Obesity today vs 40-50 years ago.
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We are spoiled, plain and simple. We get our heat, light, water, food, and entertainment at the touch of a button. Nobody really works hard, not like they used to. (Oh, we complain that we work hard, but let's just be honest, k?)
We haven't learned how to live with all the luxuries that we take for granted, and it's killing us.
Whilst I do agree with how things have changed and the amount of manual work has changed, I do disagree with the above part. I for one think it's a case of working hard or working smart. I worked 80/90 hours and was very unfit and healthy, knackered all the time. I don't think in anyway my ancestors worked more "hard". I think they worked smarter.
I think in todays society, people eat lunch standing up, on the go or in half an hour. Downtime is so short that to go to the store and pick something up easy and quick (but laden with fat and preservatives) is a quick way of extending that time. Travel, internet and many other factors mean people can and are working further from home, limiting time spent. The working day has changed dramatically. Again not any more/less "harder" but different challenges.
Women are now working and looking after children. Is this because money is needed, cos the price of fish has gone up or is it about wanting a career. The whole working world has changed but I certainly don't think we are spoilt per se. I think we are looking for quick fixes to spend more time with our loved ones and if that comes in the shape of a store bought prepared chicken curry then for some the work life balance becomes unbalanced.
:flowerforyou:
This is also my thought......women have to work now too, and I know I don't always have time to prepare a healthy homecooked meal. I get home at 530 or 6 and the kids have to be in bed by 830 so if I were to cook a meal every night, I'd never spend time with them!0 -
This is also my thought......women have to work now too, and I know I don't always have time to prepare a healthy homecooked meal. I get home at 530 or 6 and the kids have to be in bed by 830 so if I were to cook a meal every night, I'd never spend time with them!
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this!!!! (sorry still learning how to quote but the above poster is spot on in my book!)0 -
I think part if the issue is that most (vast majority) didn't get fat to begin with. My grandmother was skinny her whole life. I don't think I ever saw her eat at a fastfood joint. The last time we went out to eat was to a little diner that had it's own vegetable garden out back. I just recently got ahold of some pictures of her family from teh 30's and 40's. There was a car in one of the pics, and I found out that it was the only car between the 5 of them. It was her little brothers, and it was his "race car". Small towns back then didn't have restaurants or fast food joints. Nearly everything was made from scratch, so they took longer and ate less. Of course most small towns today still don't have many restaurants, but they all have a Mc-D's..0
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WARNING: Gonna paint with a huge paintbrush here.
My grandparents, born in Mississippi during the Great Depression, were literally sharecroppers as children and spent the majority of their day during harvest towing sacks the length of an adult man's body through the rows of cotton plants, picking bolls until their fingers bled. They were skinny as rails because they could barely afford to eat. Every bit of food they got had to count, had to be as calorically-dense as possible. That's why vegetables were cooked with saltpork and bacon drippings, and breads and biscuits were made with lard. As America's economy shifted from an agrarian one to one based upon information technology, we've largely stopped doing manual labor as a nation. Now, any movement we get is during hours of recreation, which are greater in quantity than in our grandparents' day, but the activities we choose for recreation are largely sedentary. Don't get me wrong, I have a very muscular, extremely toned joystick hand. But we've become sitters, rather than haulers and movers.
FWIW, my grandmother was obese as her life became more sedentary, but she didn't adjust her eating to reflect the new lifestyle. She suffered strokes and died a long, slow death as a result. My grandfather remained skinny, but he, too, suffered as a result of failing to adapt to "modern" life. He suffered strokes, as well, and all four of their children have had cardiac and hypertension issues. My generation, the grandchildren, are doing what we can to change our mindset, eating less and focusing on nutritional density, moving more and focusing on preventative health maintenance, rather than reactionary medical solutions. Hopefully, it won't take a generation and a half for our new, better habits to take hold.0 -
Our lives are much different than they were 50 years ago. We live in a time of cheap food. I believe this is the first time in history where this has been the case. Back 20-50 years ago people didn't know much about nutrition, but they didn't really need to. They couldn't just walk into a fast food joint and pig out for next to nothing. Every meal had to be planned and portions were small for financial reasons.
Now, when we need to start worrying about nutrition, the majority don't really know how to... because we were never taught anything about it. At 31 I'm having to learn all of this stuff on my own. I had ideas about nutrition before. I knew if I ate less I would weight less, but that's not really the whole story. Now, as I learn this stuff, I'm trying to pass it on to my kids. And I hope that everyone that learns about nutrition does the same. Hopefully in a few generations humans won't have to worry about it because everyone will know about proper nutrition.0 -
All the posts' observations are on the spot. Interestingly, even starting in the 30's and 40's, there was among the medical community an understanding of the correlation between lack of exercise and heart disease. I'm a movie buff of that era, and among the "short" films shown in theaters were "campaign" films, usually depicting a portly banker suffering an angina attack at his desk, or over a business dinner of cigars and a plate ladened with steak; and subsequently scolded by a doctor and his wife to exercise (this meant golf for the well to do) and eat properly (more fish). In Nazi Germany during the 1930's there was a huge pamphlet campaign admonishing homemakers to replace meat as a meal staple, and serve fish three times a week.0
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It's most definitely lifestyle and diet that is the main difference, but I think we've all gone slightly too nostalgic in our outlook.
Our (Great) Grandparents weren't all skinny and ripped from doing lots of manual labour and living off the land. It's true there were an awful lot fewer folks over 300lbs in the first half of last century compared to now, but remember there were quite a few well-fed folks like Fatty Arbuckle and Oliver Hardy in the 1920s and 30s too.
The early 20th C. diet contained a LOT more fat, but a lot less SUGAR. Bread and butter, bread and dripping, stews and casseroles made with much fattier cuts of meat than we'd dream of eating today. Home-made cakes and pastry, suet & lard were used abundantly and seldom was anything wasted.
Food was bough from fishmongers, poulterers, butchers, bakers, grocers and green grocers. They ate what was in season and cooked from fresh. There were canned and pickled goods too, of course. My family comes from a long line of shopkeepers; Fishmongers in the UK and Grocers in the USA, and my paternal grandpa was short & stout like me, and I don't think it's all down to genetics.
People did go out to eat, but there were no fast-food outlets; cafés and restaurants were the norm and afternoon tea with cream cakes was customary, but there were still fish & chips and pies to be bought as a snack or more likely as a meal having been out to the pictures or the dance halls (which were very popular and as we know know, really good exercise)
Folk walked and/or cycled locally as cars were a luxury. You took the tram, bus or train to travel further afield. Kids spent all their free time outdoors and not cooped up in front of TV or computer games. The service sector (banking, (local & national) government, bookkeepers etc) were but a small proportion of the workforce compared to now and there was no IT or customer call centres unless you consider the ladies at the telephone exchanges transferring trunk calls.
About 60% of today's workforce is sedentary and when we come home we flop in front of the telly or the PC/games console all night and stuff ourselves with biscuits and crisps, so it's no wonder we're turning into living effigies of the Michelin Man or the Pilsbury Doughboy! :laugh:0 -
Everyone has made great points. Add this one: Advertising. We are inundated with advertising for the latest and greatest processed food. The big food companies don't care about our waistlines! So yes, lack of activity, big portions, processed foods, more alcohol...we are fatter than ever.0
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I do keep reading through about kids being indoors more now and I find that so different from my kids and the kids I know. Now one thing is that they are in more structured activities (volleyball, soccer, etc... being played as a team versus just out in the back yard like I use to play it). BUT when the weather is at all nice I can't keep my kids inside at all. My laundry gets weeks behind in the summer because my kids want to be outside from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. lol and my son is only 5 so can't be out without me. The whole neighborhood is out all day and into the night and it's like that constantly. I'm glad for it although it does make it difficult to keep up with chores and tasks that need to be done in the home! My little man cries when it's time to come inside even if he's been out all day long and my pre-teen and her friends spend hours outside practicing volleyball or just going for walks. I can't get these kids to stay inside except in the winter when it's under 20 degrees - then we all wimp out and they resort to climbing my walls (literally).0
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both diet and lifestyle are very much different nowadays. Fifty or so years ago not only were portions smaller but food was natural and home cooked.
There were fewer mechanical aids such as automatic washers, dryers, vacuum cleaners. Kids played outside more and people generally led a far less sedentary life since leisure didnt revolve around tv, computers and the like and, since there was a lot less traffic on the roads, people walked a lot more.
My kids always spent a lot of time playing outdoors but it still seems far less than I did growing up. When they come in it's straight upstairs to watch tv or play computer games. When I was young we had one tv in the house and childrens programmes ended at 5pm. When we came indoors our parents were watching tv and we entertained ourselves - usually playing fairly physical games that got us in trouble for the noise and mess we made.0 -
ha - well maybe it helps that we are too low income for more then 1 t.v. or a bunch of video games lol. We have a wii that we got a few years ago as a gift and LOVE but only have 3 games because they are way too expensive (and they are all 3 physical games - wii fit, just dance and zumba which were all given to me as gifts). We don't have all the other stuff and no way would my kids ever have a t.v. in their room - we can't afford a new t.v. for our living room LOL. So, see - some benefits to being below the poverty line
And it also cuts out the option of fast food and junk food as it's too expensive to dine out. We stick with simple stuff to stretch the budget. 0 -
Our foods are prepared totally different and we have a lot more available when you just drive down the street. We are much less active than our grandparents were as many of them did physical labour while at home, not just on the job. It was and is a different time.0
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Back then most people ate a lot healthier. Everything was pretty much home made.
Eating take out was a treat!
Back then a pop/soda was a TREAT...and was treated like a TREAT....these days people incorporate pop into their daily diets.
70% of what we look like stems from what we eat. These days all the foods we eat are fast, processed and loaded with sugar.
Foods are too readily available for people. It is all about the quick grab because usually both the mom and dad is working, and no one has 'time' anymore to cook...ya know, because cooking and exercising might interfere with American Idol or something....lol 0 -
(from an earlier post- I can't figure out how to copy)
"I remember once my brother and I were at this conference and there was a man who was 400+ pound man in front of us. We were just so amazed that anyone could ever take themselves to that point. An old man leaned forward from the row behind us and whispered "when i was your age we'd have to go to the circus to see someone that big!"
That is crazy!"
The "how could they let themselves get like that" comment has always been irritating to me, for just the reason that this post brings up. "How they could let themselves get like that" involves a whole host of factors, including our biology being designed for a food insecure world where we are forced to move all day long. Our psychology is not designed to help us think about restricting our food intake for the sake of our BMI- it's designed to help us store enough fat to reproduce and make it through the lean times. We are also eating food that is designed to make us want more (e.g. easily digestible food-products that marry salt, sweet, and fat, and play to our instincts about what we need to sustain us), and we are living alone, often, with time to become very depressed and little to help us out of it except the comfort of food.
What perplexes me is the disgust we feel for the morbidly obese, when much of us have more pity for those struggling with substance dependence. Many of us feel more intense anxiety/disgust looking at an obese person than a smoker- why? I think it's because we all subconsciously identify with the risk that we all take by living in our modern world and eating modern food, that at any day, if we "let ourselves," we could "get like that." Please don't let the amazing steps you've taken to lose weight make you insensitive to those who have not yet begun that battle. Believe me, it's not because they are happy and lazy- they are struggling and likely working harder than you think on whatever their demon of the year is.
Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Calorie Counter0 -
(from an earlier post- I can't figure out how to copy)
"I remember once my brother and I were at this conference and there was a man who was 400+ pound man in front of us. We were just so amazed that anyone could ever take themselves to that point. An old man leaned forward from the row behind us and whispered "when i was your age we'd have to go to the circus to see someone that big!"
That is crazy!"
The "how could they let themselves get like that" comment has always been irritating to me, for just the reason that this post brings up. "How they could let themselves get like that" involves a whole host of factors, including our biology being designed for a food insecure world where we are forced to move all day long. Our psychology is not designed to help us think about restricting our food intake for the sake of our BMI- it's designed to help us store enough fat to reproduce and make it through the lean times. We are also eating food that is designed to make us want more (e.g. easily digestible food-products that marry salt, sweet, and fat, and play to our instincts about what we need to sustain us), and we are living alone, often, with time to become very depressed and little to help us out of it except the comfort of food.
What perplexes me is the disgust we feel for the morbidly obese, when much of us have more pity for those struggling with substance dependence. Many of us feel more intense anxiety/disgust looking at an obese person than a smoker- why? I think it's because we all subconsciously identify with the risk that we all take by living in our modern world and eating modern food, that at any day, if we "let ourselves," we could "get like that." Please don't let the amazing steps you've taken to lose weight make you insensitive to those who have not yet begun that battle. Believe me, it's not because they are happy and lazy- they are struggling and likely working harder than you think on whatever their demon of the year is.
Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Calorie Counter
Well said. No one WANTS to be 400 lbs. And you never know another person's journey until you've walked in their shoes.0 -
My grandmother had 7 girls, a husband and three farm hands (Lancaster County Mennonite farmer). For lunch EVERY DAY, she made a full meal, bread, meat, veggies, and 5 pies (in her wood-fired oven). It was ALL EATEN every day. But no one was overweight, because they worked all day - up at 4:30 AM, milking, making bread, always moving. There was no sitting around. My mom walked 1 mile to school, back home for lunch, and back to school and then home in the afternoon. 4 miles a day just for school.0
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The video games back then sucked, and then of course there was the lack of porn.
I'll take my chances with modern food
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I agree, but we seem to work more and sit at the computer in our jobs than they did in that era. I am trying to go back to the old days of making all of your own meals from scratch and not buying ready made meals, packets or jars. Keep going youre doing really well.0
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I'm 41 and in Ireland. When I was a teenager there were no fat teenagers. May one per school. And back then, fat was two dress sizes bigger than your friends! Now, it seems to me that young people (I sound grumpy typing that) will all drink lucozade and coke all day long. The 'older' people seem to drink cups of tea/coffee or water. It is definitely rarer for me to see a fat person my age than it is to see a fat young person. That's shocking. The diabetes epidemic we must be facing ... omg.0
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I think there are a lot of factors that contribute, but for children, I feel like the lack of playing outdoors and the presence of junk food are big problems.
I am 40, and in the 70s when I was growing up, kids in my neighborhood played all. Day. Long. Every day. I remember my dad coming to the end of our street and giving a big attention getting whistle to call us home if we were still out playing when the street lights came on.
And junk food...while my folks weren't part of the health food revolution (our neighbors were...no chocolate, only carob), we didn't have Doritos or Cheetos in the house. Mostly because my Mom didn't want to clean up greasy orange fingerprints.
My folks also limited our TV and we were really too strapped financially to go to fast food restaurants...my Mom is a retired social worker, and when my Dad was alive, he taught in the public school system. Spending $10 at a fast food restaurant when instead that could be an entire meal plus leftovers...we just didn't do it very often.
We also had chores to do every night. Sweeping the floors, mowing the lawn, doing dishes by hand (the dishwasher was perpetually broken), folding clothes, ironing, vacuuming...these were the requirements of living in our home, not for allowance. We were not sitting on our fannies, playing video games and watching 5 hours of television every night. This is how it was in my house and in my neighborhood.
I just think things have changed. It's not just nostalgia talking...it's that the world is different and we seem to let it carry us along...0
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