why were people so skinny in the 70s?

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  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
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    Fuzzipeg wrote: »
    You got it, wheelhouse. My gripe with the 1970's low fat diet is exactly as you say. In my view it was falsely directed at cardiac patients as it was overly low in omega 3, beneficial animal fats/protein and this sort of thing, placing the emphasis on low value carbs. We needed more scientific information and we are not there yet.

    I once worked in a care facility where the manager did not understand that not all diabetics needed the amount of white bread she was wanting to push onto this one person. Saying, "she can always have 2 slices of bread, when the person was trying to reject it because, although elderly she knew her system best, wanting protein!

    If I recall correctly, the recommendations from the studies highly recommended fish as a good source of animal fats and proteins, which would have been great for their Omega 3 EFAs as well. So much of good research gets perverted when it hits the corporate marketing machine.
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
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    CaptBligh001 wrote: »
    People are always looking for a boogeyman like trying to blame the younger generation of being lazy or they like to blame food additives like high fructose corn syrup, but the answer is very simple. All you need to do is overlay a poverty rate by year chart and an obesity by year chart and you will see that as the poverty rate declines the obesity rate goes up.

    It's simple prior to about 1976 there were far more people living in poverty then there is today.

    Interestingly enough the rate of people overweight but not obese hasn't changed much since the 1970's

    But see, here we go again picking one possible correlation and pointing the finger. I agree more disposable income is a potential contributing factor to rising obesity rates, but you can also correlate less activity during the same time period, for instance. There are other strong correlations as well that include things like changing social mores (the fat acceptance movement, greater availability of trendy plus sized clothing).

    The bottom line is that there are no credible studies that I'm aware of that definitively pinpoint a single root cause of the obesity epidemic, and many credible studies that correlate a number of things (income included as you pointed out) that contribute.
  • Bry_Fitness70
    Bry_Fitness70 Posts: 2,480 Member
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    Another factor is the jobs we do today. In the 1970s there were still a lot of blue collar jobs that paid well but required a degree of motion. Now, most of our manufacturing jobs went overseas and the remaining ones are a lot of service and office jobs that entail sitting on our a**es 8+ hours a day.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
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    Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »
    Another factor is the jobs we do today. In the 1970s there were still a lot of blue collar jobs that paid well but required a degree of motion. Now, most of our manufacturing jobs went overseas and the remaining ones are a lot of service and office jobs that entail sitting on our a**es 8+ hours a day.

    Even many of the blue collar jobs aren't as active as they were in the 70's either. Many of the blue collar jobs involve monitoring machines rather than doing heavy lifting, but most will still be far more active than a typical office job, that's for sure.
  • Fuzzipeg
    Fuzzipeg Posts: 2,298 Member
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    No corporate marketing machine, just the NHS in three different regions! No mention of fish back then. Just skimmed milk, marge, oats for porridge, white bread, little red meat if any, meat had to be lowest fat possible, salad leaves, 1970's style no dressing, veg, yes not roast unless in highly questionable refined veg oil. Then as much vinegar as you could take to rid yourself of any fat that got through! Now I count, did not help any of those five! They had all been through the privations of rationing, one had been a starved pow! None had been over weight either, simply had heart issues.
  • Kullerva
    Kullerva Posts: 1,114 Member
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    Cocaine. Also heroin. Also speed.

    Speed was legal in this state back then. They prescribed it to pregnant women. *smh*
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    edited March 2018
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    Kullerva wrote: »
    Cocaine. Also heroin. Also speed.

    Speed was legal in this state back then. They prescribed it to pregnant women. *smh*

    Yeah, it was a diet drug, I mentioned that already, but drugs like heroin and cocaine are more popular today than in the 70's, and meth keeps you really thin. You really have no clue what was going on then.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    edited March 2018
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    Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »
    foreversnafu wrote: »
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    You obviously weren't around during the '70s, so we couldn't possibly expect you to remember the TV commercials with the Lucky Charms leprechaun ("always after me Lucky Charms!"), Tony the Tiger (Frosted Flakes - "They're GRRRREEEEAAAT!!!), the Flintstones advertising Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles, Cap'n Crunch, Count Chocula, Frankenberry and Boo-Berry, the "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!" bird, Toucan Sam for Fruit Loops, etc.

    Yeah, but my point is you had one TV, maybe two, with 5 channels tops, targeting children between the hours of 7-9am, and 3-6pm. There wasn't much room left to compete between adults and teenagers.

    The only time slot that was needed to reach a young boy in the 1970s was between 8am -noon on Saturday morning when all of us were watching cartoons. All of the cool toys and all of the sugary cereals and snacks

    PS. I was curious about the lineup, and found this, the schedule in 1976 (for all of you reminiscing Gen X'ers)!

    ABC
    8AM - The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show
    9AM - Jabberjaw
    9:30AM - Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour
    10:30AM - The Krofft Supershow

    CBS
    8AM - Sylvester and Tweety
    8:30AM - Bugs Bunny/Road Runner
    9:30AM - Tarzan
    10AM - The Shazam!/Isis Hour
    11AM - Ark II
    11:30AM - Clue Club

    NBC
    8AM - Woody Woodpecker
    8:30AM - Pink Panther
    10AM - McDuff, The Talking Dog
    10:30AM - Monster Squad
    11AM - Land of the Lost


    Krofft Super Show! I had such a crush on Dyna Girl lol.
  • kellyjellybellyjelly
    kellyjellybellyjelly Posts: 9,480 Member
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    wizzybeth wrote: »
    TonyB0588 wrote: »
    misskitty2018 wrote: »
    they rode bikes,skateboards, danced and walked to the park to play. they ate basic meals without them adding 100 ingredients AND we were broke/poor so couldn't spend much money on groceries. Now days...it seems as though we have to have a recipe a mile long and with bread on the side. dessert every night. the list is endless.

    Yup!! I often talk about this change too, whenever I can get someone to listen. :)

    Why does food always have to be a "recipe" now??

    What an odd odd string of conversation this is. I have three of my grandmothers cookbooks. She had all sorts of recipes handwritten as well as the actual cookbooks... She wrote them on the pages at the front and back of the book plus stuck them on tablet paper in between the other pages. Recipes for things like soups, goulash, bread, pies, cakes, meatloaf, meatballs... Not sure where this idea that recipes are some kind of new fangled thing came from. These cookbooks were from the 20s and 30s.

    I think they meant that there could be recipes that bloggers/foodies post that might need a million ingredients & some that might need an ingredient that's more on the expensive side.
  • kellyjellybellyjelly
    kellyjellybellyjelly Posts: 9,480 Member
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    AnvilHead wrote: »
    fb47 wrote: »
    sgtx81 wrote: »
    I know this is a couple of decades off (1950's) but this is one thing

    8f9b6gg6o93h.jpg

    other than that people use to get a lot more physical activity... today physical activity = checking facebook and seeing what new and wondrous things you can be offended with and whine about

    Let's not forget, back then people went to restaurants on special occasions and most cooking were home meal cooking. Nowadays, it's common to see people at restaurants/fast food chains almost every day.

    Again, another statement that makes me wonder a) if you were alive in the '70s, and/or b) if the experience was really that different in different places.

    We went out to eat quite often - at least as often as we do nowadays. Definitely at least once a week, sometimes more, and 100% definitely not just for special occasions. Sometimes it was a chain restaurant, sometimes a mom-and-pop place, sometimes fast food.

    Mom wasn't June Cleaver of the '50s, chained to the stove in her gingham dress cooking a stereotypical "home cooked dinner" every single night. Sometimes her "home cooked dinners" were TV dinners, packaged pot pies, big pans of cheese enchiladas, huge pots of chili served with cheese, sour cream and saltine crackers, etc.

    vlowabncsezt.jpg

    Did you have a big family? I wonder if that played a part in how often people went out to eat back then & could account for other's experience?

    I wasn't alive in the '70's (83), but wonder how much did fast food, dining out at mom & pop, junk food, or food cost in general?

    I know my mom told me to go see Aerosmith it cost her around $5.00-$20.00.

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