Have women’s figures changed over the last 50 years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's actually a lot of research that ties our weight gain to a national increase in chicken consumption in the 60s. Google it. Lots of studies/books on this. I'm not saying don't eat chicken, but simply that changes in diets (and this was a big one) led to some larger weight gain trends.

Chicken is healthy if you buy the right kind.

2 Big Macs and a large fry with a large Coke is not healthy.

A Big Gulp and a slice of pizza from 7/11 for breakfast is not healthy

[Anonymous]

I was curious, found this although did not look further (like to publications by the Kansas researchers).

The article starts off with an "obesity gene" characteristic of factory poultry. Since chicken DNA should not change human DNA I disregarded that pretty quickly. But the article goes further to discuss the fat content of factory poultry vs the earlier birds, and they have far more fat content. Probably not just visible fat either. Also (I found this a few weeks ago, for some reason looking up historical trends in poultry consumption in the US) back in the 50s and 60s a much larger percentage of poultry was NOT broiler hens. Those "stewing chickens" people used to buy which don't exist in stores anymore. They would have been probably old laying hens past their egg production time, and less fatty.

Poultry consumption has gone up a lot over the years. OTOH it replaced mostly beef, so I don't know how much that would necessarily have changed fat intake on its own.


https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fat-chickens_b_1497856?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAB_QaaOylpKzIGKnMnWI7AdpGDozLOGkLsgONZFMQt7wyNpQ9ucTpI2atM21bFfRRfYX77nSjtJzXsxAiS3Owf_FiQgasReyLxcyVFmxYxsm4e0oWDW4OrUxPSYStyqE9b662q7zR7SUs-qtTijqMnl3b0ug9Ykdkbu2VesdQQIV

[Anonymous]

Sorry, still running after this rabbit (or chicken). So, I found an NIH letter positing a link between antibiotic use in poultry production in Malaysia and increasing obesity--not research, just a hypothesis. So then I looked up low dose antibiotic exposure and obesity and found this, which suggests effect of antibiotic exposure on gut biome as a factor in obesity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5571496/

[Anonymous]

I am 100% certain there were no drive thru fast food restaurants on every corner prior to mid-1970s. If you want to blame chicken consumption, you go right ahead.

[Anonymous]

Read "The Omnivores Dilemma"--explains everything that happened to food supply and why we are fatter in general.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More calories / better nutrition = taller, thicker bones, more muscles. Yes, shapes have changed, and it's not just flab and fat.

The facts don't support this. You have to lift weights to build muscle and improve bone density, not just consume more calories regardless of how "nutritious" those calories are.

We are way more sedentary than previous years.

Are you suggesting office workers have more muscle than the people who laid down the railroad tracks and built are railroad system?

No, I'm saying for the same general tone, a woman who is 5'8 will have more muscle mass than a woman who is 5'0, simply because there is more bone to cover. I don't know why people keep clamoring obesity when the OP made it clear she was asking about whether the average shape of a slender/skinny woman today is taller and wider than the average slender/skinny woman in the past. That has everything to do with bone size and build, not Big Macs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They used girdles or corsets

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More calories / better nutrition = taller, thicker bones, more muscles. Yes, shapes have changed, and it's not just flab and fat.

The facts don't support this. You have to lift weights to build muscle and improve bone density, not just consume more calories regardless of how "nutritious" those calories are.

We are way more sedentary than previous years.

Are you suggesting office workers have more muscle than the people who laid down the railroad tracks and built are railroad system?

No, I'm saying for the same general tone, a woman who is 5'8 will have more muscle mass than a woman who is 5'0, simply because there is more bone to cover. I don't know why people keep clamoring obesity when the OP made it clear she was asking about whether the average shape of a slender/skinny woman today is taller and wider than the average slender/skinny woman in the past. That has everything to do with bone size and build, not Big Macs.

Just for everybody's information, the average height of American women is now about one inch SHORTER, not taller, than it was in 1960. It's no doubt due to changes in the ethnic makeup of the US population due to immigration reforms -- the percentage of South Asians and especially Central Americans (both of whom are considerably shorter, on average, than European and African Americans) has increased quite dramatically since then.

[Anonymous]

+1 for smoking. My mother was a 2 pack a day smoker. I know she smoked when she was hungry. With all we now know about second hand smoke I cringe when I think about the family car rides with her window cracked 2 inches.

[Anonymous]

Just in my lifetime I think the ideal has gotten healthier. I was a teen in the 90s when Kate Moss and heroin chick were things. Not cool. I think fit is healthier. Unfortunately you now have these fake influencers who look unrealistic bc they are photoshopped.

[Anonymous]

women have more responsibilities and excuses to not be healthy

[Anonymous]

My figure sure has. 50 years ago I was a chubby wubby baby.

[Anonymous]

Marilyn Monroe would be considered obese or at least borderline obese by today's standards.

Even in the 60s, Twiggy and Audrey Hepburn were considered too skinny. (read the backstory on why Hepburn was so skinny; related to her poor living conditions as a child).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Marilyn Monroe would be considered obese or at least borderline obese by today's standards.

Even in the 60s, Twiggy and Audrey Hepburn were considered too skinny. (read the backstory on why Hepburn was so skinny; related to her poor living conditions as a child).

This is actually a myth. MM was slim but curvy.