Smaller family size and more working moms meant more eating out. And in the 1980s the variety of cuisines and our taste for them grew (people got into things like sushi and pad thai), meaning fast casual and takeout options exploded too.

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But most families had only one car so people biked and walked many places.

And because we biked and walked everywhere, we were allowed to. My parents, in the 70's, thought nothing of having us elementary-aged kids walk the 5 miles home from church if they were staying late for a meeting and we wanted to go home. There was only one car, so we walked/biked to the grocery store to pick things up for our parents, to school, to the park, to the library...

Kids have much smaller spaces they're allowed to be in now. If you let your 8 year old walk 5 miles home from church or bike 3 miles to the store to pick up some milk, there's a decent chance someone would call the police. Kids today have more access to organized sports, but those are scheduled practices to a specific purpose. It's not a group of young kids telling their parents they're walking a couple miles down the road to the state park and going on a 3 mile hike and they'll be back by dark.

Anonymous wrote:Please post examples of quite thin 1960-1970s era children (and quite thin American population). I would love to know what gave you this idea, because I grew up in this era and can't reconcile what you are saying.

Do your own homework. Go to the mall and walk around all the whales and the difference from 50 years ago is obvious.

Don't forget, most of the adults of that time had grown up during the Great Depression and WWII, during which food wàs rationed. So, many of the adults- the parents and grandparents of the children of that time- had been at minimum borderline malnourished during their own childhood and young adult years.

Thankfully, most adults in the US today never had to live through such hardships.

Random picture found online.

Only 1 out of the 22 children is heavy.

Could somebody recommend an article or book that explains how food got so cheap, relative to already low inflation? We eat out constantly and microwave often. But, I'm fascinated at the number of restaurants and take out places. I think this is partly a function of highly dense urban cities, where catering to large numbers of busy people is a good model for restaurants - especially the fast casual ones. Is the cost of growing food, relative to wage gains, that much of a delta now than in the 70s?

Curious.

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Anonymous wrote:Please post examples of quite thin 1960-1970s era children (and quite thin American population). I would love to know what gave you this idea, because I grew up in this era and can't reconcile what you are saying.

Why are you trolling?

I’m not trolling. While it’s true a larger portion of people are now obese, the majority of people were not achingly thin when I was a child.

OP, where exactly are you getting your premise that everyone was so thin back then? Are you looking at photos or movies or something? I was alive then and I remember seeing people of all sizes, with plenty who were on the heavy side.

I lived in a pretty international neighborhood, with a lot of immigrants from various countries, so that might have affected the looks of the people I sàw regularly. But even still, we were out and about in many places and I saw a wide range of sizes of people everywhere we went.

Anonymous wrote:Please post examples of quite thin 1960-1970s era children (and quite thin American population). I would love to know what gave you this idea, because I grew up in this era and can't reconcile what you are saying.

Why are you trolling?

adults smoked

no internet so being at home was really boring for kids

Just this morning in the Metro, I observed a tourist family of 5, parents and 3 kids. And, except for the baby in the arm, all 4 were on the obese side of the scale. The two, what looks like an elementary aged kids, were finishing up a 7up bottle.
It may be a special occasion and the parents allowed it, but in my household, we never drink soda. Its water or tea (unsweetened).
I was thinking, obese really starts from that young age? Pumping so much sugar from that soda cannot be healthy to the kids....

Anonymous wrote:I'll add this one: No microwaves. It took effort to make a make a meal, warm up a snack, or reheat leftovers.

Someone pointed out upthread how much early microwaves cost. It was a HUGE DEAL when my family got one in the 1970s.

"In today’s world, the first microwave’s price tag of $2,000–$3,000 would equate to the price of a brand new car – approximately $18,000-$27,000 (according to dollartimes.com). That high figure stopped families from mass-adopting the microwave until 1971, when the price became a little friendlier at $329–$450. If you ask us, that price is still pretty outlandish, amounting to $2,000–$3,000 in 2017,"

https://www.metv.com/lists/6-vintage-microwave-ads-show-the-evolution-of-nuking-your-food

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Anonymous wrote:No corn syrup. Things were sweetened with real sugar.

There was corn syrup. It was cheap and accessible.

We used to put it on our pancakes. We were poor and corn syrup was cheaper than maple syrup.

Corn syrup was in all the sweet stuff.

Yep, KARO corn syrup was in everything back then.

It did not start being added into food until 1970. It was determined "safe" by the FDA in 1976.

Karo corn syrup was around since the early 1900s.

http://www.karosyrup.com/about_us.html

I have my mom's old cookbook from the 1950s and recipes call for corn syrup, especially candies and caramels.

And pecan pie.

My grandmother made homemade baby formula in the 1940s and 50s using condensed milk and Karo syrup.

Mine too. I wondered if this had an effect on diabetes. My grandma gave birth in the 1950s. Breastfeeding was frowned upon and during her 10 day hospital stay they wouldn't bring her babies to her to nurse so she had no milk left when she went home. She cried about it telling me. My dad was fed with evaporated milk and sugar solely. All 3 of her kids have diabetes (not overweight though).

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Anonymous wrote:No corn syrup. Things were sweetened with real sugar.

There was corn syrup. It was cheap and accessible.

We used to put it on our pancakes. We were poor and corn syrup was cheaper than maple syrup.

Corn syrup was in all the sweet stuff.

Yep, KARO corn syrup was in everything back then.

It did not start being added into food until 1970. It was determined "safe" by the FDA in 1976.

Karo corn syrup was around since the early 1900s.

http://www.karosyrup.com/about_us.html

I have my mom's old cookbook from the 1950s and recipes call for corn syrup, especially candies and caramels.

And pecan pie.

My grandmother made homemade baby formula in the 1940s and 50s using condensed milk and Karo syrup.

I remember seeing that recipe for baby formula on the side of the condensed milk can even into the 70s.

Eating out, old days they eat our 2-3 times per year.
Now, 2-3 times per week or more?