why were people so skinny in the 70s?
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I grew up in the 70's, so I have great input. We ate candy like all kids did. I ate McDonald's at 10 year old up to now.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?
But I also rode my bike everywhere, skateboarded, and play street football almost everyday. We ate 3 meals a day, but the PORTIONS were much smaller. Even at all fast food restaurants. A medium fry today was a large back in the 70's. Oh and we also HAD to do PE or get an F.
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I was born in 1972. The convenience foods I can remember eating at home were stuff like Kool-Aid and (kosher) Jell-o. Mom baked a lot from scratch, but we had a stockpile of Sara Lee cakes in the freezer in case of unexpected company. I took Bessy's fruit drinks (flavored sugar water that may or may not have contained trace element of actual juice) to school; other kids had Orangina. My parents didn't give me junk food, nor even cookies as a snack, except for a couple of weeks after Halloween. I got fruit, which I never ate. We made soup from mixes (still do, sometimes). Cake mixes were much rarer and, thinking back, Mom may have used them to ease us kids into the idea of baking. Loads of canned and frozen fruits and vegetables, but we also had a vegetable garden. And I remember a few summers where our neighbors came over and helped us freeze our own green beans.
Mom did bake a bit more and she wasn't concerned with calories, so much as convenience. (She didn't do elaborate layer cakes, but trifles and shortbread cookies made regular appearances. So did her poppyseed cake, which I thought was low-cal because it wasn't overly sweet. Little did I know...) Actually, thinking back, bakery desserts were pretty rare and usually brought by someone else. That changed in my teens when my dad started picking up the bread order for the hospital where he worked (he was the pharmacist at a chronic care hospital) and buying ours at the same time. By then, Mom had gone back to work and didn't have as much time and Dad was paying wholesale rates.
I know we did get occasional TV dinners, but it was rare and they were never that great. Frozen fish sticks were a thing, though.
I think part of it also was that we were strictly kosher and, growing up in Montreal, there weren't that many kosher-certified convenience foods at a reasonable price. That's changed quite a bit in the last 35-odd years.6 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »My family still drinks Tang- my dad's personal preference is to drink it warm- like hot tea.
You sort of get used to it after the warm grape fruit revulsion over takes you for a half a second.
oh man...I didn't know they still made it. I might have to go find some...I wonder if it tastes like I remember...
I don't recommend it. I've stopped tasting stuff I loved as a child because it's never the same and just taints the memory.3 -
I wondered that myself, especially looking back. When I look at celebrities that in those days were considered "fat" they are pretty close to what would be average now: Jackie Gleason, Mama Cass. I was coming of age in the early 70s and I think the food was different. Not as much variety, but real food, grown from non-GMO seeds in healthier soil. We ate in restaurants only on rare occasion, and I did not have pizza until I was about 16. There was a strong trend toward "skinnyness" --- and, yes, there were drugs, but I do not think the drugs explain the thinner physiques of the time. The general level of activity was different for many people for the reasons mentioned above. However, the activity level then depended on the individual, too --- because there are many who walk and bike everywhere and do all kinds of exercise today, but they are not thin. Likewise, there were many sedentary people back then who were. I think the actual components of the food, which is something more than simply the easy gratification and availability, though that is a strong factor. As Michael Pollan points out, today many people have the option and do eat fries 3 times or more a day ... but when you had to make them yourself, it was more of a big deal. If we had chips, potatoes were peeled and they were done in the home deep frier, or wrapped in newspaper from a fish and chips shop. On a tv program I watched recently about the obesity epidemic, a boy of about 8 years old weighing around 200 lbs was featured ... and the narration inferred that it would be of little use for the parents to tell this boy he needed to play outside more and eat more fruits and vegetables and less junk.3
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Cocaine and other drugs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯4
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Sorry to get serious here, but....
In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollen makes the case that we in America have an excess of cheap calories because corn is an extremely energy dense food, and we have an excess of corn because government subsidizes corn so heavily that a farmer who grows corn cannot lose.
He claims that many farmers have plowed up the lawn in front of their houses because it is valuable corn soil.
The book notes that the edges of the grocery store are where the real foods are, the veggies, the meat, the dairy.The center is where the cans, boxes, and processed foods are. All those foods are now cheaper and much more filling and tempting than they once were because they are loaded up with corn, corn syrup, and corn sugar.
Then there are the portions. A Coke in the 70s was 8 ounces -- maybe a can with 12 ounces. We would have been appalled at the idea of a 16 ounce cola, a 20 ounce, etc.
We still usually eat one bagel. But the bagel of today is twice the size of the bagel of yesterday.
My son can finish an entire small pizza. I could probably get pretty close myself, on a good day. In the 1970s, you had three slices, if you were really hungry!
Now, back to the comedy....6 -
GiddyupTim wrote: »My son can finish an entire small pizza. I could probably get pretty close myself, on a good day. In the 1970s, you had three slices, if you were really hungry!....
Again, doesn't match how the '70s went for me. We would go to Shakey's Pizza Parlor for their all-you-can-eat lunch of pizza, salad, fried chicken and mojo (fried/seasoned) potatoes. My record was 22 slices of pizza, along with a few chicken drumsticks and a dozen or so mojo potato slices. I was around 15-16 at the time. A small pizza wouldn't even have counted as a warm-up for me at that time.
I won't even touch Pollan's woo about corn. Corn isn't the devil and it's not why our society is dealing with an obesity epidemic. Helps him sell a lot of books, though.15 -
lots of sex - it’s great cardio
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GiddyupTim wrote: »My son can finish an entire small pizza. I could probably get pretty close myself, on a good day. In the 1970s, you had three slices, if you were really hungry!....
Again, doesn't match how the '70s went for me. We would go to Shakey's Pizza Parlor for their all-you-can-eat lunch of pizza, salad, fried chicken and mojo (fried/seasoned) potatoes. My record was 22 slices of pizza, along with a few chicken drumsticks and a dozen or so mojo potato slices. I was around 15-16 at the time. A small pizza wouldn't even have counted as a warm-up for me at that time.
I won't even touch Pollan's woo about corn. Corn isn't the devil and it's not why our society is dealing with an obesity epidemic. Helps him sell a lot of books, though.
There used to be an all you can eat pizza buffet across the street from my high school... my best was 19 slices. The high school kids put the place out of business in 3 years...5 -
crabbybrianna wrote: »If you wanted to go to your friends house, you walked, rode your bike or roller skated. My mom was constantly shoo-ing us out of the house. "Go get the stink blown off you", she'd say.
My dad was the same, except he would say “Go play in traffic.” That makes him sound like a horrible person, lol!
My grandpa used to say "go play on the freeway!!" Gotta love that 70s humor!!
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I have to laugh at the no processed food. Every single day my mom packed me a bologna sandwich, white processed bread and that cheese crap that you have to peel out from the protective wrapping. In school the favorite lunch was on Thursdays: Hamburgers, potato chips, cake and milk. Except for the milk there wasn't one thing healthy about that lunch. Even the hamburgers were processed. But, damn, the chocolate cake was amazing!
If you wanted to go to your friends house, you walked, rode your bike or roller skated. My mom was constantly shoo-ing us out of the house. "Go get the stink blown off you", she'd say.
I was a nerdy person who loved to read but to fulfill my addiction I had to bike to the closest book-mobile, which was miles away. And then try to ride back with a HUGE bag of books.
Bored? It was nothing to hop on my bike and just tool around the neighborhood.
My parents took us out for ice cream at least once a week. In the summers we all rode our bikes to the Dairy Queen.
Air conditioning was a luxury for most people so you went outside. You didn't lounge around inside the house. You ran through sprinklers, you swam at the local pool.
Man, you all are making me nostalgic.......
Don't forget the Spam!
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We had to be seniors to leave campus for lunch and all you can eat Shakeys buffet was lunch of choice for us too (pizza is all I recall being there, but that's what I would have gotten, so I've probably forgotten the rest). Didn't go much, but it was great.
This was 1986-87, though.0 -
GiddyupTim wrote: »In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollen makes the case that we in America have an excess of cheap calories because corn is an extremely energy dense food, and we have an excess of corn because government subsidizes corn so heavily that a farmer who grows corn cannot lose.
HFCS would be cheaper than sugar without subsidies, and one of the most significant uses of corn is animal feed, so if anything subsidies probably play more of a role in our extremely cheap meat prices (which people going on about the evils of corn rarely even notice). Much of our corn is exported too.The book notes that the edges of the grocery store are where the real foods are, the veggies, the meat, the dairy.The center is where the cans, boxes, and processed foods are.
I like Pollan, but this idea that we need to be told where things are in the grocery store is absurd, and it's not even true. I was at my local grocery just a few hours ago, and lots of "processed" stuff is at the edges (including the bakery and deli meats and cheese), whereas lots of whole foods and good for healthy eating foods are not (our produce is in a special section not on the edges, canned and dry beans are in the middle, oats are in the middle, frozen fruit and veg -- which I was buying -- is in the middle, so on).6 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »GiddyupTim wrote: »In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollen makes the case that we in America have an excess of cheap calories because corn is an extremely energy dense food, and we have an excess of corn because government subsidizes corn so heavily that a farmer who grows corn cannot lose.
HFCS would be cheaper than sugar without subsidies, and one of the most significant uses of corn is animal feed, so if anything subsidies probably play more of a role in our extremely cheap meat prices (which people going on about the evils of corn rarely even notice). Much of our corn is exported too.The book notes that the edges of the grocery store are where the real foods are, the veggies, the meat, the dairy.The center is where the cans, boxes, and processed foods are.
I like Pollan, but this idea that we need to be told where things are in the grocery store is absurd, and it's not even true. I was at my local grocery just a few hours ago, and lots of "processed" stuff is at the edges (including the bakery and deli meats and cheese), whereas lots of whole foods and good for healthy eating foods are not (our produce is in a special section not on the edges, canned and dry beans are in the middle, oats are in the middle, frozen fruit and veg -- which I was buying -- is in the middle, so on).
I am not going to get into a debate with you. But I believe there is a lot of truth in what he says. But I will say that, yes, corn helps our meat. They fatten cattle up on corn. But, fattened beef has more calories than lean beef.
And the statement about grocery stores is an observation made by many people, and it is a generalization. Of course, you can find stores where there are processed foods against the walls. That does not negate the generalization.
All I know is that I recently drove from California to Chicago. I saw unbroken corn fields all the way from eastern Colorado to the western suburbs of Chicago. Nebraska, which once was all wheat? Corn. Wisconsin, known for it dairy? I saw corn, from border to border. When I lived in Minnesota, I always had the impression that the Wisconsin countryside was too rolling for efficient field farming, which was why there were so many dairies. I don't know if that was wrong. I don't truly know if things have changed there. But what I saw is not what I remember.
So, two things seem to be true: There is more corn and people are fatter. Does that necessarily mean there is a connection? No. But is it worth considering and discussing since there is not a better explanation? I think so.11 -
pretty easy answer as I was 17 at the height of the disco era.. we danced all the time, all night long.. kept active.. and when we werent dancing we were shopping for something to wear dancing.. so again lots of exercise.. and not wasting time on the computer, phone etc.. we just went out.. eat properly ... things are in overabundance in every way now.. simple fun is the way to go3
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GiddyupTim wrote: »My son can finish an entire small pizza. I could probably get pretty close myself, on a good day. In the 1970s, you had three slices, if you were really hungry!....
Again, doesn't match how the '70s went for me. We would go to Shakey's Pizza Parlor for their all-you-can-eat lunch of pizza, salad, fried chicken and mojo (fried/seasoned) potatoes. My record was 22 slices of pizza, along with a few chicken drumsticks and a dozen or so mojo potato slices. I was around 15-16 at the time. A small pizza wouldn't even have counted as a warm-up for me at that time.
I won't even touch Pollan's woo about corn. Corn isn't the devil and it's not why our society is dealing with an obesity epidemic. Helps him sell a lot of books, though.
You're right.....I guess.....
But, if portion sizes haven't changed, why is everyone heavier these days, given that the waistlines are made in the kitchen?
Or is it not true that one has to eat more to gain weight?2 -
I think it was the mindset in those days....pre-sitting on our *kitten* days.....we ate more natural, less processed foods, and we burned more calories. Somebody mentioned we ate less protein and didn't lift weights....just the opposite....we ate high protein foods, but burned a whole lot more calories that people do now, just in daily living. But it started when we were little kids....playing hard was what we lived for...less processed foods...1
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GiddyupTim wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »GiddyupTim wrote: »In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollen makes the case that we in America have an excess of cheap calories because corn is an extremely energy dense food, and we have an excess of corn because government subsidizes corn so heavily that a farmer who grows corn cannot lose.
HFCS would be cheaper than sugar without subsidies, and one of the most significant uses of corn is animal feed, so if anything subsidies probably play more of a role in our extremely cheap meat prices (which people going on about the evils of corn rarely even notice). Much of our corn is exported too.The book notes that the edges of the grocery store are where the real foods are, the veggies, the meat, the dairy.The center is where the cans, boxes, and processed foods are.
I like Pollan, but this idea that we need to be told where things are in the grocery store is absurd, and it's not even true. I was at my local grocery just a few hours ago, and lots of "processed" stuff is at the edges (including the bakery and deli meats and cheese), whereas lots of whole foods and good for healthy eating foods are not (our produce is in a special section not on the edges, canned and dry beans are in the middle, oats are in the middle, frozen fruit and veg -- which I was buying -- is in the middle, so on).
I am not going to get into a debate with you. But I believe there is a lot of truth in what he says. But I will say that, yes, corn helps our meat. They fatten cattle up on corn. But, fattened beef has more calories than lean beef.
Not meaningfully. I actually buy grass fed for other reasons, and have problems with the way our agriculture works, but not because I think it makes us fatter -- it doesn't, what we choose to eat and how much of it we eat, as well as our activity level is what is responsible.And the statement about grocery stores is an observation made by many people, and it is a generalization. Of course, you can find stores where there are processed foods against the walls. That does not negate the generalization.
The generalization is silly and pointless because it assumes people are too dumb to figure out how to shop in a grocery store without inaccurate rules to make it easier. There are areas of my store I go into a lot and aisles I rarely bother with (I'm a super fast shopper most of the time), but I can't imagine thinking you need to be told to shop the perimeter and that would leave out lots of good stuff (like I said, frozen veg) in pretty much every store.
"Processed food" is itself a useless concept, as it's so varied. Some processed food (frozen veg, smoked salmon, greek yogurt, low sodium canned beans, oats, Ezekiel bread, dried pasta, canned tomatoes, tofu, protein powder, so on) can be very helpful (others can be fine, and tasty). Some of the stuff I listed is in the aisles and some on the perimeter in the stores I go to, and elsewhere in others, I am sure.So, two things seem to be true: There is more corn and people are fatter. Does that necessarily mean there is a connection? No. But is it worth considering and discussing since there is not a better explanation? I think so.
You haven't actually shown that there is more corn. (Probably there is, but most of the corn in NE is likely used to feed cattle, again, and the changes in agriculture is much more complex than what you reference. It's an interesting topic to me for lots of reasons, but not related to this thread, IMO.)
Bigger issue, you say there is no a better explanation, but of course there is, referenced in this thread even.6 -
Okay.
I don't see the statement about the layout of stores as a rule so much as an observation and a apt description -- one that points out how much of this processed food we have.
It doesn't matter if Nebraska corn goes mostly to feed cows. Clearly, there is still enough left over to create plenty of canned, boxed, and processed foods fortified with corn syrup and corn sugar. And, when they feed corn to cattle, they do it to fatten them up, and fatty beef contains more calories than lean beef.
I cannot prove that corn is the sole culprit behind the expanding American butt and waist, nor would I want to. It's probably a simplistic suggestion. But I still think it is an intriguing hypothesis that deserves some thought.5 -
GiddyupTim wrote: »Okay.
I don't see the statement about the layout of stores as a rule so much as an observation and a apt description -- one that points out how much of this processed food we have.
It doesn't matter if Nebraska corn goes mostly to feed cows. Clearly, there is still enough left over to create plenty of canned, boxed, and processed foods fortified with corn syrup and corn sugar. And, when they feed corn to cattle, they do it to fatten them up, and fatty beef contains more calories than lean beef.
I cannot prove that corn is the sole culprit behind the expanding American butt and waist, nor would I want to. It's probably a simplistic suggestion. But I still think it is an intriguing hypothesis that deserves some thought.
You do realize that there are fatter and leaner cuts of beef from any cattle, right? The fat content mostly has to do with where in the body it came from. No matter how much they've fattened up their cattle, a top round is going to be a lot leaner than a ribeye, etc. Fat can easily be trimmed, the only fat that's difficult to remove is the intramuscular fat or "marbling" (which also usually makes for the most tender/tastiest cuts).
Great article about the different cuts of beef, which includes the information quoted below: https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/beef-and-bison-recipes/beef-bison-cuts-not-all-are-created-equal...Nowadays most steers and heifers live on farms eating grass and hay until they are about 15 months of age. Then they are sold to huge feed lots where they stay for about four months and are fed grain, mostly a type of high calorie corn flake, and vitamins and medicines, often including antibiotics, for about four months. According to the Amazingibs.com beef scientist, Dr. Antonio Mata, "Bovines are like humans. When they consume a lot of calories they accumulate fat. First belly fat, then subcutaneous fat, then fat between the muscles, and finally intramuscular fat, which is marbling...7 -
I don't know about that. There are a lot of mentally tortured superheros out there. I think Wolverine probably considers the military-industrial complex that gave him his superpowers evil.3 -
I remember the 70's, to buy a can of soda, it used to take four of us to 'club' our pocket money together. Was it just me or was everyone in England poor as a church mouse smiley:3
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A large pop most places was 12 oz and there were no free refills.1
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I grew up in the 70's, so I have great input. We ate candy like all kids did. I ate McDonald's at 10 year old up to now.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?
But I also rode my bike everywhere, skateboarded, and play street football almost everyday. We ate 3 meals a day, but the PORTIONS were much smaller. Even at all fast food restaurants. A medium fry today was a large back in the 70's. Oh and we also HAD to do PE or get an F.
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
And they actually made you move. I see the kids at the local jr high outside for "PE" strolling around the track, chatting with each other and looking at their phones.3 -
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less people drove/ had cars so walked or public transport. simple home made food . Kids played outside for hours no devices came home when they felt hungry or took their sandwiches with em
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how does corn make you fatter if you poop it out whole?
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My dad had an 8 pack in the late 70's (he graduated high school in '80 or '81).
His diet consisted homemade breakfasts consisting of bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy (Grandma made breakfast for the family every day) as well as a host of snacks like chips, hostess cupcakes, ding dongs, vienna sausages, etc..
He also ran ten miles a day just because he enjoyed it. Once he started working, he was the type to give 110% effort at whatever he was doing (even if that meant stocking shelves, he was going to be sure he did it faster than anyone else).2 -
JerSchmare wrote: »BrianSharpe wrote: »1. No Internet.
2. No video games.
3. Home cooked meals (from scratch)
4. Kids played outside after school.
5. Parents didn't drive kids everywhere, we rode our bikes or walked.
Yes. In addition, snacking was not yet invented. In the 70’s, if you wanted a snack, you ate a banana, grapes, or an apple. Not a giant pack of chips and a 20oz Coke.
Snacking not yet invented? My favorite snack food then was home-baked cookies which we always had around the house. We even ate the dough before they were baked...gasp! Fruit was more seasonal, hard to come by or very expensive in the winter. We rarely snacked on chips because they were for special occasions, as was soda. I remember making tortilla chips by cutting tortillas in quarters, then frying them in oil. Kind of a pain in the *kitten* so not eaten often. I have been overweight since my first son was born in 1972. I just ate too damn much, whatever food was available. I didn't get the memo about being skinny during the 70's.4 -
Less stress overall, and certainly not the pressure to "keep up with the Jones'". Bought what you could afford in all areas of life, including food preparation. Eat to live, not live to eat mind-set. Values were different, children worked for their allowance, played outside, no entitlements. At least for this farm girl!1
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