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

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[quote=Anonymous]Sounding like a chorus here in saying it was a combination of various things. Not everyone smoked, by the 70s the smoking rate was already dropping so at least half of adults weren't smoking. And they were still thinner.

Portion sizes were smaller. Look at dinner sets from the 50s, 60s, 70s and even into the 80s and the plates and cups are smaller. Dishes started getting bigger in the 1990s. I remember when those big mugs started becoming popular. I also remember my grandparents' generation having fabulous portion control compared to my parents and us kids, even though we weren't heavy either. But I suspect many people in previous generations really did grow up with strong portion control beliefs as part of their ethos.

People's diets have also changed. And sugar seems to be a big factor behind it. For all the jokes about the 1950s and processed food it was really the mid to late 1960s when processed food started coming in on a big scale and it's possible there was a delayed effect. Sugar is added to almost all processed food in some form. And I suspect the widespread embracing of corn syrup also played a role. As perhaps even soybean products.

People did drink a lot of sodas in the 70s. Diet coke was just coming in. But a standard serving of regular coke has a sugar content that pales in comparison to the typical Starbucks coffee drink. [/quote]

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