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

[Anonymous]

pills and parties.

[Anonymous]

Three things: smoking, less snacking between meals, smaller portions (just less food in general)

The food was just as junky then as it is now. If anything, I think healthier food is more available now. “Cooking from scratch” doesn’t mean healthy.

But the shift is that then people smoked between meals. Now people just nonstop eat/snack and move around less.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and I would add medications. I think antidepressants have contributed heavily ( no pun intended).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least people are kinder now. In the early 2000s, cruelty about weight was horrific. There’s never any need for that.

Meh, I think there is.

Fat kids in the 70s and 80s got teased relentlessly. I was one of those kids. It made me want to work to get skinny. The teasing was motivation.

My niece is fat and there's nothing to motivate her to lose weight. If a doctor even brings it up, she and her friends will put that doctor on blast on social media. People are now selling "don't weigh me unless medically necessary" cards to hand out to doctors. She shakes her ass on TikTok with all kinds of hashtags about her beauty and body positivity. Sorry, no, there's nothing positive about being 350lbs except the fact that you're probably not going to get kidnaped or sex trafficked. She has terrible knee issues, gets winded walking through a grocery store, doesn't fit in most restaurant booths, and is diabetic... none of those are positives.

There needs to be some degree of bullying to toughen people up and act as motivation to change.

We have become so sensitive as a society that there's this tremendous pressure not to be judgmental but that's resulted in a failure to provide good structures and expectations for people. The growth in fat acceptance is a perfect example. And I can also think of a bunch of other examples that will remain nameless at the moment. There's nothing wrong with a bit of judging and shaming. People do learn from it. And it's usually for the best. IT can be overdone, agreed, but we have a problem if we can't tell overweight kids it's not good to be fat and instead are telling them fat is beautiful when it only means a lifetime of health problems.

A perfect example of how judging and shaming has good outcomes is smoking. The peer pressure not to smore and the growth in perception that smoking was a shameful habit did encourage many people to quit as well as stop others from taking up smoking in the first place. We need to do the same with obesity. Frankly, given that there is a very high correlation between obesity and hospitalization with COVID, this should be a perfect opportunity to have a national dialogue about weight and obesity.

Preach. This is true about proper dressing (pajamas at school????), promiscuity, messy homes, not having proper hygiene, etc. All of these things used to be less of an issue because you would be shamed for them. And we are the worse for it.

[Anonymous]

I was in school those years and remember the portions were normal and snacking wasn’t as big a thing. You might have something when you got home from school but, otherwise, you just ate meals and maybe a small dessert. Fast food choices were very limited in the 70s and people still made a lot of their own food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least people are kinder now. In the early 2000s, cruelty about weight was horrific. There’s never any need for that.

Meh, I think there is.

Fat kids in the 70s and 80s got teased relentlessly. I was one of those kids. It made me want to work to get skinny. The teasing was motivation.

My niece is fat and there's nothing to motivate her to lose weight. If a doctor even brings it up, she and her friends will put that doctor on blast on social media. People are now selling "don't weigh me unless medically necessary" cards to hand out to doctors. She shakes her ass on TikTok with all kinds of hashtags about her beauty and body positivity. Sorry, no, there's nothing positive about being 350lbs except the fact that you're probably not going to get kidnaped or sex trafficked. She has terrible knee issues, gets winded walking through a grocery store, doesn't fit in most restaurant booths, and is diabetic... none of those are positives.

There needs to be some degree of bullying to toughen people up and act as motivation to change.

Exhibit 1 why obesogenic industries are laughing their way to the bank. With people like PP around, they don't even need to pay their lobbyists. PP does their dirty work for them.

What is an obesogenic industry?

Industries contribute significantly to obesity. Essentially, the industries that are to obesity what Big Tobacco is to cancer and smoking-related deaths.

Which industries specifically?

I think they mean companies that make “junk” food and/or processed foods. Comparing food to drugs is ridiculous though. But whatever. Everyone is fat and no wants to take ownership of their own poor eating and lifestyle habits. It is the food industry’s fault, it is the school’s fault, it is your changing micro biome from plastics…I got it.

You sound amazingly ignorant. Wow.

[Anonymous]

Walked more, ate less, didn’t see as much food advertising, bare midriffs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least people are kinder now. In the early 2000s, cruelty about weight was horrific. There’s never any need for that.

Meh, I think there is.

Fat kids in the 70s and 80s got teased relentlessly. I was one of those kids. It made me want to work to get skinny. The teasing was motivation.

My niece is fat and there's nothing to motivate her to lose weight. If a doctor even brings it up, she and her friends will put that doctor on blast on social media. People are now selling "don't weigh me unless medically necessary" cards to hand out to doctors. She shakes her ass on TikTok with all kinds of hashtags about her beauty and body positivity. Sorry, no, there's nothing positive about being 350lbs except the fact that you're probably not going to get kidnaped or sex trafficked. She has terrible knee issues, gets winded walking through a grocery store, doesn't fit in most restaurant booths, and is diabetic... none of those are positives.

There needs to be some degree of bullying to toughen people up and act as motivation to change.

We have become so sensitive as a society that there's this tremendous pressure not to be judgmental but that's resulted in a failure to provide good structures and expectations for people. The growth in fat acceptance is a perfect example. And I can also think of a bunch of other examples that will remain nameless at the moment. There's nothing wrong with a bit of judging and shaming. People do learn from it. And it's usually for the best. IT can be overdone, agreed, but we have a problem if we can't tell overweight kids it's not good to be fat and instead are telling them fat is beautiful when it only means a lifetime of health problems.

A perfect example of how judging and shaming has good outcomes is smoking. The peer pressure not to smore and the growth in perception that smoking was a shameful habit did encourage many people to quit as well as stop others from taking up smoking in the first place. We need to do the same with obesity. Frankly, given that there is a very high correlation between obesity and hospitalization with COVID, this should be a perfect opportunity to have a national dialogue about weight and obesity.

Shame associated with smoking came years after government intervention. The shame happened because of the structural changes, not the other way around. Smoking was seen as glamorous.

But I suspect facts and accuracy are not really your thing anyhow.

[Anonymous]

People as a rule not skinny in the 70's and 80's, rather they were not overweight. It was rare to see someone even 20 pounds overweight.

Size in the 70's and 80's would have been comparable to sizes the last several thousand years.

Historically only very very wealthy people would be obese.
Everyone else worked very hard and burned a lot of calories and food was much more "precious" than it is in 2022.

[Anonymous]

It is funny, I was 5'6-1/2" in high school and weighed 160. That was very very heavy compared to my peers. Now it would be on the low side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is funny, I was 5'6-1/2" in high school and weighed 160. That was very very heavy compared to my peers. Now it would be on the low side.

For a young woman? I wish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was in school those years and remember the portions were normal and snacking wasn’t as big a thing. You might have something when you got home from school but, otherwise, you just ate meals and maybe a small dessert. Fast food choices were very limited in the 70s and people still made a lot of their own food.

I never, in my entire 13 years of public school, had snack time at school. No “milk time” either. We had lunch and that was it.

[Anonymous]

Fewer cars, more people took public transportation or walked because they stayed within their neighbor. You were forced to climb steps in most public buildings like schools and office buildings . Adults and children spent more time outdoors and people danced for weekend entertainment.

[Anonymous]

People have crazy views of the 1970s. I didn’t know anyone that smoked and certainly not anyone on amohetamines. People mostly ate crap—so much processed, cheap meat, few fresh vegetables. All the kids at school brought chips and things like ring dings for snack.

But eating out was expensive—even McDonalds or Denny’s was sort of a treat, so I don’t think people ate out all that much. And I think there were fewer food additives. For instance, soda used sugar until the mid 80s, when they switched to HFCS. That’s one example but there were a lot of switches to more artificial things as time went on. (I don’t even like ring dings anymore—they changed the ingredients at some point and lost the deliciousness.)

The other big thing is the hormone imitating chemicals that come from all the single use plastics and other chemicals in the environment. It has totally reset everyone’s biology. I exercise a LOT more than my mom (who never exercised a day in her life and never walked anywhere) and eat a LOT better food (fresh veggies, olive oil, etc.), yet I am much heavier than she was at my age. And she never smoked a day on her life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least people are kinder now. In the early 2000s, cruelty about weight was horrific. There’s never any need for that.

Meh, I think there is.

Fat kids in the 70s and 80s got teased relentlessly. I was one of those kids. It made me want to work to get skinny. The teasing was motivation.

My niece is fat and there's nothing to motivate her to lose weight. If a doctor even brings it up, she and her friends will put that doctor on blast on social media. People are now selling "don't weigh me unless medically necessary" cards to hand out to doctors. She shakes her ass on TikTok with all kinds of hashtags about her beauty and body positivity. Sorry, no, there's nothing positive about being 350lbs except the fact that you're probably not going to get kidnaped or sex trafficked. She has terrible knee issues, gets winded walking through a grocery store, doesn't fit in most restaurant booths, and is diabetic... none of those are positives.

There needs to be some degree of bullying to toughen people up and act as motivation to change.

We have become so sensitive as a society that there's this tremendous pressure not to be judgmental but that's resulted in a failure to provide good structures and expectations for people. The growth in fat acceptance is a perfect example. And I can also think of a bunch of other examples that will remain nameless at the moment. There's nothing wrong with a bit of judging and shaming. People do learn from it. And it's usually for the best. IT can be overdone, agreed, but we have a problem if we can't tell overweight kids it's not good to be fat and instead are telling them fat is beautiful when it only means a lifetime of health problems.

A perfect example of how judging and shaming has good outcomes is smoking. The peer pressure not to smore and the growth in perception that smoking was a shameful habit did encourage many people to quit as well as stop others from taking up smoking in the first place. We need to do the same with obesity. Frankly, given that there is a very high correlation between obesity and hospitalization with COVID, this should be a perfect opportunity to have a national dialogue about weight and obesity.

Shame associated with smoking came years after government intervention. The shame happened because of the structural changes, not the other way around. Smoking was seen as glamorous.

But I suspect facts and accuracy are not really your thing anyhow.

You provided nothing factual nor accurate either, so what are you trying to say?

We've seen a massive decline in teen smoking, although that's somewhat offset by vapes. But a big part of the decline was a rapid shift in public perception of smoking through shaming and judging smoking. The governmental intervention in banning smoking in places and restricting sales to minors was already taking off in the 1990s, but it was culture that really changed the attitudes. Governmental restrictions on drugs is much more extensive than for smoking but barely made a difference.

Smoking is one of the few things society can judge and shame people for these days. It clearly had an impact and I can also compare it to living in countries where the stigma against smoking is far less. In most of Europe, smoking is seen as a personal decision and there's no judgmental stigma associated with it (trashy, low class, even morally wrong), and many more people and youths smoke despite plenty of restrictions on smoking and sales on tobacco. Interestingly enough, the same countries usually have a much stronger cultural judgment against being fat, and guess what, they're thinner too. If you spend time in Asia, people are very critical and judgmental about weight as well as other issues and it does seem to have positive outcomes in limiting the rise of overweight people in their societies.

The obesity crisis in the US is a recent phenomena and the cultural tolerance of it is certainly a factor behind it. Not the only one, but it plays a role. If people aren't motivated to lose weight, or see it as culturally acceptable to be heavy, they're not as motivated to control their weight. If we start promoting a fat is beautiful tolerance, it's a perverse tolerance because being fat is incredibly unhealthy and leads to a lifetime of health problems that is best avoided in the first place.