why were people so skinny in the 70s?

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  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
    edited February 2018
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    angelexperiment wrote: »
    There were no gmo foods not like we have today. There weren't as much preservatives etc that came out in the 80s and 90s and then they came out with hfcs, and lowfat foods. They ate whole real foods not prepared boxed meals

    Lol...seemed like there were cans of some kind of condensed "soup" in just about every recipe from the 70s.

    Kraft mac 'n cheese was readily served, as was hamburger helper...and god awful t.v. dinners.

    I actually think scratch food preparation is more trendy now than it's been in a very long time.

    Looking at statistics, close to 1/2 of the US population in the 70s was overweight...to include the obese and morbidly obese. The biggest shift in that statistic has been many more people being classified as obese or morbidly obese rather than simply being overweight today...but "everyone was skinny in the 70s" is a fallacy.

    I think the most troubling concern is the rise in childhood obesity...
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    ktm96 wrote: »
    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?

    #2 is the big one. #1 makes no sense. We ate plenty of sugar in the 70's.
  • l1bbylabel7
    l1bbylabel7 Posts: 64 Member
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    Restaurants didn’t serve massive portions like they do now!
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    ehseeker wrote: »
    Less chemicals in the food itself and less processed food overall. Less cheap 'fast' food that is nothing but junk your body doesn't need.

    I honestly don't think there were fewer "chemicals" in the food. If anything, there were probably more.

    People have gotten more savvy and demanding about additives in food and regulations regarding them have tightened up in comparison to how things used to be.

    The only real change that I'm aware of is the shift from using sugar to high fructose corn syrup.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    ehseeker wrote: »
    Less chemicals in the food itself and less processed food overall. Less cheap 'fast' food that is nothing but junk your body doesn't need.

    I really don't think there were fewer "chemicals" in the food, and I don't see how that would make a difference -- it's how much you eat that is the issue.

    Also, the '70s had a ton of processed foods (they often weren't as good or as varied as what's available today, and many of those available today are healthier, but variety and taste means they are probably even more commonly eaten). I recall fast food places being every bit as available, but CULTURALLY my family considered it an occasional treat so we didn't get it much. I think families today could take the same approach and of course some do.

    Exactly this. Also, CULTURALLY, we didn't really snack or eat all the time the way people do now. We had after school snacks, but I think that's normal.

    Back to your point about fast food being a limited thing, in general, take out, fast food, and dining out in general was a limited thing back then. Back then, I think the cost represented a greater share of your income than it does now, so it was likely more expensive, and that might have been part of why it was only an occasional thing, but I'm grasping at straws here. No one around us did it all that often.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,978 Member
    edited February 2018
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    I was in my 20's in the 70's.

    So, I have a very good recollection of that time period and, in general, people were particularly skinny then and were NOT notably skinnier then than now.

    There was also a lot of TV watching going on among children (which was a cause of concern then and now) and there was relatively little concern placed on eating well and exercise to enhance health and fitness; much less so then than now.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    AnvilHead wrote: »
    l1bbylabel7 wrote: »
    Restaurants didn’t serve massive portions like they do now!

    See my post further upthread - I distinctly remember plenty of restaurants which served massive proportions. And fast food portions like a McDonalds Big Mac or Carl's Jr. Super Star are the same size now as they were in the '70s.

    Well, I remember going to McDonalds before in the very early 70's, maybe even the late 60's before they introduced the Big Macs and Quarter Pounders and such. The hamburgers were just... hamburgers. The regular size plain hamburgers you can get, and they only had the one size fry, which I think is now the small. Same for the drink.

    It wasn't that the sizes changed, the just kept adding options to get bigger sizes in addition to what they already had.
  • cshern
    cshern Posts: 55 Member
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    I'm 67 and powerfully remember the 70's. Extreme thinness became popular in the 60's in particular in response to supermodels like Twiggy. I had a girlfriend in high school who literally took Twiggy's weight, figured out the pound to height ratio and then used this ration to define her own "perfect weight". She was taller than me (5'8) and her ideal weight ended up being 98 pounds.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
    edited February 2018
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    I reckon in the 70s people didn't eat out so often.. I was a child then, eating out happened once or twice a year for our family back then. Even getting a takeaway was a treat that only happened every few months.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    LivingtheLeanDream wrote: »
    I reckon in the 70s people didn't eat out so often.. I was a child then, eating out happened once or twice a year for our family back then. Even getting a takeaway was a treat that only happened every few months.

    I was also a child in the 70's. We had dinner out every Sunday on our way to visit my grandmother. Takeout wasn't often though because options where I grew up were very limited until I was in high school. But we had KFC 2-3 times a month. That's really the only takeout options I remember until the late 70's when Taco Bell came to town.

    Chain restaurants weren't much of a thing back then where I lived either. Mostly just local restaurants.. There was a Howard Johnson's but it was not close to us so we only went there an special occasions.
  • Rocknut53
    Rocknut53 Posts: 1,794 Member
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    cshern wrote: »
    I'm 67 and powerfully remember the 70's. Extreme thinness became popular in the 60's in particular in response to supermodels like Twiggy. I had a girlfriend in high school who literally took Twiggy's weight, figured out the pound to height ratio and then used this ration to define her own "perfect weight". She was taller than me (5'8) and her ideal weight ended up being 98 pounds.

    I remember Twiggy well and couldn't understand how looking like her became "a thing." I agree, it started the emaciation era.
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  • ccrdragon
    ccrdragon Posts: 3,365 Member
    edited February 2018
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    I was in high school in the 70's and very active with school - debate, drama and other clubs. Played D&D on the weekends with friends, played football/softball with friends also. I ate fast food as often as I ate home cooked meals - mom had a strict policy of be at the table when I serve food or fend for yourself. Graduated high school weighing 150 lbs (at 5' 8" so right in the BMI range). The difference between then and now - activity, plain and simple. We were always out doing something, on the go and never slowing down.

    I currently live in a neighborhood with lots of kids and if I see or hear a kid outside now (except for going to their car or going into the house from the car) it's a red-letter day.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    JoRocka wrote: »
    well this was fun

    and the top choice- from the entirety of the thread was "cocaine"

    In summation:
    The government puts special ingredients in our food these days to make us fat.
    Cocaine
    People were emotionally happier and didn't eat their feelings
    smoking
    hippies were poor and couldn't afford food
    the Mexicans have stolen our jobs.

    good to know.

    I would argue Ron Jeremy was around- and I don't think that man has ever been skinny- soooo yeah.

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  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
    edited February 2018
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    My mother was obese, my father was overweight, and I was overweight in the 1970's. My father had half his stomach butchered off to treat an ulcer in 1973. After that he couldn't eat enough to stay overweight. Oh, and mom was addicted to and abusing every drug in the pharmacy.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    AnvilHead wrote: »
    I think a lot of the experiences related in threads like this are individual, regional or cultural - not generational or reflective of society as a whole.

    Yeah, this always strikes me, including when people generalize about how people eat today. It differs a ton between different people and sub-groups, so you really cannot generalize. I know many people who are into cooking from scratch now, far more than I do people who eat lots of fast food or never eat vegetables or whatever other generalization people wish to make.
    IMO, the biggest difference in society between then and now is that we move a lot less now and (as a generality) don't teach children healthy habits to carry into adulthood. Fat, inactive kids grow into fat, inactive adults and raise their own fat, inactive kids.

    I do think this is a fair generalization, however.

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