Why were Americans of all ages so thin during the 1960s and 1970s?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just walked through the airport tonight and was struck by how many overweight people there were of all ages. I'm over 50 and most of the men and women my age are 20 pounds or more overweight. Overweight parents often have overweight kids. My guess as others have said is that snacks, huge portions and computers (sedentary lifestyle) are the culprits.

Yeah, most of us aren't willing to go through the crazy lengths it would take to be as thin as we were in our 20s.

Having a little extra weight on you as you age is not necessarily a bad thing. If your body is naturally thin that's one thing, but not all of us are. Nor do we pretend to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am in health care and this is my area of practice.
Other than the abundance of trans fat in the 60s and 70s, the food back then had similar nutritional value.
What has changed is that we are consuming more of every type of calorie. "Good" calories, bad calories, every kind of calorie imaginable is making its way onto our bigger plates.
To over simplify, because it is simple, we need to eat less of everything. I even get worried when I see the water drinkers. They could give up the water bottle and be a bit less orally focused.

My husband and I were just talking about the water bottles.

Nobody walked around with a personal water bottle when we grew up 70s/early 80s.

We brought our water jugs to sports practice, but adults/kids did not need a personal bottle of water with them.

At a work meeting, everyone needs a water jug, coffee cup, or other drink. It's like we are all going to die of thirst during the 30 minute meeting without immediate access to liquids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just walked through the airport tonight and was struck by how many overweight people there were of all ages. I'm over 50 and most of the men and women my age are 20 pounds or more overweight. Overweight parents often have overweight kids. My guess as others have said is that snacks, huge portions and computers (sedentary lifestyle) are the culprits.

Yeah, most of us aren't willing to go through the crazy lengths it would take to be as thin as we were in our 20s.

Having a little extra weight on you as you age is not necessarily a bad thing. If your body is naturally thin that's one thing, but not all of us are. Nor do we pretend to be.

I am! I think even a little extra weight is aging

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a fat kid in the 1970s. I played outside all day long, we had one car and no central a/c until the 1980s in our 4 bedroom 2 1/2 bath house. Our food came from huge gardens that my grandparents maintained and we would get a slaughtered cow and pig that would go in the deep freezer for use all winter. I was still fat. I have struggled with my weight all of my life.

I think it's sort of general- a lot of people these days can control their weight fairly easily with proper diet and exercise- but sometimes it's just harder due to genetics or other factors that can't be controlled, even when you do all of the right things. I have a relative who has had life long struggles with her weight and she eats better/healthier and is more conscientious about regular exercise than I am- I am slim and she is not, although she much better habits. It's not really fair, but I remember growing up, she had the most beautiful, clear skin and straight, shiny hair and I struggled with terrible acne and frizzy, lank hair. Genetics are so hard.

Um, the pp did NOT say that they ate FEW calories. There is NO WAY that anyone gets fat without eating more calories than they burn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Complex question. I know.

Please share your theories as to why.

No fast food. Families ate meals together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was outside all the time in the 70s- bikes, walking, hopscotch and tag, imaginary games with kids in the neighborhood, swings, grandparent's farm.
Kids were "tougher" - I remember getting so thirsty, I thought I would collapse before going inside for a drink of water. My DS11 gets kind of whiny at the first sign of physical discomfort. I sound cranky, but it's because he grew up in the time when I had a constant sippy cup, or bag of cheerios, or I popped him in a stroller when he got tired of walking...on the other hand, kids are "smarter." Academically, he is light years ahead of where I was at his age and has a lot of stamina for schoolwork, solving harder problems, etc.

This. We tolerated hunger and thirst. Now some whacky people put it into our heads that we should never be hungry. BS.
If you can't tolerate hunger, how can you control yourself? I have been around people who can't stay on task without running for a drink or a snack. I am not talking hunger, just "I could eat something", and off they go. Consume 200 calories and get back to work, by day's end, they've eaten 500 more calories than me and they wonder why I am not obese.

[Anonymous]

Just got back from London and this is what struck me. At Heathrow, I (and everyone else) walked quite a distance through the terminal. I'd estimate I walked for a good 15-20 minutes to get to my gate. Once I got to the airport in Newark, that same walk was replaced by a train to the next terminal. Americans are overweight because they consume too many calories and then don't burn them off. I had a few dinners at very expensive restaurants while in London (I wasn't paying so why not?). I had 4 courses and wasn't stuffed when I was finished. I haven't eaten out at a restaurant in the U.S. feeling not completely stuffed in so many years I can't remember how long it's been. The portions are completely ridiculous but after a while, you don't notice it anymore. I'm so used to feeling stuffed and then putting the rest into a take home container.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just walked through the airport tonight and was struck by how many overweight people there were of all ages. I'm over 50 and most of the men and women my age are 20 pounds or more overweight. Overweight parents often have overweight kids. My guess as others have said is that snacks, huge portions and computers (sedentary lifestyle) are the culprits.

Yeah, most of us aren't willing to go through the crazy lengths it would take to be as thin as we were in our 20s.

Having a little extra weight on you as you age is not necessarily a bad thing. If your body is naturally thin that's one thing, but not all of us are. Nor do we pretend to be.

I am! I think even a little extra weight is aging

I'm sorry you're so insecure
All it is is vanity bc 10lbs extra is not unhealthy. For example, if at 5'2" you "should be" 105-110lbs for thinness, then being 115-120 is just as fine. And if you still don't think so, then that's your unfortunate problem to deal with. My sweet MIL, thank god, had an extra 20lbs, it likely saved her life when she had pneumonia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just walked through the airport tonight and was struck by how many overweight people there were of all ages. I'm over 50 and most of the men and women my age are 20 pounds or more overweight. Overweight parents often have overweight kids. My guess as others have said is that snacks, huge portions and computers (sedentary lifestyle) are the culprits.

Yeah, most of us aren't willing to go through the crazy lengths it would take to be as thin as we were in our 20s.

Having a little extra weight on you as you age is not necessarily a bad thing. If your body is naturally thin that's one thing, but not all of us are. Nor do we pretend to be.

I am! I think even a little extra weight is aging

I'm sorry you're so insecure
All it is is vanity bc 10lbs extra is not unhealthy. For example, if at 5'2" you "should be" 105-110lbs for thinness, then being 115-120 is just as fine. And if you still don't think so, then that's your unfortunate problem to deal with. My sweet MIL, thank god, had an extra 20lbs, it likely saved her life when she had pneumonia.

By your estimation, everyone must be insecure. There is nothing wrong with caring about how you look. And BTW, in my family, people develop type II diabetes with a BMI of 26. When they lose weight down to a BMI of 22, the blood sugars normalize.

[Anonymous]

Dads had blue collar jobs with labor, mom cooked home made meals and dads mowed lawns, painted house, did bowling leagues and softball

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I am 50. We ate junk food all the time. Twinkies, super sweet cereal, cokes, Kool-aide, ...... We weren't fat because we were active all the time. It really is that simple.

Yes.

The 70s diet was horrible compared to today.

But most families had only one car so people biked and walked many places. We spent all day outside playing, running around, climbing trees, swimming.

Most people did not have AC so inside was HOT over the summer.

And lost of adults smoked in addition to being more active.

OMG no. I was a child in the 70's. I never heard of a single family that only had one car, that would have been very strange. I lived in a middle class suburb and everyone had AC. And no, most people did not smoke.

Infant in the 70s?

There is no way you were middle class or a child in the 70s based on what you posted.

I was born in 72.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I am 50. We ate junk food all the time. Twinkies, super sweet cereal, cokes, Kool-aide, ...... We weren't fat because we were active all the time. It really is that simple.

Yes.

The 70s diet was horrible compared to today.

But most families had only one car so people biked and walked many places. We spent all day outside playing, running around, climbing trees, swimming.

Most people did not have AC so inside was HOT over the summer.

And lost of adults smoked in addition to being more active.

OMG no. I was a child in the 70's. I never heard of a single family that only had one car, that would have been very strange. I lived in a middle class suburb and everyone had AC. And no, most people did not smoke.

Infant in the 70s?

There is no way you were middle class or a child in the 70s based on what you posted.

I was born in 72.

Then you were not middle class.

The house sizes then compared to mcmansions of today must have confused you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I am 50. We ate junk food all the time. Twinkies, super sweet cereal, cokes, Kool-aide, ...... We weren't fat because we were active all the time. It really is that simple.

Yes.

The 70s diet was horrible compared to today.

But most families had only one car so people biked and walked many places. We spent all day outside playing, running around, climbing trees, swimming.

Most people did not have AC so inside was HOT over the summer.

And lost of adults smoked in addition to being more active.

OMG no. I was a child in the 70's. I never heard of a single family that only had one car, that would have been very strange. I lived in a middle class suburb and everyone had AC. And no, most people did not smoke.

I was a child in the 1960s. We had one car, almost no one had two cars, quite a few families had no car. We had AC in only one room. But we lived in an outer borough of NYC.

This probably has a lot to do with it. Many families in NYC still don't have two cars. In the suburbs, it was the norm to have 2 cars and A/C, and my family was more lower middle class than upper.

This was not Manhattan though, and it was a time when plenty of outer borough people were frightened of the crime riddden, graffitti covered subways.

Anyway, the national data show that over half of households in the entire USA had one or zero cars in 1970. That has to include a lot of suburban households. Maybe you are thinking 1978 not 1970,or your burb was particulary auto dependent (lots of burbs in greater NY, Boston, Chicago, Philly had very good commuter rail service) or it was more upper middle class than you remember (I mean these days people who are objectively rich consider themselves UMC, and I think lots of people who are really UMC consider themselves LMC)

I think that because houses were generally smaller back then, people look at their parent's houses and think "We must have been poor/middle class."

My inlaws had a nice for the times 1970s home. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, dining room, living room and big kitchen with separate eating area. They were upper middle class and that was considered a large spacious home back then.

Now it is considered a small starter home.

My family's middle class neighborhood was full of 3 bedroom/1 bathroom modest homes. They would be considered tear downs now, not fit for anyone but the poors.

Middle class people in the 70s did not generally have central air and middle class families in the 70s generally did not have 2 cars.

Ok, I wasn’t born until 1979 but my parents had 2 cars, AC, and a 3/2 ranch house. My dad worked construction and my mom was a bookkeeper.

So you are not a child of the 70s. You are a child of the 80s.

Most people had 2 cars and AC in the 80s and fewer people were smoking (but still smoked everywhere in public, classrooms, school bathrooms, church events, hospitals, etc)

In the 70s, middle class families had no or just one car, no AC or maybe just one window unit, and everyone from high school to grandparents smoked.

No not everyone smoked. That is such a myth. Out of my large extended family going back to the 1940s, the only smoker was my grandfather who smoked a pipe. Yes smoking rates were much higher, but it was not the majority of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I am 50. We ate junk food all the time. Twinkies, super sweet cereal, cokes, Kool-aide, ...... We weren't fat because we were active all the time. It really is that simple.

Yes.

The 70s diet was horrible compared to today.

But most families had only one car so people biked and walked many places. We spent all day outside playing, running around, climbing trees, swimming.

Most people did not have AC so inside was HOT over the summer.

And lost of adults smoked in addition to being more active.

OMG no. I was a child in the 70's. I never heard of a single family that only had one car, that would have been very strange. I lived in a middle class suburb and everyone had AC. And no, most people did not smoke.

I don't think she was middle class.

Today she is probably one of those dcum self proclaimed $300k salary "middle class" people.

I was middle class. Born in 72, lived in a 3 bedroom ranch, dad was a govt engineer, and mom stayed home. We had two cars, a station wagon and a VW bug. I did not know a single family with only one car, including my lower middle class grandparents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I am 50. We ate junk food all the time. Twinkies, super sweet cereal, cokes, Kool-aide, ...... We weren't fat because we were active all the time. It really is that simple.

Yes.

The 70s diet was horrible compared to today.

But most families had only one car so people biked and walked many places. We spent all day outside playing, running around, climbing trees, swimming.

Most people did not have AC so inside was HOT over the summer.

And lost of adults smoked in addition to being more active.

OMG no. I was a child in the 70's. I never heard of a single family that only had one car, that would have been very strange. I lived in a middle class suburb and everyone had AC. And no, most people did not smoke.

I don't think she was middle class.

Today she is probably one of those dcum self proclaimed $300k salary "middle class" people.

I was middle class. Born in 72, lived in a 3 bedroom ranch, dad was a govt engineer, and mom stayed home. We had two cars, a station wagon and a VW bug. I did not know a single family with only one car, including my lower middle class grandparents.

I should add that even in the 1950's my grandparents who were enlisted navy and a sahm had two cars.