why were people so skinny in the 70s?

martini_mommy

Disco Duh!! :drinker:

Ha Love this^^^^

bergamese

Because back in the ancient history of the 1970s, prehistoric man ate like the Paleo diet.

yarwell

So I'm trying to figure out why people were so skinny about 40 years ago vs today....here are some reasons i can think of and i want to know yours

there was only one McDonalds in the UK

piperdown44

Less stuff to do inside as a kid.

I grew up in a rural area. Bus got to school at 7:25 am but school didn't start until 8. We were out playing on the school yard until then. Recess was 25 minutes long and twice day. Lunch was 50 minutes and we scarfed the food down so we had about 40 mins to play. All the kids came in red faced and sweaty. Everyone had to go and participate in gym class.
Lunch at school was all prepared from scratch. Mmmm, I can still remember the rolls the lunch ladies made!
Mom fried a lot of stuff. She was born in '30 on a farm and that's just the way she was taught to cook.
Chores around the farm, after school activities that were sponsored AND paid for by the school and riding the bikes everywhere to play with friends.
We had 3 tv stations and at that time most all the programming was geared toward adults. Saturday morning was cartoon time (and special) that ended at 11am. If you had a baseball game or swimming lessons on Saturday morning it was a bummer.

I have to tell my boys to turn off the tv/xbox/computer and go out side with them to get them to do physical activities.

One of my irritations is that schools have shortened recess down to 15 minutes and the kids get a whopping 10 mins for play after lunch. Plus everything costs! Schools used to sponsor all athletic activities (confirmed with friends from other states but not saying they all did back then) with only a small 'activity fee', which when I graduated high school was $60 for the year.
Now I'm spending well over four numbers for my boys just to play sports, even through the county.

Personal opinion is that we were much more physically active in the 70's than now.

tigersword

Less stuff to do inside as a kid.

I grew up in a rural area. Bus got to school at 7:25 am but school didn't start until 8. We were out playing on the school yard until then. Recess was 25 minutes long and twice day. Lunch was 50 minutes and we scarfed the food down so we had about 40 mins to play. All the kids came in red faced and sweaty. Everyone had to go and participate in gym class.
Lunch at school was all prepared from scratch. Mmmm, I can still remember the rolls the lunch ladies made!
Mom fried a lot of stuff. She was born in '30 on a farm and that's just the way she was taught to cook.
Chores around the farm, after school activities that were sponsored AND paid for by the school and riding the bikes everywhere to play with friends.
We had 3 tv stations and at that time most all the programming was geared toward adults. Saturday morning was cartoon time (and special) that ended at 11am. If you had a baseball game or swimming lessons on Saturday morning it was a bummer.

I have to tell my boys to turn off the tv/xbox/computer and go out side with them to get them to do physical activities.

One of my irritations is that schools have shortened recess down to 15 minutes and the kids get a whopping 10 mins for play after lunch. Plus everything costs! Schools used to sponsor all athletic activities (confirmed with friends from other states but not saying they all did back then) with only a small 'activity fee', which when I graduated high school was $60 for the year.
Now I'm spending well over four numbers for my boys just to play sports, even through the county.

Personal opinion is that we were much more physically active in the 70's than now.

Wasn't it great when education actually received a decent amount of funding?

piperdown44

Less stuff to do inside as a kid.

I grew up in a rural area. Bus got to school at 7:25 am but school didn't start until 8. We were out playing on the school yard until then. Recess was 25 minutes long and twice day. Lunch was 50 minutes and we scarfed the food down so we had about 40 mins to play. All the kids came in red faced and sweaty. Everyone had to go and participate in gym class.
Lunch at school was all prepared from scratch. Mmmm, I can still remember the rolls the lunch ladies made!
Mom fried a lot of stuff. She was born in '30 on a farm and that's just the way she was taught to cook.
Chores around the farm, after school activities that were sponsored AND paid for by the school and riding the bikes everywhere to play with friends.
We had 3 tv stations and at that time most all the programming was geared toward adults. Saturday morning was cartoon time (and special) that ended at 11am. If you had a baseball game or swimming lessons on Saturday morning it was a bummer.

I have to tell my boys to turn off the tv/xbox/computer and go out side with them to get them to do physical activities.

One of my irritations is that schools have shortened recess down to 15 minutes and the kids get a whopping 10 mins for play after lunch. Plus everything costs! Schools used to sponsor all athletic activities (confirmed with friends from other states but not saying they all did back then) with only a small 'activity fee', which when I graduated high school was $60 for the year.
Now I'm spending well over four numbers for my boys just to play sports, even through the county.

Personal opinion is that we were much more physically active in the 70's than now.

Wasn't it great when education actually received a decent amount of funding?

YES!!

SStruthers13

Cocaine

naydene_w

The first McDonalds drive thru window was in 1975....Before that you had to walk in and order. And that was always a big treat as my mom stayed home and cooked us healthy meals.Packed our lunches. We played outside and ran around a lot. Tv was watched in evening after an active day. No computers. Junk food, like Oreos and chips were not bought all the time. Plus we had a limit of crappy processed foods to choose from. Even my mom when she made cookies, think about it. Used all real foods to make them, and then it was a treat when she baked. I also think corner stores now are convenient and yet can pack in daily calories with bog gulps and other stuff.

Rilke

Loved reading this thread, learned a lot and no belittling / patronizing other posters for differences in opinions and beliefs -- thanks guys! ;D

etoiles_argentees

Jazzercize.

etoiles_argentees

Actually we ate plenty of processed food. Wonder bread was wonder bread. I ate tasty cake crumpets and orange drink. But the minute I had eaten enough I was outside playing and climbing trees.

Winston1717

No computers or video games. We were outside running around from sun up until you were called home for dinner. Then after dinner we asked to go out again on non- school nights....I don't think we had a clue about healthy eating. We just ate less and did more.

etoiles_argentees

They ate (real) food and moved some.

yes, we ate some frozen foods, but even then, NOTHING compared to today.

Ummmm... They hey days of processed food was 1960 and 1970.

SlimmingMeDown

So I'm trying to figure out why people were so skinny about 40 years ago vs today....here are some reasons i can think of and i want to know yours:

1. little to none high fructose corn syrup
2. more activity.....people didnt sit on their computers and smart phones all day



these are just two main ones i can think of, anyone else have any ideas?

Factory jobs were prevalent, which kept people on their feet. Farming jobs were also high in manual labor and we used mostly Americans rather than Mexican migrants back then.

Home video games and internet were basically non-existent.

Junk food and processed food were totally around, but people did not customarily eat dessert every day. Maybe once a week.

More wives and mothers were still at home making meals instead of relying on fast food.

shapefitter

I was busy playing computer games, watching tv, eating sweets, chocolate, potato chips, pepsi cola, instant mash, angel delight, icecream, and generally being fat.

UCSMiami

I think part of the answer was demonstrated in the documentary Super Size Me with Morgan Spurlock showing how portion size has increased using McDonalds and 7-11 as an example. The current children's hamburger and small french fries was considered sufficient for an adult. A Big Mac really was quite an increase in serving size. Same with the history of the Big Gulp which I recall was too much for a teenager in the late 1970s. In our family we found a 12oz can sufficent. No microwave and minimal snacks at home meant no nervous eating, no oral fixation that needed to be constantly fed.

We ate snacks-potato chips, candy bars, cookies but packaging appeared much smaller than now. I notice the huge size of potato chip bags and candy bars today. I think about one pop-tart was sufficient for one day's worth of snacking.

Also we kids were poor and relied on parents for foodstuffs and they were rather discerning of how much of our intake should be quality food vs. snacks/junk.

Then as was mentioned no cable tv or computer meant you were outside engaged in activities. But we did watch plenty of televsion. There was much programming for kids and one did watch quite a bit from 8pm thru 10pm M-F-Sat-Sun. It was family time to be together.(Does that last sound rather quaint?)

We did eat home cooked meals then. Reasonably healthy by today's standards. We were kids and so portion size was small and grew as we grew. Active mid-late teens are consumers! A Hungry Man tv dinner from Swanson was a rare treat for us. No one ever liked the cherry cobbler dessert in our household I recall. Given to the dog.

Eating out at KFC or Pizza Hut was a rare occasion. Portion size was also smaller. Adults smoked quite a bit which I understand is an appetite suppresant. Folks drank more as well I believe as social drinking was drinking and did not involve eating wings or cheese fries,etc. Perhaps peanuts is at most what you saw in a bar. I recall having a small bowl of homemade dip with ritz crackers was a big treat for the Superbowl not a massive spread at all compared to what is done now in tailgate parties.

We had one classmate out of 220-odd group who was obese in HS. I recall because he could not do one push-up or one situp for the annual Presidential Physical Fitness Test. I do notice the majority of young folk today are overweight. We just did not carry around that much weight in my city during our youth of the late 1970s-1980s.

Myhaloslipped

They were hippies and they were poor.

ndj1979

disco, blow, and acid...not necessarily in that order...

tigersword

I think part of the answer was demonstrated in the documentary Super Size Me with Morgan Spurlock showing how portion size has increased using McDonalds and 7-11 as an example. The current children's hamburger and small french fries was considered sufficient for an adult. A Big Mac really was quite an increase in serving size. Same with the history of the Big Gulp which I recall was too much for a teenager in the late 1970s. In our family we found a 12oz can sufficent. No microwave and minimal snacks at home meant no nervous eating, no oral fixation that needed to be constantly fed.

We ate snacks-potato chips, candy bars, cookies but packaging appeared much smaller than now. I notice the huge size of potato chip bags and candy bars today. I think about one pop-tart was sufficient for one day's worth of snacking.

Also we kids were poor and relied on parents for foodstuffs and they were rather discerning of how much of our intake should be quality food vs. snacks/junk.

Then as was mentioned no cable tv or computer meant you were outside engaged in activities. But we did watch plenty of televsion. There was much programming for kids and one did watch quite a bit from 8pm thru 10pm M-F-Sat-Sun. It was family time to be together.(Does that last sound rather quaint?)

We did eat home cooked meals then. Reasonably healthy by today's standards. We were kids and so portion size was small and grew as we grew. Active mid-late teens are consumers! A Hungry Man tv dinner from Swanson was a rare treat for us. No one ever liked the cherry cobbler dessert in our household I recall. Given to the dog.

Eating out at KFC or Pizza Hut was a rare occasion. Portion size was also smaller. Adults smoked quite a bit which I understand is an appetite suppresant. Folks drank more as well I believe as social drinking was drinking and did not involve eating wings or cheese fries,etc. Perhaps peanuts is at most what you saw in a bar. I recall having a small bowl of homemade dip with ritz crackers was a big treat for the Superbowl not a massive spread at all compared to what is done now in tailgate parties.

We had one classmate out of 220-odd group who was obese in HS. I recall because he could not do one push-up or one situp for the annual Presidential Physical Fitness Test. I do notice the majority of young folk today are overweight. We just did not carry around that much weight in my city during our youth of the late 1970s-1980s.

The Big Mac was invented in the 60s. While I agree portion sizes have increased (which is why Americans have gained weight, 500 extra calories a day with less activity,) Supersize Me is a horrible example of that. Supersize Me is more like putting one scoop of ice cream in a bowl, then placing a gallon tub of ice cream next to it and claiming the ice cream portion size increased. :drinker:

kahdxoom

yay-oh.