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1980s definatly, and back..Why were people more fit, toned and healthy Looking?
Replies
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I remember back in about the 8th grade, McDonald's had introduced the double cheeseburger as a temporary item. Now you can get Double Quarter Pounders, Fuddruckers will sell 3/4 lb burgers, Super size was a thing until recently. And truthfully I don't blame the food producers, I more blame a lack of self control on the part of the customers. We've become more of an immediate gratification culture that ignores consequences, whether it's financially using credit too much or eating more food than we need because we like the taste (I understand convenient factor fast food vs homemade, but a large fry is no more convenient than a medium fries)4
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It's not just portion sizes. There's way more added sugar in things you wouldn't expect it to be in, like jars of pasta sauce.
There was a documentary I saw a few years ago where a family wanted to eat healthier. The only change the producers had them change was that everything had to be made from scratch. They were eating the dames meals at the same portion sizes, everything was just home cooked. The whole family lost weight.
Obviously that wouldn't work in every scenario, but it would definitely make an impact.
A lot of the junk food available now has also been lab tested to be more-ish. Manufacturers have a better understanding of what makes people want to keep eating. More sugar, more salt, more fat. We're hardwired to want these things as an evolutionary leftover that is now doing us more harm than good. Add to that the advances in marketing and you have a bunch of misfiring synapses telling us we need or want things that we really don't.
Add being time poor, stressed out and broke and you have a recipe for relience on cheap convenience foods.7 -
I honestly feel the difference is the introduction of high fructose corn syrup in everything. It started in mid 80’s with being put in Coca Cola and Pepsi. Soon after it started being used in other foods. Now 30 years later it is in 1000s of things we eat or drink. Back in the 80s I didn’t know what diabetes was or know anywhere who had it. Now I know 100s who have it. It all goes hand in hand. So when you are seeing those leaner bodies back in the 80s. It could explain a lot. Also tv was limited in its viewing so we stayed more active with friends and being outside. Cellphones and computers. It’s a mixture of the evolution of everything.4
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AchievinMyDream wrote: »I honestly feel the difference is the introduction of high fructose corn syrup in everything. It started in mid 80’s with being put in Coca Cola and Pepsi. Soon after it started being used in other foods. Now 30 years later it is in 1000s of things we eat or drink. Back in the 80s I didn’t know what diabetes was or know anywhere who had it. Now I know 100s who have it. It all goes hand in hand. So when you are seeing those leaner bodies back in the 80s. It could explain a lot. Also tv was limited in its viewing so we stayed more active with friends and being outside. Cellphones and computers. It’s a mixture of the evolution of everything.
Is it in 1000s of things that you eat or drink? Due to perception, it's been eliminated from lots of foods (with no change in the obesity rate). When I was overweight, only a tiny fraction of my daily calories were from HFCS and mostly from things used in small amounts, like ketchup.
I don't think there's anything in my home that has it right now except for ketchup and maybe a couple other infrequently used condiments and I don't even try to avoid it.4 -
ninasnonsense wrote: »It's not just portion sizes. There's way more added sugar in things you wouldn't expect it to be in, like jars of pasta sauce.
There was a documentary I saw a few years ago where a family wanted to eat healthier. The only change the producers had them change was that everything had to be made from scratch. They were eating the dames meals at the same portion sizes, everything was just home cooked. The whole family lost weight.
Obviously that wouldn't work in every scenario, but it would definitely make an impact.
A lot of the junk food available now has also been lab tested to be more-ish. Manufacturers have a better understanding of what makes people want to keep eating. More sugar, more salt, more fat. We're hardwired to want these things as an evolutionary leftover that is now doing us more harm than good. Add to that the advances in marketing and you have a bunch of misfiring synapses telling us we need or want things that we really don't.
Add being time poor, stressed out and broke and you have a recipe for relience on cheap convenience foods.
Yeah I seem to remember watching a documentary where they connected an increase in obesity to the "low fat" evolution of processed foods - so they took out the fat but loaded it up with sugar and sodium to make up for it taste wise. Would be kind of ironic if the shift to "low fat" foods actually contributed to obesity.0 -
ninasnonsense wrote: »It's not just portion sizes. There's way more added sugar in things you wouldn't expect it to be in, like jars of pasta sauce.
There was a documentary I saw a few years ago where a family wanted to eat healthier. The only change the producers had them change was that everything had to be made from scratch. They were eating the dames meals at the same portion sizes, everything was just home cooked. The whole family lost weight.
Obviously that wouldn't work in every scenario, but it would definitely make an impact.
A lot of the junk food available now has also been lab tested to be more-ish. Manufacturers have a better understanding of what makes people want to keep eating. More sugar, more salt, more fat. We're hardwired to want these things as an evolutionary leftover that is now doing us more harm than good. Add to that the advances in marketing and you have a bunch of misfiring synapses telling us we need or want things that we really don't.
Add being time poor, stressed out and broke and you have a recipe for relience on cheap convenience foods.
Yeah I seem to remember watching a documentary where they connected an increase in obesity to the "low fat" evolution of processed foods - so they took out the fat but loaded it up with sugar and sodium to make up for it taste wise. Would be kind of ironic if the shift to "low fat" foods actually contributed to obesity.
There was an explosion in low fat products, but IIRC it didn't result in significantly lessening the amount of fat the average American was eating. I think it was only about ten grams less per day in 2000 than it was in the 1970s. So in that sense, it wouldn't really be accurate to blame low fat products for obesity. The end result is that they simply added to a situation where we are eating more calories than we need, including calories from fat.
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AchievinMyDream wrote: »I honestly feel the difference is the introduction of high fructose corn syrup in everything.
How would you explain the soaring obesity rates in countries like mine where HFCS consumption is negligible?7 -
janejellyroll wrote: »ninasnonsense wrote: »It's not just portion sizes. There's way more added sugar in things you wouldn't expect it to be in, like jars of pasta sauce.
There was a documentary I saw a few years ago where a family wanted to eat healthier. The only change the producers had them change was that everything had to be made from scratch. They were eating the dames meals at the same portion sizes, everything was just home cooked. The whole family lost weight.
Obviously that wouldn't work in every scenario, but it would definitely make an impact.
A lot of the junk food available now has also been lab tested to be more-ish. Manufacturers have a better understanding of what makes people want to keep eating. More sugar, more salt, more fat. We're hardwired to want these things as an evolutionary leftover that is now doing us more harm than good. Add to that the advances in marketing and you have a bunch of misfiring synapses telling us we need or want things that we really don't.
Add being time poor, stressed out and broke and you have a recipe for relience on cheap convenience foods.
Yeah I seem to remember watching a documentary where they connected an increase in obesity to the "low fat" evolution of processed foods - so they took out the fat but loaded it up with sugar and sodium to make up for it taste wise. Would be kind of ironic if the shift to "low fat" foods actually contributed to obesity.
There was an explosion in low fat products, but IIRC it didn't result in significantly lessening the amount of fat the average American was eating. I think it was only about ten grams less per day in 2000 than it was in the 1970s. So in that sense, it wouldn't really be accurate to blame low fat products for obesity. The end result is that they simply added to a situation where we are eating more calories than we need, including calories from fat.
This. At most, the low fat stuff lead to people telling themselves it was okay to eat crazy amounts of whatever low fat cookie or what not they were eating, but I suspect they would have lied to themselves in some other way if not for the low fat product. It's also unsurprising that there are now lots of dessert or snack food type items that have started to appear that advertise themselves as being low sugar or keto or paleo or the like, since sugar is now everyone's favorite villain.4 -
ninasnonsense wrote: »It's not just portion sizes. There's way more added sugar in things you wouldn't expect it to be in, like jars of pasta sauce.
A lot of such claims are straight up exaggeration like comparing the amount of sugar in a whole big jar of pasta sauce with many servings to a candy bar and not explaining AT ALL that much of the sugar in the pasta sauce of course comes naturally from the tomatoes.
I encourage making one's own pasta sauce (I think it's much tastier), but the idea that people are getting tons of sugar from unexpected sources does not hold up. (For what it's worth, many traditional ways of making pasta sauce do add a little sugar, also.)
If one looks at the primary sources of added sugar in the diet, both in the US and UK, it is all from totally expected things -- dessert type items, soda, and sugary cereal.There was a documentary I saw a few years ago where a family wanted to eat healthier. The only change the producers had them change was that everything had to be made from scratch. They were eating the dames meals at the same portion sizes, everything was just home cooked. The whole family lost weight.
Obviously that wouldn't work in every scenario, but it would definitely make an impact.
I have been into cooking mostly from scratch for many, many years, and did so when I was getting fat, as well as when I lost weight, so I disagree that it would definitely make an impact.
What WAS helpful about it, when I decided to figure out how to lose, is that I was able to adjust pretty easily to cooking lower cal and sating meals. But I also expect that someone used to eating a lot of fast food or pre-made convenience stuff (like something packaged that you just heat up or whatever) and snacks and desserts from the supermarket would initially find that cooking from scratch made it harder to overeat, that they would be less able to impulse eat, so on. But I would warn that it's pretty easy to adjust to being able to do that, if you are someone inclined to, while eating homemade food.4 -
Here's something you should try to compare though. Look at inmates in the 80's (physique and weight) and now. Guess what? They haven't changed much. There are still very few obese inmates in the penitentiary. Why? Because their food is limited. They eat 3 portioned meals a day. And this ain't even quality food (one of my best arguments against "clean eaters" and "bad food will make you fat" proponents). Yeah some have commissary, but it's just junk food they get from there.
Still comes down to CONSUMPTION.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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I just don't see why people feel the need to overcomplicate this.
In the 1980s and before, people were required to move more in their jobs and daily lives (less automation, less market penetration of the automation that did exist). They also moved more, on average, via leisure-time recreation in the pre-internet/fewer-screens world of the time. In the 1980s and before, the 24x7 ubiquitous availability of gazillions of snacks was not even close to what it is now, and there was less social expectation/acceptance of people eating or drinking nearly constantly in virtually all situations.
Add that context to a species that evolved under contingencies of food shortage, and that's more than enough to explain an obesity crisis that only needs a low number of hundreds of daily calories as its explanation.
Occam's razor. Simplez.
No need to posit plots by Big Food or nefarious effects of food-product ingredients. I think people bring those in to have an external locus of blame. We did it ourselves. Most of us could undo it, if we really wanted to.8 -
Here's something you should try to compare though. Look at inmates in the 80's (physique and weight) and now. Guess what? They haven't changed much. There are still very few obese inmates in the penitentiary. Why? Because their food is limited. They eat 3 portioned meals a day. And this ain't even quality food (one of my best arguments against "clean eaters" and "bad food will make you fat" proponents). Yeah some have commissary, but it's just junk food they get from there.
Still comes down to CONSUMPTION.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
In Canada the inmate population actually has a higher obesity rate than the general population- and 3/4 of inmates gain significant weight during their sentences. Maybe it’s different in the US?2 -
janejellyroll wrote: »ninasnonsense wrote: »It's not just portion sizes. There's way more added sugar in things you wouldn't expect it to be in, like jars of pasta sauce.
There was a documentary I saw a few years ago where a family wanted to eat healthier. The only change the producers had them change was that everything had to be made from scratch. They were eating the dames meals at the same portion sizes, everything was just home cooked. The whole family lost weight.
Obviously that wouldn't work in every scenario, but it would definitely make an impact.
A lot of the junk food available now has also been lab tested to be more-ish. Manufacturers have a better understanding of what makes people want to keep eating. More sugar, more salt, more fat. We're hardwired to want these things as an evolutionary leftover that is now doing us more harm than good. Add to that the advances in marketing and you have a bunch of misfiring synapses telling us we need or want things that we really don't.
Add being time poor, stressed out and broke and you have a recipe for relience on cheap convenience foods.
Yeah I seem to remember watching a documentary where they connected an increase in obesity to the "low fat" evolution of processed foods - so they took out the fat but loaded it up with sugar and sodium to make up for it taste wise. Would be kind of ironic if the shift to "low fat" foods actually contributed to obesity.
There was an explosion in low fat products, but IIRC it didn't result in significantly lessening the amount of fat the average American was eating. I think it was only about ten grams less per day in 2000 than it was in the 1970s. So in that sense, it wouldn't really be accurate to blame low fat products for obesity. The end result is that they simply added to a situation where we are eating more calories than we need, including calories from fat.
This. At most, the low fat stuff lead to people telling themselves it was okay to eat crazy amounts of whatever low fat cookie or what not they were eating, but I suspect they would have lied to themselves in some other way if not for the low fat product. It's also unsurprising that there are now lots of dessert or snack food type items that have started to appear that advertise themselves as being low sugar or keto or paleo or the like, since sugar is now everyone's favorite villain.
There's an interesting debate to be had about the extent to which products of this type use packaging and branding to try to encourage consumers to eat more than a typical serving size. There's a podcast called "Maintenance Phase" that has done episodes on both Snackwells and Halo Top and they explore that aspect of their marketing. I don't remember Snackwells very well, but Halo Top absolutely seems to encourage consumption of the whole pint at once, which is obviously more than a standard serving of ice cream. They're printed phrases like "No bowl, no regrets" and "Don't stop till you hit the bottom" on their pints.
The point isn't that there is something sacred about serving sizes, but just as Americans didn't have the "room" for a whole package of Snackwells, many today don't have the "room" for a whole pint of Halo Top. We're just on a merry-go-round of what is currently considered okay to overeat. Does the promotion of lower sugar foods mean we're eating significantly less sugar overall? Probably not.
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I just don't see why people feel the need to overcomplicate this.
In the 1980s and before, people were required to move more in their jobs and daily lives (less automation, less market penetration of the automation that did exist). They also moved more, on average, via leisure-time recreation in the pre-internet/fewer-screens world of the time. In the 1980s and before, the 24x7 ubiquitous availability of gazillions of snacks was not even close to what it is now, and there was less social expectation/acceptance of people eating or drinking nearly constantly in virtually all situations.
Add that context to a species that evolved under contingencies of food shortage, and that's more than enough to explain an obesity crisis that only needs a low number of hundreds of daily calories as its explanation.
Occam's razor. Simplez.
No need to posit plots by Big Food or nefarious effects of food-product ingredients. I think people bring those in to have an external locus of blame. We did it ourselves. Most of us could undo it, if we really wanted to.
I'm a person who likes to be skeptical about individual solutions in certain areas of life, but this is an area where I agree.
There are some structural problems in our society, but many of us have a good amount of control to determine what we eat, how much we eat, and how much we move. Even those of us who are limited in one of the above areas likely have some autonomy in the others.
I wasn't overweight because people were sneaking sugar into my food. I was overweight because I chose big portions of calorie-dense foods and I prioritized sedentary leisure activities. When I changed that, I was no longer overweight. Nobody did anything to me, although there are certainly times when my new choices are made somewhat more challenging by the expectations of others or the norms of society. But that's not really different than some other good habits, like trying to have a balanced household budget or attempting to be more conscious of my environmental impact.
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ninasnonsense wrote: »It's not just portion sizes. There's way more added sugar in things you wouldn't expect it to be in, like jars of pasta sauce.
The recipe I used to make pasta sauce from scratch in the early 1970s (when we called it spaghetti sauce) had sugar in it. I don't know why people find it so unexpected that things like pasta sauce or catsup have sugar in them. It's a traditional ingredient. I wonder if this shock at sugar in pasta sauce is a side effect of people not cooking from scratch as much as they used to. (It's not much sugar, normally, either then or now. It's to mellow the perceived acidity, better balance the flavor, more or less.)
In many jarred sauces, the added oil (also optional) adds more calories per serving than the sugar. Example: Bertolli Organic Traditional (supposedly one of the bad guys) has both soybean and olive oil, one of those two above sugar in the ingredient list so higher amount. Per serving, label lists 4g fat (36 calories), 2g added sugar (so 8 calories added sugar; 7g total sugar, including that from the veggies, so 28 calories from total sugar, most of which will've been in the tomatoes). There is negligible fat in any of the other ingredients, so the fat on the label is virtually all added oil.There was a documentary I saw a few years ago where a family wanted to eat healthier. The only change the producers had them change was that everything had to be made from scratch. They were eating the dames meals at the same portion sizes, everything was just home cooked. The whole family lost weight.
Keep in mind that this "experiment" acts on body weight in two ways: The recipes/ingredients, and the movement involved in shopping/preparation/clean-up. Big amount? No. Maybe 50 calories, say? Seems plausible, modest, even. If one is trying to explain an obesity crisis that only requires a low-hundreds above maintenance intake, 50 calories X 21 weekly meals might be meaningful. It doesn't take many calories to go through the drive-through.
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I believe a lot of technological advances have helped us and hurt us in regards to weight. In the past, women worked hard at home with very few conveniences and that burned a ton of calories. Men also had fewer conveniences in the work place.
Technology has grown a ton and so has the demand for convenience items as more women have entered the work force. Now both men and women are working, but the need for home upkeep hasn't changed.
Technology that helps us burn fewer calories:
Cell phones-- You don't have to walk to a wall phone or pay phone if you are stranded.
Dishwashers-- Throw it in and let it wash.
Digital books, movies, music-- you never have to walk into a store, you can just order from your couch
Grocery services-- You don't have to shop for groceries
Precooked/precut food-- You don't have to do all that, you can buy it premade.
Robot Vacuums- Never sweep or mop again.
Riding lawn mowers--Just sit and go.
Fast Food-- Just grab and go.
I think all of these little things add up. And of course, I wouldn't expect people to work 8 hours AND do all this from scratch. It just means we have to be more intentional than what previous generations did, simply because their daily duties helped them to burn more calories.
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I believe a lot of technological advances have helped us and hurt us in regards to weight. In the past, women worked hard at home with very few conveniences and that burned a ton of calories. Men also had fewer conveniences in the work place.
Technology has grown a ton and so has the demand for convenience items as more women have entered the work force. Now both men and women are working, but the need for home upkeep hasn't changed.
Technology that helps us burn fewer calories:
Cell phones-- You don't have to walk to a wall phone or pay phone if you are stranded.
Dishwashers-- Throw it in and let it wash.
Digital books, movies, music-- you never have to walk into a store, you can just order from your couch
Grocery services-- You don't have to shop for groceries
Precooked/precut food-- You don't have to do all that, you can buy it premade.
Robot Vacuums- Never sweep or mop again.
Riding lawn mowers--Just sit and go.
Fast Food-- Just grab and go.
I think all of these little things add up. And of course, I wouldn't expect people to work 8 hours AND do all this from scratch. It just means we have to be more intentional than what previous generations did, simply because their daily duties helped them to burn more calories.
Note: Women working isn't new. Historically, many women were engaged in the workforce as maids/household help or in industries like agriculture, textiles, retail, and food production. The picture we have of women staying at home is a pretty small slice of history and narrowly focused on an economically fortunate group of women. Women have always worked.11 -
janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »ninasnonsense wrote: »It's not just portion sizes. There's way more added sugar in things you wouldn't expect it to be in, like jars of pasta sauce.
There was a documentary I saw a few years ago where a family wanted to eat healthier. The only change the producers had them change was that everything had to be made from scratch. They were eating the dames meals at the same portion sizes, everything was just home cooked. The whole family lost weight.
Obviously that wouldn't work in every scenario, but it would definitely make an impact.
A lot of the junk food available now has also been lab tested to be more-ish. Manufacturers have a better understanding of what makes people want to keep eating. More sugar, more salt, more fat. We're hardwired to want these things as an evolutionary leftover that is now doing us more harm than good. Add to that the advances in marketing and you have a bunch of misfiring synapses telling us we need or want things that we really don't.
Add being time poor, stressed out and broke and you have a recipe for relience on cheap convenience foods.
Yeah I seem to remember watching a documentary where they connected an increase in obesity to the "low fat" evolution of processed foods - so they took out the fat but loaded it up with sugar and sodium to make up for it taste wise. Would be kind of ironic if the shift to "low fat" foods actually contributed to obesity.
There was an explosion in low fat products, but IIRC it didn't result in significantly lessening the amount of fat the average American was eating. I think it was only about ten grams less per day in 2000 than it was in the 1970s. So in that sense, it wouldn't really be accurate to blame low fat products for obesity. The end result is that they simply added to a situation where we are eating more calories than we need, including calories from fat.
This. At most, the low fat stuff lead to people telling themselves it was okay to eat crazy amounts of whatever low fat cookie or what not they were eating, but I suspect they would have lied to themselves in some other way if not for the low fat product. It's also unsurprising that there are now lots of dessert or snack food type items that have started to appear that advertise themselves as being low sugar or keto or paleo or the like, since sugar is now everyone's favorite villain.
There's an interesting debate to be had about the extent to which products of this type use packaging and branding to try to encourage consumers to eat more than a typical serving size. There's a podcast called "Maintenance Phase" that has done episodes on both Snackwells and Halo Top and they explore that aspect of their marketing. I don't remember Snackwells very well, but Halo Top absolutely seems to encourage consumption of the whole pint at once, which is obviously more than a standard serving of ice cream. They're printed phrases like "No bowl, no regrets" and "Don't stop till you hit the bottom" on their pints.
The point isn't that there is something sacred about serving sizes, but just as Americans didn't have the "room" for a whole package of Snackwells, many today don't have the "room" for a whole pint of Halo Top. We're just on a merry-go-round of what is currently considered okay to overeat. Does the promotion of lower sugar foods mean we're eating significantly less sugar overall? Probably not.
I agree with this. It's basically a vicious circle. People start sometimes eating a pint of ice cream in a sitting (while knowing that's a bad idea). Ice cream manufacturers come up with a pint that one CAN (calorie-wise) justify eating in one sitting, so one normalizes that behavior (and it becomes more normal socially and to say "of course everyone does it" or even "it's impossible to be satisfied with one serving of ice cream, can't you see how tiny those servings are") and then when you decide the diet is over or to be indulgent or whatever, you go back to normal (better tasting) ice cream and it's natural to just eat the whole pint.
The thing with low fat and low sugar added to this is that sometimes people don't really get that calories are the issue, and assume if one "eats healthy" one won't gain, and perceive low fat (back in the day!) or low sugar as achieving that. But I would say even this doesn't support the idea that pushing low fat made the population, in that they were diligently trying to follow the nutrition guidelines, gain weight, as some of the anti sugar conspiracy folks would have it, as (1) we didn't decrease the amt of fat anyway, as you said; (2) no one legitimately believes eating whole packages of cookies regularly is healthy, low fat or not; and (3) no one advised doing to, and of the health advice that was actually given (especially that about fruit and veg), it was largely ignored if you compare to what people were actually eating.2 -
I just don't see why people feel the need to overcomplicate this.
In the 1980s and before, people were required to move more in their jobs and daily lives (less automation, less market penetration of the automation that did exist). They also moved more, on average, via leisure-time recreation in the pre-internet/fewer-screens world of the time. In the 1980s and before, the 24x7 ubiquitous availability of gazillions of snacks was not even close to what it is now, and there was less social expectation/acceptance of people eating or drinking nearly constantly in virtually all situations.
Add that context to a species that evolved under contingencies of food shortage, and that's more than enough to explain an obesity crisis that only needs a low number of hundreds of daily calories as its explanation.
Occam's razor. Simplez.
No need to posit plots by Big Food or nefarious effects of food-product ingredients. I think people bring those in to have an external locus of blame. We did it ourselves. Most of us could undo it, if we really wanted to.
I agree, especially with the bolded, and the evolutionary aspect (but generally with all of it).0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I believe a lot of technological advances have helped us and hurt us in regards to weight. In the past, women worked hard at home with very few conveniences and that burned a ton of calories. Men also had fewer conveniences in the work place.
Technology has grown a ton and so has the demand for convenience items as more women have entered the work force. Now both men and women are working, but the need for home upkeep hasn't changed.
Technology that helps us burn fewer calories:
Cell phones-- You don't have to walk to a wall phone or pay phone if you are stranded.
Dishwashers-- Throw it in and let it wash.
Digital books, movies, music-- you never have to walk into a store, you can just order from your couch
Grocery services-- You don't have to shop for groceries
Precooked/precut food-- You don't have to do all that, you can buy it premade.
Robot Vacuums- Never sweep or mop again.
Riding lawn mowers--Just sit and go.
Fast Food-- Just grab and go.
I think all of these little things add up. And of course, I wouldn't expect people to work 8 hours AND do all this from scratch. It just means we have to be more intentional than what previous generations did, simply because their daily duties helped them to burn more calories.
Note: Women working isn't new. Historically, many women were engaged in the workforce as maids/household help or in industries like agriculture, textiles, retail, and food production. The picture we have of women staying at home is a pretty small slice of history and narrowly focused on an economically fortunate group of women. Women have always worked.
Women have always worked, but they didn't always get a paycheck. Yes, women have been engaged in the workforce but I disagree that it's been more a fortunate "slice" that worked in the home. I think there may be a breakdown in how each one describes the workforce vs. the home. I think at home work was equally as demanding and important as going to a factory, and could include things like working the field and wrapping things up for resale, etc.
Either way, just because women have always worked does not mean they haven't historically been held responsible (in pretty much every culture) to care for the home--not that I support this idea. It is both man and woman's responsibility to do what they see fit in their relationships. My argument is that technology and convenience items has helped to relieve women (and men) of that burden.
So even though my mom was a single mother who worked 2 jobs, she was still taxed with the responsibility of coming home to burn a ton of calories and work more by cooking and cleaning. As technology advanced and convenience items became more available (when we could afford them) she was able to come home and rest more. So when people say "well my mom worked outside of the home but was still skinny in the 80s" I think there are a ton of small things their mom still had to to when getting home that made a big difference in her weight.2 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I believe a lot of technological advances have helped us and hurt us in regards to weight. In the past, women worked hard at home with very few conveniences and that burned a ton of calories. Men also had fewer conveniences in the work place.
Technology has grown a ton and so has the demand for convenience items as more women have entered the work force. Now both men and women are working, but the need for home upkeep hasn't changed.
Technology that helps us burn fewer calories:
Cell phones-- You don't have to walk to a wall phone or pay phone if you are stranded.
Dishwashers-- Throw it in and let it wash.
Digital books, movies, music-- you never have to walk into a store, you can just order from your couch
Grocery services-- You don't have to shop for groceries
Precooked/precut food-- You don't have to do all that, you can buy it premade.
Robot Vacuums- Never sweep or mop again.
Riding lawn mowers--Just sit and go.
Fast Food-- Just grab and go.
I think all of these little things add up. And of course, I wouldn't expect people to work 8 hours AND do all this from scratch. It just means we have to be more intentional than what previous generations did, simply because their daily duties helped them to burn more calories.
Note: Women working isn't new. Historically, many women were engaged in the workforce as maids/household help or in industries like agriculture, textiles, retail, and food production. The picture we have of women staying at home is a pretty small slice of history and narrowly focused on an economically fortunate group of women. Women have always worked.
Women have always worked, but they didn't always get a paycheck. Yes, women have been engaged in the workforce but I disagree that it's been more a fortunate "slice" that worked in the home. I think there may be a breakdown in how each one describes the workforce vs. the home. I think at home work was equally as demanding and important as going to a factory, and could include things like working the field and wrapping things up for resale, etc.
Either way, just because women have always worked does not mean they haven't historically been held responsible (in pretty much every culture) to care for the home--not that I support this idea. It is both man and woman's responsibility to do what they see fit in their relationships. My argument is that technology and convenience items has helped to relieve women (and men) of that burden.
So even though my mom was a single mother who worked 2 jobs, she was still taxed with the responsibility of coming home to burn a ton of calories and work more by cooking and cleaning. As technology advanced and convenience items became more available (when we could afford them) she was able to come home and rest more. So when people say "well my mom worked outside of the home but was still skinny in the 80s" I think there are a ton of small things their mom still had to to when getting home that made a big difference in her weight.
You wrote that "more women have entered the work force." My point is that women have always been in the work force. In addition to caring for their home (which I agree is work), historically women have been engaged in the economy in other ways. The concept of a household where the man earns all the household money and the woman takes care of the home doesn't describe the economic reality of many women in history. Women traditionally have contributed to the household economy in multiple ways -- by working in family businesses, by going to the homes of others to work, by being enslaved workers, by going to factories or job sites to work, or by taking in work (laundry, sewing, wetnursing, etc).
I understand your argument about household tasks, I'm just pointing out that our idea of women's economic participation tends to be rather narrow in that many of us imagine that women working is somewhat new.9 -
janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »I believe a lot of technological advances have helped us and hurt us in regards to weight. In the past, women worked hard at home with very few conveniences and that burned a ton of calories. Men also had fewer conveniences in the work place.
Technology has grown a ton and so has the demand for convenience items as more women have entered the work force. Now both men and women are working, but the need for home upkeep hasn't changed.
Technology that helps us burn fewer calories:
Cell phones-- You don't have to walk to a wall phone or pay phone if you are stranded.
Dishwashers-- Throw it in and let it wash.
Digital books, movies, music-- you never have to walk into a store, you can just order from your couch
Grocery services-- You don't have to shop for groceries
Precooked/precut food-- You don't have to do all that, you can buy it premade.
Robot Vacuums- Never sweep or mop again.
Riding lawn mowers--Just sit and go.
Fast Food-- Just grab and go.
I think all of these little things add up. And of course, I wouldn't expect people to work 8 hours AND do all this from scratch. It just means we have to be more intentional than what previous generations did, simply because their daily duties helped them to burn more calories.
Note: Women working isn't new. Historically, many women were engaged in the workforce as maids/household help or in industries like agriculture, textiles, retail, and food production. The picture we have of women staying at home is a pretty small slice of history and narrowly focused on an economically fortunate group of women. Women have always worked.
Women have always worked, but they didn't always get a paycheck. Yes, women have been engaged in the workforce but I disagree that it's been more a fortunate "slice" that worked in the home. I think there may be a breakdown in how each one describes the workforce vs. the home. I think at home work was equally as demanding and important as going to a factory, and could include things like working the field and wrapping things up for resale, etc.
Either way, just because women have always worked does not mean they haven't historically been held responsible (in pretty much every culture) to care for the home--not that I support this idea. It is both man and woman's responsibility to do what they see fit in their relationships. My argument is that technology and convenience items has helped to relieve women (and men) of that burden.
So even though my mom was a single mother who worked 2 jobs, she was still taxed with the responsibility of coming home to burn a ton of calories and work more by cooking and cleaning. As technology advanced and convenience items became more available (when we could afford them) she was able to come home and rest more. So when people say "well my mom worked outside of the home but was still skinny in the 80s" I think there are a ton of small things their mom still had to to when getting home that made a big difference in her weight.
You wrote that "more women have entered the work force." My point is that women have always been in the work force. In addition to caring for their home (which I agree is work), historically women have been engaged in the economy in other ways. The concept of a household where the man earns all the household money and the woman takes care of the home doesn't describe the economic reality of many women in history. Women traditionally have contributed to the household economy in multiple ways -- by working in family businesses, by going to the homes of others to work, by being enslaved workers, by going to factories or job sites to work, or by taking in work (laundry, sewing, wetnursing, etc).
I understand your argument about household tasks, I'm just pointing out that our idea of women's economic participation tends to be rather narrow in that many of us imagine that women working is somewhat new.
Statistically, women's participation in the labor force HAVE increased over the years in the US. This is a graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
I understand your point about women always contributing to the household economy. I think that maybe cases of enslaved workers, families business, and taking in work, may not have shown up on this list in the 60's.
However, the OP asked about the 80s and I would think that these numbers would be more accurate. I stand by my previous statement-- more women HAVE entered the workforce.
2 -
janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »I believe a lot of technological advances have helped us and hurt us in regards to weight. In the past, women worked hard at home with very few conveniences and that burned a ton of calories. Men also had fewer conveniences in the work place.
Technology has grown a ton and so has the demand for convenience items as more women have entered the work force. Now both men and women are working, but the need for home upkeep hasn't changed.
Technology that helps us burn fewer calories:
Cell phones-- You don't have to walk to a wall phone or pay phone if you are stranded.
Dishwashers-- Throw it in and let it wash.
Digital books, movies, music-- you never have to walk into a store, you can just order from your couch
Grocery services-- You don't have to shop for groceries
Precooked/precut food-- You don't have to do all that, you can buy it premade.
Robot Vacuums- Never sweep or mop again.
Riding lawn mowers--Just sit and go.
Fast Food-- Just grab and go.
I think all of these little things add up. And of course, I wouldn't expect people to work 8 hours AND do all this from scratch. It just means we have to be more intentional than what previous generations did, simply because their daily duties helped them to burn more calories.
Note: Women working isn't new. Historically, many women were engaged in the workforce as maids/household help or in industries like agriculture, textiles, retail, and food production. The picture we have of women staying at home is a pretty small slice of history and narrowly focused on an economically fortunate group of women. Women have always worked.
Women have always worked, but they didn't always get a paycheck. Yes, women have been engaged in the workforce but I disagree that it's been more a fortunate "slice" that worked in the home. I think there may be a breakdown in how each one describes the workforce vs. the home. I think at home work was equally as demanding and important as going to a factory, and could include things like working the field and wrapping things up for resale, etc.
Either way, just because women have always worked does not mean they haven't historically been held responsible (in pretty much every culture) to care for the home--not that I support this idea. It is both man and woman's responsibility to do what they see fit in their relationships. My argument is that technology and convenience items has helped to relieve women (and men) of that burden.
So even though my mom was a single mother who worked 2 jobs, she was still taxed with the responsibility of coming home to burn a ton of calories and work more by cooking and cleaning. As technology advanced and convenience items became more available (when we could afford them) she was able to come home and rest more. So when people say "well my mom worked outside of the home but was still skinny in the 80s" I think there are a ton of small things their mom still had to to when getting home that made a big difference in her weight.
You wrote that "more women have entered the work force." My point is that women have always been in the work force. In addition to caring for their home (which I agree is work), historically women have been engaged in the economy in other ways. The concept of a household where the man earns all the household money and the woman takes care of the home doesn't describe the economic reality of many women in history. Women traditionally have contributed to the household economy in multiple ways -- by working in family businesses, by going to the homes of others to work, by being enslaved workers, by going to factories or job sites to work, or by taking in work (laundry, sewing, wetnursing, etc).
I understand your argument about household tasks, I'm just pointing out that our idea of women's economic participation tends to be rather narrow in that many of us imagine that women working is somewhat new.
Statistically, women's participation in the labor force HAVE increased over the years in the US. This is a graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
I understand your point about women always contributing to the household economy. I think that maybe cases of enslaved workers, families business, and taking in work, may not have shown up on this list in the 60's.
However, the OP asked about the 80s and I would think that these numbers would be more accurate. I stand by my previous statement-- more women HAVE entered the workforce.
This goes back to what I was saying about "a small slice of history." There are more women in the labor force than there were in 1950, but 1950 domestic/labor arrangements are not representative of how women lived throughout history.7 -
janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »I believe a lot of technological advances have helped us and hurt us in regards to weight. In the past, women worked hard at home with very few conveniences and that burned a ton of calories. Men also had fewer conveniences in the work place.
Technology has grown a ton and so has the demand for convenience items as more women have entered the work force. Now both men and women are working, but the need for home upkeep hasn't changed.
Technology that helps us burn fewer calories:
Cell phones-- You don't have to walk to a wall phone or pay phone if you are stranded.
Dishwashers-- Throw it in and let it wash.
Digital books, movies, music-- you never have to walk into a store, you can just order from your couch
Grocery services-- You don't have to shop for groceries
Precooked/precut food-- You don't have to do all that, you can buy it premade.
Robot Vacuums- Never sweep or mop again.
Riding lawn mowers--Just sit and go.
Fast Food-- Just grab and go.
I think all of these little things add up. And of course, I wouldn't expect people to work 8 hours AND do all this from scratch. It just means we have to be more intentional than what previous generations did, simply because their daily duties helped them to burn more calories.
Note: Women working isn't new. Historically, many women were engaged in the workforce as maids/household help or in industries like agriculture, textiles, retail, and food production. The picture we have of women staying at home is a pretty small slice of history and narrowly focused on an economically fortunate group of women. Women have always worked.
Women have always worked, but they didn't always get a paycheck. Yes, women have been engaged in the workforce but I disagree that it's been more a fortunate "slice" that worked in the home. I think there may be a breakdown in how each one describes the workforce vs. the home. I think at home work was equally as demanding and important as going to a factory, and could include things like working the field and wrapping things up for resale, etc.
Either way, just because women have always worked does not mean they haven't historically been held responsible (in pretty much every culture) to care for the home--not that I support this idea. It is both man and woman's responsibility to do what they see fit in their relationships. My argument is that technology and convenience items has helped to relieve women (and men) of that burden.
So even though my mom was a single mother who worked 2 jobs, she was still taxed with the responsibility of coming home to burn a ton of calories and work more by cooking and cleaning. As technology advanced and convenience items became more available (when we could afford them) she was able to come home and rest more. So when people say "well my mom worked outside of the home but was still skinny in the 80s" I think there are a ton of small things their mom still had to to when getting home that made a big difference in her weight.
You wrote that "more women have entered the work force." My point is that women have always been in the work force. In addition to caring for their home (which I agree is work), historically women have been engaged in the economy in other ways. The concept of a household where the man earns all the household money and the woman takes care of the home doesn't describe the economic reality of many women in history. Women traditionally have contributed to the household economy in multiple ways -- by working in family businesses, by going to the homes of others to work, by being enslaved workers, by going to factories or job sites to work, or by taking in work (laundry, sewing, wetnursing, etc).
I understand your argument about household tasks, I'm just pointing out that our idea of women's economic participation tends to be rather narrow in that many of us imagine that women working is somewhat new.
Statistically, women's participation in the labor force HAVE increased over the years in the US. This is a graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
I understand your point about women always contributing to the household economy. I think that maybe cases of enslaved workers, families business, and taking in work, may not have shown up on this list in the 60's.
However, the OP asked about the 80s and I would think that these numbers would be more accurate. I stand by my previous statement-- more women HAVE entered the workforce.
This goes back to what I was saying about "a small slice of history." There are more women in the labor force than there were in 1950, but 1950 domestic/labor arrangements are not representative of how women lived throughout history.
But I wasn't not referring to history as a whole, nor did I see the OP referring to that. I was thinking about the 80s. I even thought through my "technology list" and included things from a more recent history rather than advances from the 1950s, like TV and radio.
Respectfully, I think your "note" made assumptions about my view of history and nitpicked a small thing I said (that wasn't even incorrect) rather than my overall argument.1 -
People do often assume that the state of things in the '50s, and specifically for middle class and better off women in the '50s, was the norm (and use it even as a reason to argue that the current situation is a problem or some new thing), so I get the reason Jane felt it was important to clarify even though I totally accept that you were not making that assumption. For the purposes of comparing why people are more likely to be obese now vs the '80s, however, I think women working seems unlikely to be a huge difference. If you look at the chart (or find the numbers elsewhere, since it's hard to read the exact numbers from the chart), it was 51.5% in 1980, and 57.5% of women were in the labor force by 1990. The number peaked in 1999 (60%), and was at 56.8% in 2016. My mom worked outside the home in the '80s.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/female-labor-force-participation-rates-2016-vs-1980?tab=table&stackMode=absolute&country=®ion=World
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2007/jan/wk2/art03.htm#:~:text=Women's labor force participation, which,to 57.5 percent in 1990.
I read a book sometime back about the rise of convenience foods (which began way before the 1980s, of course) and factors that made them popular -- interesting stuff like that cake mix was much more popular if you had to add an egg, as it allowed women to both make cake easily but also still feel like they were cooking -- so was googling around trying to find the name (failed), and saw something about processed foods in the '90s that seemed interesting. The point was that the American diet, on average, had gotten a lot more diverse by the '90s and processed foods started imitating that, leading to a huge explosion of options and probably tastier ones, on average. That definitely has happened with restaurants too, as well as the cooking styles of the average person who cooked, I'd bet. The general culture surrounding food seems to me to have changed, although it's hard to really prove this or put my finger on it.
I admit that some of this could be my perception, since I live in a much bigger city than the one I grew up in, but I think it's more than that, and the average person now has been exposed to a much greater range of foods and has a far broader range of restaurants to choose from or things in the grocery store to try than we did in the '80s (although we did have plenty of high cal options and fast food and so on).5 -
People do often assume that the state of things in the '50s, and specifically for middle class and better off women in the '50s, was the norm (and use it even as a reason to argue that the current situation is a problem or some new thing), so I get the reason Jane felt it was important to clarify even though I totally accept that you were not making that assumption. For the purposes of comparing why people are more likely to be obese now vs the '80s, however, I think women working seems unlikely to be a huge difference. If you look at the chart (or find the numbers elsewhere, since it's hard to read the exact numbers from the chart), it was 51.5% in 1980, and 57.5% of women were in the labor force by 1990. The number peaked in 1999 (60%), and was at 56.8% in 2016. My mom worked outside the home in the '80s.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/female-labor-force-participation-rates-2016-vs-1980?tab=table&stackMode=absolute&country=®ion=World
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2007/jan/wk2/art03.htm#:~:text=Women's labor force participation, which,to 57.5 percent in 1990.
I read a book sometime back about the rise of convenience foods (which began way before the 1980s, of course) and factors that made them popular -- interesting stuff like that cake mix was much more popular if you had to add an egg, as it allowed women to both make cake easily but also still feel like they were cooking -- so was googling around trying to find the name (failed), and saw something about processed foods in the '90s that seemed interesting. The point was that the American diet, on average, had gotten a lot more diverse by the '90s and processed foods started imitating that, leading to a huge explosion of options and probably tastier ones, on average. That definitely has happened with restaurants too, as well as the cooking styles of the average person who cooked, I'd bet. The general culture surrounding food seems to me to have changed, although it's hard to really prove this or put my finger on it.
I admit that some of this could be my perception, since I live in a much bigger city than the one I grew up in, but I think it's more than that, and the average person now has been exposed to a much greater range of foods and has a far broader range of restaurants to choose from or things in the grocery store to try than we did in the '80s (although we did have plenty of high cal options and fast food and so on).
FWIW: Speaking experientially, that's also very true here in my mid-sized metro area, many more food choices since the 1980s, both in restaurants and grocery stores. That, even though this place has a major university with a good-sized international student/faculty complement, so probably was more diverse even earlier than many places. (I've lived here since 1973.)
Based on what I see (like FB posts from relatives living there), and what Google tells me, the small town where I grew up has more choices, too: In that case, we're talking a town of under 4000 population, that traditionally was a rural poverty area, and that serves outlying very-rural areas. Nearest actual city is around 25 miles away. When I was growing up, it was dive bars, a couple of "home-cooking"/non-chain family restaurants (meat loaf, fish fry Friday, hot pork sandwich . . . .), fast food joints (A&W, Tastee Freez), maybe a pizza place. Now there are those types still, but also a brewpub, bistro-type restaurant, Italian, Mexican, and more. It's numerically more dining-out options there (disproportionate to population growth), plus much more diverse. Ditto for groceries.
Back on the main subtopic: My mom was a homemaker, with a very part-time job outside the home that she did mostly as a kindness to her employer (she did housekeeping chores for an elderly couple she'd long known, wife disabled).
But many of my friends moms worked outside the home, usually at jobs with at least an hour's commute, and they did all the in-home domestic chores and cooking, too. Completely common to work 8 hours (or more), commute, and do all that manual work someone listed above. IME, men's work was more variable. My dad had a physical job, but would come home and tend the big garden, work on the current home improvement project, etc. Some friends' dads pretty much just mowed the lawn, did some other outdoor lawn chores, watched TV.
Pre-WWII, it wasn't unusual for better-off (not necessarily rich) families to have live-in help. This is a kind of work that my mom did before becoming a nurse in her 40s (I was born when she was 43), and my dad's sisters pretty much all did for room & board while going to teaching college.
3 -
People do often assume that the state of things in the '50s, and specifically for middle class and better off women in the '50s, was the norm (and use it even as a reason to argue that the current situation is a problem or some new thing), so I get the reason Jane felt it was important to clarify even though I totally accept that you were not making that assumption. For the purposes of comparing why people are more likely to be obese now vs the '80s, however, I think women working seems unlikely to be a huge difference. If you look at the chart (or find the numbers elsewhere, since it's hard to read the exact numbers from the chart), it was 51.5% in 1980, and 57.5% of women were in the labor force by 1990. The number peaked in 1999 (60%), and was at 56.8% in 2016. My mom worked outside the home in the '80s.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/female-labor-force-participation-rates-2016-vs-1980?tab=table&stackMode=absolute&country=®ion=World
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2007/jan/wk2/art03.htm#:~:text=Women's labor force participation, which,to 57.5 percent in 1990.
I read a book sometime back about the rise of convenience foods (which began way before the 1980s, of course) and factors that made them popular -- interesting stuff like that cake mix was much more popular if you had to add an egg, as it allowed women to both make cake easily but also still feel like they were cooking -- so was googling around trying to find the name (failed), and saw something about processed foods in the '90s that seemed interesting. The point was that the American diet, on average, had gotten a lot more diverse by the '90s and processed foods started imitating that, leading to a huge explosion of options and probably tastier ones, on average. That definitely has happened with restaurants too, as well as the cooking styles of the average person who cooked, I'd bet. The general culture surrounding food seems to me to have changed, although it's hard to really prove this or put my finger on it.
I admit that some of this could be my perception, since I live in a much bigger city than the one I grew up in, but I think it's more than that, and the average person now has been exposed to a much greater range of foods and has a far broader range of restaurants to choose from or things in the grocery store to try than we did in the '80s (although we did have plenty of high cal options and fast food and so on).
True. And modern conveniences could have come about whether women worked outside the home or not. I grouped the two-- but really technology has advanced regardless of women's roles.
Like 3 years ago, I spent a month at this little school in the middle of nowhere in Mexico. (A friend was teaching there and I went to visit.) I never worked so hard in my life. The women made breakfast lunch and dinner from scratch every day for like 40 people. And when I say scratch, I mean.... grind down the corn for the cornmeal to make the tortillas. Cut the firewood for the stove. Roast the beans for the coffee lol.
I was so out of my element because all I felt like I did was prepare for meals. Then after we finally cleaned up the final meal, the women would want to play basketball for 2 hours!
This is where my mind went in regards to women and technology. I lost like 10lbs that month and I definitely ate all the tortillas, eggs, and beans that my heart desired. But I just burned so many calories.3 -
People do often assume that the state of things in the '50s, and specifically for middle class and better off women in the '50s, was the norm (and use it even as a reason to argue that the current situation is a problem or some new thing), so I get the reason Jane felt it was important to clarify even though I totally accept that you were not making that assumption. For the purposes of comparing why people are more likely to be obese now vs the '80s, however, I think women working seems unlikely to be a huge difference. If you look at the chart (or find the numbers elsewhere, since it's hard to read the exact numbers from the chart), it was 51.5% in 1980, and 57.5% of women were in the labor force by 1990. The number peaked in 1999 (60%), and was at 56.8% in 2016. My mom worked outside the home in the '80s.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/female-labor-force-participation-rates-2016-vs-1980?tab=table&stackMode=absolute&country=®ion=World
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2007/jan/wk2/art03.htm#:~:text=Women's labor force participation, which,to 57.5 percent in 1990.
I read a book sometime back about the rise of convenience foods (which began way before the 1980s, of course) and factors that made them popular -- interesting stuff like that cake mix was much more popular if you had to add an egg, as it allowed women to both make cake easily but also still feel like they were cooking -- so was googling around trying to find the name (failed), and saw something about processed foods in the '90s that seemed interesting. The point was that the American diet, on average, had gotten a lot more diverse by the '90s and processed foods started imitating that, leading to a huge explosion of options and probably tastier ones, on average. That definitely has happened with restaurants too, as well as the cooking styles of the average person who cooked, I'd bet. The general culture surrounding food seems to me to have changed, although it's hard to really prove this or put my finger on it.
I admit that some of this could be my perception, since I live in a much bigger city than the one I grew up in, but I think it's more than that, and the average person now has been exposed to a much greater range of foods and has a far broader range of restaurants to choose from or things in the grocery store to try than we did in the '80s (although we did have plenty of high cal options and fast food and so on).
FWIW: Speaking experientially, that's also very true here in my mid-sized metro area, many more food choices since the 1980s, both in restaurants and grocery stores. That, even though this place has a major university with a good-sized international student/faculty complement, so probably was more diverse even earlier than many places. (I've lived here since 1973.)
Based on what I see (like FB posts from relatives living there), and what Google tells me, the small town where I grew up has more choices, too: In that case, we're talking a town of under 4000 population, that traditionally was a rural poverty area, and that serves outlying very-rural areas. Nearest actual city is around 25 miles away. When I was growing up, it was dive bars, a couple of "home-cooking"/non-chain family restaurants (meat loaf, fish fry Friday, hot pork sandwich . . . .), fast food joints (A&W, Tastee Freez), maybe a pizza place. Now there are those types still, but also a brewpub, bistro-type restaurant, Italian, Mexican, and more. It's numerically more dining-out options there (disproportionate to population growth), plus much more diverse. Ditto for groceries.
Back on the main subtopic: My mom was a homemaker, with a very part-time job outside the home that she did mostly as a kindness to her employer (she did housekeeping chores for an elderly couple she'd long known, wife disabled).
But many of my friends moms worked outside the home, usually at jobs with at least an hour's commute, and they did all the in-home domestic chores and cooking, too. Completely common to work 8 hours (or more), commute, and do all that manual work someone listed above. IME, men's work was more variable. My dad had a physical job, but would come home and tend the big garden, work on the current home improvement project, etc. Some friends' dads pretty much just mowed the lawn, did some other outdoor lawn chores, watched TV.
Pre-WWII, it wasn't unusual for better-off (not necessarily rich) families to have live-in help. This is a kind of work that my mom did before becoming a nurse in her 40s (I was born when she was 43), and my dad's sisters pretty much all did for room & board while going to teaching college.
I remember I used to feel soooo adventurous and cultured eating sushi. Now new things come up so often that I haven't tried, that everything can be and adventure. And I hate eating the same things over again. But there are also so many options... I have no idea what I want lol.
I live in the south and felt a little embarrassed that my mom worked growing up. All of my friend's moms either stayed home, or worked part-time jobs that allowed them to go to all the school events. My mom was a live in nanny for a family that had like 6 kids + me. We ate a lot of fish sticks and mac and cheese.
1 -
In the 1980s and before, people were required to move more in their jobs and daily lives (less automation, less market penetration of the automation that did exist). They also moved more, on average, via leisure-time recreation in the pre-internet/fewer-screens world of the time. In the 1980s and before, the 24x7 ubiquitous availability of gazillions of snacks was not even close to what it is now, and there was less social expectation/acceptance of people eating or drinking nearly constantly in virtually all situations.
The McDonalds here used to close at 10 PM. Now the drive through is 24 hour. No drive through back then, you had to park your car and walk inside to get takeout. When I was in high school we would walk about a mile to go there occasionally, probably burned half the extra calories we ate.1 -
ninasnonsense wrote: »It's not just portion sizes. There's way more added sugar in things you wouldn't expect it to be in, like jars of pasta sauce.
The recipe I used to make pasta sauce from scratch in the early 1970s (when we called it spaghetti sauce) had sugar in it. I don't know why people find it so unexpected that things like pasta sauce or catsup have sugar in them. It's a traditional ingredient. I wonder if this shock at sugar in pasta sauce is a side effect of people not cooking from scratch as much as they used to. (It's not much sugar, normally, either then or now. It's to mellow the perceived acidity, better balance the flavor, more or less.)
In many jarred sauces, the added oil (also optional) adds more calories per serving than the sugar. Example: Bertolli Organic Traditional (supposedly one of the bad guys) has both soybean and olive oil, one of those two above sugar in the ingredient list so higher amount. Per serving, label lists 4g fat (36 calories), 2g added sugar (so 8 calories added sugar; 7g total sugar, including that from the veggies, so 28 calories from total sugar, most of which will've been in the tomatoes). There is negligible fat in any of the other ingredients, so the fat on the label is virtually all added oil.There was a documentary I saw a few years ago where a family wanted to eat healthier. The only change the producers had them change was that everything had to be made from scratch. They were eating the dames meals at the same portion sizes, everything was just home cooked. The whole family lost weight.
Keep in mind that this "experiment" acts on body weight in two ways: The recipes/ingredients, and the movement involved in shopping/preparation/clean-up. Big amount? No. Maybe 50 calories, say? Seems plausible, modest, even. If one is trying to explain an obesity crisis that only requires a low-hundreds above maintenance intake, 50 calories X 21 weekly meals might be meaningful. It doesn't take many calories to go through the drive-through.
I dunno. I agree with you on the negligible calorie effect of the added sugar, but I grew up eating homemade spaghetti sauce in the 60s and 70s, and I never saw my mom put sugar in it (of course, she wasn't Italian, and it wasn't simmer-all-day tomato "gravy," so I'm willing to grant it probably wasn't "traditional," and I've certainly read lots of recipes since those days that call for small amounts of sugar).
The first time I tasted sauce from a jar, in my late teens, I was horrified. Instead of a tomato-ey, onion-y, meat-y savory sauce, it tasted like candy. I was glad I was old enough to know I was supposed to hide my horror, as it was a dish someone had brought to the house for a post-funeral gathering, so exclaiming like Lady Grantham, "take this foul dish away and bring anything to take the taste from our mouths" would definitely not have been a good look.
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