats. Yeah, no cupcake needed, Barb. He’s gonna make it the 2 hours until dinner. Will not succumb to starvation! |
Anonymous
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Cigarettes
Lack of antibiotics in food chain (farmers have known for years that you fatten livestock with antibiotics) Longer sedentary work hours Smaller portions Far less use of antibiotics generally No snack culture Shorter working hours |
Anonymous
| Much of what has already been said but for a lot of people today high calorie drinks they get often at places like Starbucks play a big role. Empty calories that are regularly consumed by many but mostly didn’t exist in the 1960s & 1970s. |
Anonymous
How tall was the average woman? |
Anonymous
| Who only had one car? We were totally middle class and both my parents always had their own car. My mom would never have been cool with my dad having the only car and taking it to work every day while she stayed home with us kids. That’s ridiculous. I was born in 1968. |
Anonymous
So you think of 140 lbs. as "so thin"? |
Anonymous
| I grew up in the late 60s and 1970s. The biggest differences in eating I recall are that we ate out so, so much less back then than a typical family does today - really just on “special occasions” like birthdays, and adults did not snack and kids snacked a lot less. The restaurant part alone is huge because portion sizes are much larger in restaurants, and the more you get used to that, the larger your portions become at home, too. We definitely ate junk food although really I don’t recall my parents eating it, just we kids. And yes kids were more active but it seems that OP is mainly asking why adults were more thin back at that time. |
Anonymous
| Smoking, typical food wasn't so crap, more women were still at home raising kids and cooking better meals, and no computers/phones to make people sit and stay still for hours and hours and feel somewhat productive while they surf internet forums. |
Anonymous
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Roller Disco kept people from getting fat? |
Anonymous
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Weight Watchers was founded in the 1960s. I went to my first WW meeting in 1976, when I was 12, in Austin, Texas. And there were PLENTY of overweight people there. I attended on and off through the Seventies. My parents were big fans of Weight Watchers, having watched their weight during the Sixties and Seventies. Do you think there were not people taking diet pills, dieting, and having issues with their bodies before, OP?
Who do you think Freud's patients were, in the 1890s to 1930s? These were women with, among other things, eating disorders and neuroses around food. You act as if, prior to to 1995 or some mythical time frame, no one had an effed up relationship with food, dieted, or overate. You've got to be kidding me. |
Anonymous
All of the hormones and hormone-like substances we get from plastic, can linings, fire retardants, food additives, etc. Many people ate horribly in the 1960s and 1970s, and plenty of people had air conditioning. The difference is that, even if we were more polluted with lead, we were less polluted with artificial hormones. |