Why were people so skinny in the 70s and 80s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where are people getting the idea that there was "no fast food" in the 70's and 80's?

They saw one video from Woodstock and now think they know what life was like! We had SO MUCH fast food in the 70s and 80s!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm 54 and remember when everybody started marketing low fat foods in the 80s, and nobody realized they added a bunch of sugar to make it taste better. And I really think we got addicted to that, more than anything. And that was about the same time diet sodas became sweetened with Nutrasweet which tasted a lot better than the older saccharine sweeteners that had a bitter aftertaste. There is some data out there that just tasting the sweetness without getting the calories makes you crave more.

To me, those two trends really shifted how we ate as a country. That plus fast food marketing super-sized everything.

I really do think it's more than a few things. Probably a shift in the sugar content of all our food.

I would be really interested to see a study or studies on this, because I think there is something to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom was so cheap she would water down the Kool-aid. It tasted like red water . We also played outside all day long and I even played travel soccer as a girl back in the early 80s on top of being outside every day. Portion sizes were much smaller.

More activity and less food (smaller portions).

I read that kids today have the activity level of 60-year olds back in the 70s. That's astounding and so awful.

Definitely this. We played outside till dark and rode are bikes everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Smokers…They were also very naturally tan because of sunbathing and less awareness of skin cancer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Running and working out wasn't a thing back then. My parents were skinny as heck. They played sports but weren't going to the gyn especially as they got older. Both had desk jobs. We lived in a city so not a ton of walking (it wasn't safe). Anyone feel like it's strange?

My family has never been skinny. We were not skinny during the Depression. We were not skinny in the 60’s and 70’s and we are not skinny now.

[Anonymous]

Most of us are not getting to this conclusion by googling pictures of Woodstock nor of Cochello.

Seriously read the Omnivores Dilemma.

There are a bounty of reasons why people are bigger now and chronic disease is rampant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, working out was very popular in the 80s. Aerobics and etc. I remember watching my mom do Jane Fonda's workout and similar.

Same with my mom. Jane Fonda was awesome. Lots of aerobics at our community club, going to "do Nautilus", etc. She was also a jogger, even back in the 70s.

My dad was also active - biking, etc.

Yes people worked out but the exercise and diet culture was extremely different.

[Anonymous]

Are people trying to argue that there are just as many thin people now as decades ago? Because some were at Coachella? Take a trip to Disneyworld or Walmart if you're not sure what the average American looks like now.

[Anonymous]

My parents both smoked. The minute my mom quit, she put on 20lbs.

[Anonymous]

Easy answer. They didn’t eat so much crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also think that the people who make weight a moral and willpower issue are to blame. The obesogenic industries (sugar, plastics, big agriculture, etc.) love these people, because they do their dirty work. There won't be effective societal change until people recognize that individual willpower has no real impact on long term weight management as compared to systemic and industrial impacts. Essentially, we need to have a Big Tobacco moment as a society.

I don't think we will, though, because the folks who adore shaming fat people enjoy it too much. They like the power trip and won't give it up.

I hate to say that I agree with you, but this thread is a perfect example. The tired trope of “eat less, move more” (always delivered with a sneer) empowers corporations to keep poisoning our food supply.

Totally agree. People can't resist a chance to dump on fat ppl so they let corporations continue to put phthalates and other obesogenics in literally everything (guess what, the amount in your breastmilk is about 10X the safe cutoff for drinking water! Fun fact, you are pumping your baby full of obesogenics from the moment it is born).

The levels of phthalates in our bodies have skyrocketed since the 70s/80s, and they are clearly linked to obesity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4114051/

Yes, I think of these people as similar to the ones in the 1940s who argued against tobacco limitations because of willpower, etc. They were wrong then and are wrong now. But industry is a lot smarter now, and has taken a page from the tobacco playbook (in some cases literally), so the situation is much worse than it was with tobacco.

You can see it in this thread. The industrial apologists are open about how they cling to their ability to sneer at fat people. Mocking fat people and feeling morally superior is more important to them than systemic change, even though we would all benefit by treating obesogenic industries as though they were as toxic as tobacco.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/health/big-tobacco-kool-aid-sugar-obesity.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879177/

We shamed a lot of smokers into quitting. So then we should shame the junk food eaters into eating less junk food, right?

No, we didn't shame smokers into quitting. What we did was pass legislation making smoking much more burdensome for individuals. That eventually led to people quitting. The shame and morality approach to smoking explicitly did NOT work. It wasn't until there was government intervention that smoking rates declined.

Shame didn't work for smoking and won't work for weight. I mean we have 60+ years of fat-shaming as evidence of how much fat-shaming doesn't work, so as much as fat-shamers are loathe to give up their perverted hobby, they have the burden of proof here to show that it is anything other than harmful.

[Anonymous]

This thread is really interesting. Moving beyond the 70s and 80s, I remember that for virtually every weekday lunch after I started working in the mid ‘90s I had a Yoplait yogurt, a Granny Smith apple, and a water. I never got tired of it. My coworkers told me they knew I was pregnant before I announced it because for the first time ever, I started bringing extra food. I’ve always loved food and eating, but back then limited my explorations to the evenings and weekends.

These days I can’t imagine eating the same meal multiple times per week. Some prior posters mentioned that we have all become sensation seekers to a greater degree since personal electronics and social media came on the scene and I think that’s definitely part of it in my case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Availability of liquid calories and snacks is so much different now than it was in the 70s and 80s. The marketing is subversive, too. "Healthy" juices and smoothies that add extra calories and more grams of sugar than is recommended in a whole day. Entire aisles in the supermarket devoted to whole grain snacks, superfoods, etc. that from a macros perspective are no different than a bag of chips. Daily starbucks runs (my parents drank black coffee, maybe some cream and a couple cubes of sugar. Think of how many people now habitually consume take-out coffee drinks instead.) Add to that better accessibility to more food in general OR less accessibility to quality foods.

You must not have been around in the 70s and 80s. There was tons of soda, fruit juice, "fruit" juice (like Sunny D), Hawaiian Punch, Capri Sun, you name it. Starbucks didn't exist but we had plenty of junk to fill us up, even in the ye olde times. And plenty of weird diets, too.

I think you're all looking back with skinny-colored glasses.

Yes there were all those things. But people are also remembering correctly. All you have to do is look at old year book class photos. Or pictures from Woodstock, or the day Kennedy was assassinated. People overall were thinner then.

This is part of how this history is mis-remembered. Look at pictures of Coachella from today. You will see skinny people there, too. That's because the media and the public share (and remember) the most glamorous and sexy version of any event. It's not representative of the world - it's representative of what angle on events filters into the public memory.

I just did a Google search for Coachella 2020:







You're not getting the full view of humanity by looking at the pictures still being shared of Woodstock, just like youre not getting the full view of humanity by looking at the pictures the media is sharing of recent Coachellas. I hope you understand that!

PP doesn't think those girls are skinny, that is the problem.

Well, 4-5 of them are definitely not skinny. They would be size M-L in the 70s-80s. That doesn't mean that they are fat, or obese, or of unhealthy weight. But they are not skinny.

[Anonymous]

1) portions were much smaller
2) most food was cooked home
3) very little “convenience” type foods
4) snacking all the time wasn’t a thing
5) people actually had to do sh*t for themselves: get their own groceries, cook their own dinner, clean house, walked many places, physically had to go to stores to buy something they needed/wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is really interesting. Moving beyond the 70s and 80s, I remember that for virtually every weekday lunch after I started working in the mid ‘90s I had a Yoplait yogurt, a Granny Smith apple, and a water. I never got tired of it. My coworkers told me they knew I was pregnant before I announced it because for the first time ever, I started bringing extra food. I’ve always loved food and eating, but back then limited my explorations to the evenings and weekends.

These days I can’t imagine eating the same meal multiple times per week. Some prior posters mentioned that we have all become sensation seekers to a greater degree since personal electronics and social media came on the scene and I think that’s definitely part of it in my case.

I definitely struggle with eating the same thing all the time. But I think that's very normal? Our bodies crave variety because we need a variety of different nutrients and types of food in order for our bodies to work well. I could never eat yogurt, an apple, and water daily and feel fool. I'd be ravenous for dinner very single night. And I'm, if anything, underweight. Often my disinterest in eating the same foods helps me not overeat because I get tired of fatty, heavy foods as easily as I get tired of lighter foods. I couldn't eat pancakes and bacon for more than a couple days in a row, for instance -- I'd wind up craving a banana and some granola instead.