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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

We did, but at least myself and the people I knew couldn't afford to eat it that much. It's going back that way now.

The 80s and 90s were when everything started to "super size" at fast food places.

[Anonymous]

My family was always big, I have pictures dating back to the 1870s. Even when they were subsistence farmers. Starving basically kept them non obese and once they got enough food after WW2, everyone except the smokers had to watch what they ate. Lots and lots of thyroid and autoimmune diseases iny family, and I can look at old pics and see who was probably not diagnosed or medicated back in the day from how they look..

[Anonymous]

- Smoking
- Many households had one car. We were UMC but only had one car until my brother and I were in grade school. My dad would take the car to work most mornings so my mom would load us into the stroller when we were small and walk to the park or playground or to meet up with friends. Nowadays, most people would put the stroller in the back of the SUV and drive to the park or whatever.
- My mom would have thought I was nuts if I'd asked her for a ride to school, or to a friend's house, or to the Metro when I could walk or bike to those places as a teenager. My brother broke his foot once and she was very put out at having to drive him to/from school because we always walked.
- We ate crap (sno balls, Doritos, Kool Aid, sugar cereal) but we played outside all the time practically every single day. We had one TV that was reserved for my dad's news shows and weekend football games. I'm one of the younger Gen Xers, late 70s birthday, and my parents never had cable. I didn't have a cell phone until I was out of college. There was a lot more to do and see outside. We spent hours prowling around storm sewers, hiking through fields, and exploring.
- Dieting was heavily encouraged. I knew a lot of girls who would eat grapefruit, cottage cheese, and Tab or Diet Coke or black coffee almost exclusively. A lot of people also took diet pills (aka, speed) which was easy to get at the time from a doctor.
- Overall there was more manual labor involved with nearly everything. No one had a lawn service. That job was performed by dads or teenage boys in the household or neighborhood. Same with shoveling snow or raking leaves. Pretty much everyone washed their own cars. We didn't have Task Rabbits to do stuff like that. Like someone else said, you had to get your own groceries or walk around a mall if you needed new clothes.

[Anonymous]

100% smoking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cigarettes and blow

+1 My MIL full admits to smoking through her 3 pregnancies in the 70s because she didn't want to get fat. Lucky for her she didn't get fat and her kids seemed to have turned out okay.

Also, my mother was advised by her always-male, military obstetricians to strive to gain absolutely no more than 20 pounds during her 4 pregnancies, circa 1963-1968. She succeeded and our birthweights were 5-8 lbs. Yes, she smoked “lightly” throughout her pregnancies. Drank moderately, too. She was and is still slender, but quit smoking by the early 1970s.

[Anonymous]

PP 19:42 back with other thoughts.

There really was a diet culture in the 70s and 80s. Even my always-thin and fashionable mom would announce that she was “watching her figure” if for any reason she felt she was getting “flabby” or I guess gaining a very few lbs. (and I mean like 2 lbs).

Ladies always had scales in their bathrooms. Both of my grandmothers did. My mom did. It was a thin g to weigh yourself.

There was always a “diet plate” on restaurant or diner menus: cottage cheese atop a bed of iceberg lettuce and two canned peaches as a topping.

Diet pills called “reducing pills” or “water pills” were advertised and easily available at drugstores. My high school friend and I bought diet pills for fun + took them every day while we vacationed at the beach so we’d look good in our bikinis. I might have weighed 112 lbs and wanted to be 110 or something ridiculous like that.

Sizes were SO different. I couldn’t wait to be able to fit in “teenager-sized” clothes that then started at size 3, circa 1980. Size 3 was tough to find and there was even a store called 5-7-9 that only sold these very small sizes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know folks. I was around in the 80s and I ate tons of snacks, lots of candy and junk food, and we watched TV all the time. Cable became a thing in the 80s. And yes, we ate at home a lot but a lot of that food was heavily processed. Lots of casseroles from recipes on the back of a soup can, lots of freezer meals, etc. And I had a SAHM. My own child eats better and watches way less television than I did at her age. And it's not an SES thing -- my parents were/are a higher SES than my DH and I are.

I still agree that processed foods and lack of exercise is a big part of it, but I'm not sure television is the culprit. I think it's stress. I think families are stressed, parents are stressed, kids are stressed. I think everyone numbs with whatever is handy, whether that's fatty foods or television or video games or the internet. I think we're all trying to make the day to day as tolerable as possible because the long term feels worse than ever. And so much is expected of us. Kids in the 70s and 80s just went to school, maybe did one or two activities, tops. Yes, there were fewer dual-income parents, because it was possible to own a home and send your kids to decent schools without a second income. And if you did own a home and your kids were doing okay in school (which could mean straight Bs, that was fine and most people didn't freak out about that), you were considered successful even if you worked a blue collar job and never took a vacation that required an airplane.

Being middle class in the 70s and 80s was nice. Even for POC who were experiencing more racism, being middle class was pretty nice. It was a sustainable lifestyle that felt meaningful (kids, work) but also included a decent amount of leisure time and family time.

I don't know what the heck we're doing now. It seems terrible. I think it's hard to "eat your veggies" and get some exercise when you are exhausted and stressed out and feel like no matter what you do or how hard you try, you'll never have enough money to retire on, you'll never be able to afford college for your kids, and you are one medical emergency away from financial ruin.

I think it's stress and everything else (overeating, processed and heavy foods, lack of exercise, overwork, etc.) goes back to that.

+1

[Anonymous]

We did not have credit cards and we had way less money.
That's pretty much it.

[Anonymous]

This. It could be the rise of obesogens - things like BPA and phthalates that are pervasive in the environment and in our bodies. You can thank the chemical lobby and money in politics for not protecting us from these poisons. U.S. women's breast milk contains more chemicals compared to European mothers. In Europe chemicals have to be proven safe instead of proven harmful like here. Some of these chemicals may cause epigenetic changes in metabolism across generations.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/13/pfas-forever-chemicals-breast-milk-us-study

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/magazine/toxic-breast-milk.html

When European scientists first saw the test results of American women, they thought there must be a mistake. Our levels were 10 to 100 times higher than those of women in Europe and Japan.

+1

This, plus the the massive use of antibiotics. Farmers use antibiotics to fatten cattle. Why people don't think that has an effect on humans is beyond me.

We lived abroad for 15 years in 5 countries. I came back to the states for long stretches to have my kids, be in my sister's wedding, etc. I always gained in the U.S., lost overseas. I exercised the same or more in the U.S., due to being able to run outside alone without fear.

Sorry to make it political, and neither party is great, but one party wants to protect human health and ensure the safety of our air, food and water, while the other one wants unfettered capitalism with fewer (if any) regulations on chemicals,
air and water pollution etc. How we vote matters.

[Anonymous]

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.

100% agree with this. Why does our country need to make systemic problems into individual ones? There needs to be individual responsibility, but we just set people up to fail in this country. Especially with respect to food purity, stress (cost of medical bills, childcare, college and real estate) and lack of paid leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No fast food and much better coke. And also people really cared and ate better. Today it feels trendy to be fat.

We had tons of fast food in the 70s and 80s

People ate like sh*t in that time, too

You guys really need to stop making assumptions about ye olde days

Well, what do you think is the difference? I grew up in the 70s and we didn't eat anywhere near the crap my kids eat now. My parents didn't exercise, smoke or do any drugs either. They are STILL slim in their 80s.

I am the PP and I genuinely don't know what accounts for the differences. Perhaps it is chemicals and hormones (though that just sounds like woo woo/moral shaming to me). Perhaps it's subtle shifts in lifestyle. I don't have the answer, I can just say that as someone who grew up in that time it wasn't because we were growing our own food, walking everywhere, and eating small portions of nuts and berries back then. Sure my friends and I had way more freedom to ride our bikes and see where the day took us - but the kids I know now (I don't have kids myself) are on, like four soccer teams every season and are getting a LOT of exercise, more than we got f**king around all day for sure.

What is woo woo about chemicals and hormones? They are the opposite, they are science.

[Anonymous]

I’ve thought about this too, and honestly it was mostly diet for my family. YES we had convenience foods but not nearly the abundance and variety thst is available these days. We were also working class and could not afford much of it. Same with fast food and restaurant food. There were not NEARLY as many choices (in our small town, just McDs, a pizza place, and a few sit down restaurants).

Also SNACKING was a lot different, along with portion sizes, compared to what I see these days. People did not walk around sipping Starbucks drinks or Jamba Juice or whatever, nor did they walk around munching food or bring snacks EVERYwhere. Particularly for kids. As a kid I also did not have free access to drinks or snacks besides water- always had to ask first, and was very often told “no, wait until lunch or dinner”. . No free access to the pantry. As a kid, no one cared about my likes/dislikes unless it was my birthday

I feel like the average kid was much more active back then, but not true for adults IMHO.

80s working class, weekday, kid:
B: sugary breakfast cereal with milk, tiny cup of OJ or milk
L: 1/2 a gross sandwich I wouldn’t eat, an apple, carrot sticks, 2 Oreos, buy school milk
S: cup of sugary kool aid, cheese and 4 ritz crackers
D: pot roast with potatoes & carrots, green beans, milk

2022 working class, weekday, kid:
B: sugared yogurt, sugary granola bar, chocolate milk
Snack: packaged goldfish
L: chicken nuggets, fries, processed fruit in sugary juice, chocolate milk (school lunch)
Snack: whatever they want from the pantry and in whatever quantities. Cheetos etc. a lot.
D: on the go between 12,000 sports events. Mcds probably. maybe soda too. If home, frozen pizza.
Evening snack: junk after sports game the parents insist on handing out

So: plenty of junk in both diets but far more limited snacks back then, far fewer choices around the house, and what kids wanted mattered very little in my house. My parents did not care if I missed a meal because I didn’t like it. Probably made it up at the next one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think chemicals (hormones, preservatives, etc.) play a big part. I’ve lived for 6 months to 2 years in other countries in Europe, Africa and Asia and I always lost 10lbs within the first few months and it stayed off until I move back to the US (and I’m already thin). I ate more food but just lost weight effortlessly without exercising (although I walked a little more, not much since I’m in Dc and take public transportation). In the US, I have to diet and exercise to see any change but it’s hard to maintain and I’m hungry. I know there are other reasons but that’s something I believe based off personal experience and friends.

Same for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know folks. I was around in the 80s and I ate tons of snacks, lots of candy and junk food, and we watched TV all the time. Cable became a thing in the 80s. And yes, we ate at home a lot but a lot of that food was heavily processed. Lots of casseroles from recipes on the back of a soup can, lots of freezer meals, etc. And I had a SAHM. My own child eats better and watches way less television than I did at her age. And it's not an SES thing -- my parents were/are a higher SES than my DH and I are.

I still agree that processed foods and lack of exercise is a big part of it, but I'm not sure television is the culprit. I think it's stress. I think families are stressed, parents are stressed, kids are stressed. I think everyone numbs with whatever is handy, whether that's fatty foods or television or video games or the internet. I think we're all trying to make the day to day as tolerable as possible because the long term feels worse than ever. And so much is expected of us. Kids in the 70s and 80s just went to school, maybe did one or two activities, tops. Yes, there were fewer dual-income parents, because it was possible to own a home and send your kids to decent schools without a second income. And if you did own a home and your kids were doing okay in school (which could mean straight Bs, that was fine and most people didn't freak out about that), you were considered successful even if you worked a blue collar job and never took a vacation that required an airplane.

Being middle class in the 70s and 80s was nice. Even for POC who were experiencing more racism, being middle class was pretty nice. It was a sustainable lifestyle that felt meaningful (kids, work) but also included a decent amount of leisure time and family time.

I don't know what the heck we're doing now. It seems terrible. I think it's hard to "eat your veggies" and get some exercise when you are exhausted and stressed out and feel like no matter what you do or how hard you try, you'll never have enough money to retire on, you'll never be able to afford college for your kids, and you are one medical emergency away from financial ruin.

I think it's stress and everything else (overeating, processed and heavy foods, lack of exercise, overwork, etc.) goes back to that.

+1

+2 I do agree that time and stress are big factors. Not just more dual income families, but also the crazy expectations of parents in the evenings (sports, activities etc). One could argue whether those things are necessary, but most families do them regardless. Even the processed dinners my 80s mom made (cream of whatever casserole with frozen veggie or iceberg lettuce salad) were probably better calorie-size and nutritionally than much of the frozen and fast food things people eat these days.

[Anonymous]

I am 52 and remember seeing cars at a drive through at 2 pm and thinking what are they doing? It's not dinner or lunch?
Yet that is how my parents trained me.
I had one smoking parent and one drinking parent- both in80s now,