why were people so skinny in the 70s?

Am I the only one that thinks fast food doesn't taste good?

No, I tend to steer clear too, I just cannot stand MacDonalds. BurgerKing do nothing for me at all. I like Wimpy but the last time had one of those was about a year ago. KFC although tasty, I can take it or leave it. The only fast food I do enjoy is fish and chips, but even that is a rare occurrence.

Pizza from a takeaway is nice, but I can spend all those calories on more food at home to be honest.

Sugar was indeed invented back than, I was there lmao.

however, the AMOUNT of sugar and fructose and glucose and especially HI-Fructose in foods was NOWHERE near what it is today... I think sugar it more of a filler these days, and it help to establish a BLISS point with eating that allows us to consume crappy foods and think they taste great....

Europe doesn't have the same sugars in their foods and never has, to my knowledge.

It's even in tortillas now. smh.

1. No Internet.
2. No video games.
3. Home cooked meals (from scratch) ........... Fast food was to $$$ then for family .
4. Kids played outside after school. .............. Street hockey, field baseball, swimming in the lake and skating on it in winter.
5. Parents didn't drive kids everywhere, we rode our bikes or walked. ....... So their was time to cook a good meal.

That was my life...

2 words: Richard Simmons

:laugh:

My sister and I weren't allowed to eat anything that we wanted. We could have a snack between meals, not snacks. Chips and sweets were treats, not something we had every day. We had to eat our vegetables or there was no dessert, and desserts were small. Also, we walked to and from school, we had P.E. and 75 minutes of lunch + recess during the day, went to track practice twice a week and went hiking, biking or to track meets at least one day on the weekends. Adding it up, I exercised at least as much when I was a kid as I do now.

I had no idea there would be so many responses for this question. Thank you so much everyone out there who has answered so far! I am going to start a new diet called project: 70s.

Here are the criteria to those who would liked to join me:

1. no internet (oxy moron since im here typing but I'm going to quit using the internet, if i absolutely have to, i will go on no longer than 10 minutes per day, and also standing)
2. i will be more active, i will not sit as long as there is daylight, i will go on walks, rollerskate, and go outside
3. eat home cooked meals, and even baked goods here and there, everything and i mean everything is going to be made from scratch! even bread, it will be fun to try out recipes. fruits and veg are good too. NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP! if you HAVE to eat something not home cooked, no more than 5 ingredients on the ingredient list and if one must have pop, opt for pepsi throwback or mexican coke: we're going full out 70s.

so these are the main criteria, some may say this is crazy but this will equal weight loss for sure, if they were skinny in the 70s, we can be skinny too! be more active, home cooked meals, less time sitting around on internet! lets go!

Haha, no offense, but no thanks. The only thing great about the 70's was the cars:laugh: I truly appreciate the technological progress that has been made in the last 40 years. I don't know how we lived without the internet and I love the fact that we can communicate like this. Plus I don't believe there's anything wrong with HFCS... good luck with your challenge though. :flowerforyou:

didn't have food on every corner, gas stations were for gas, not food and drinks. candy and fast food very rare treat. always outside and active. only 3 channels on tv and parents limited viewing hours. no video games.
Oh and didn't have all the chemicals added to food, no chemically altered veggies, no growth hormones in beef.

...Drugs.

That is the 1st thing that popped into my head but......there would have been lots of dope around - therefore lots of 'munchies' hmmm...The mind ponders.

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.

^^This

I am a foreigner and in the last 27 years I have only visited the US. However in 1976 I moved to a 5000 people town in Northern Iowa. The town has a very well known college, is the seat of a well known insurance company and had other good chances for employment, but basically it was/is an agricultural town ( corn, soy and pork production ).
In the almost ten years I lived there no one walked ( most streets did not even have sidewalks ), most people went by car, even if it it was only two blocks to the post office, Hy-Vee or Safeway. I lot of people I knew had cable and kids did not really play outside a lot, because most of them were really busy with after school activities, many of them in 4-H......the same was true for vacations. Lots of kids went to camp ( day camp or or weeks at a time ), music camp, math camp etc, had summer school, especially if both parents worked, which was already popular then or helped their parents on the farm.
After reading all of the thread, I really wonder if this small town was just a weird exception, because I really can't and won't say that what so many people reported was probably true for the 50's and 60's, but not so much anymore in the second half of the 70's.
I also did not think that people were that skinny. They were maybe not extremely obese, but many were definitely overweight. My then-husband's family lived in various places over Iowa and Minnesota and it looked to me that they were pretty much the same. So why did I have such a direct opposite experience from many of the people who reported in this thread ?
I am from the German Black Forest where we truly walked a couple of kms to school, in winter on skis.....of course my childhood and youth were much earlier . I was 30 when I moved to Iowa and remember very clearly thinking that Americans were kind of lazy, stuck in front of their TV a lot and eating out at chain restaurants ( Country Kitchen, Sambo's, Howard Johnson, Golden Coral and Westtern Sizzler if I remember right were the most popular ones) a lot . It is true portions were smaller then, but still really big for someone from the European hinterland. What really never ceased to amaze me was the lack of sidewalks....there was nowhere to walk safely.......the same was btw. true for Waterloo and Cedar Falls the two biggest town close to us.

PS: I also remember lots of people eating frozen TV dinner from " Hungry Man " stuff to pot pies and those with a bit more awareness ( or maybe $$$) eating Stouffer's. Lots of Mac & Cheese, Tatertot casseroles , brownies, ice cream by the gallon...at least that is my experience.

I am a foreigner and in the last 27 years I have only visited the US. However in 1976 I moved to a 5000 people town in Northern Iowa. The town has a very well known college, is the seat of a well known insurance company and had other good chances for employment, but basically it was/is an agricultural town ( corn, soy and pork production ).
In the almost ten years I lived there no one walked ( most streets did not even have sidewalks ), most people went by car, even if it it was only two blocks to the post office, Hy-Vee or Safeway. I lot of people I knew had cable and kids did not really play outside a lot, because most of them were really busy with after school activities, many of them in 4-H......the same was true for vacations. Lots of kids went to camp ( day camp or or weeks at a time ), music camp, math camp etc, had summer school, especially if both parents worked, which was already popular then or helped their parents on the farm.
After reading all of the thread, I really wonder if this small town was just a weird exception, because I really can't and won't say that what so many people reported was probably true for the 50's and 60's, but not so much anymore in the second half of the 70's.
I also did not think that people were that skinny. They were maybe not extremely obese, but many were definitely overweight. My then-husband's family lived in various places over Iowa and Minnesota and it looked to me that they were pretty much the same. So why did I have such a direct opposite experience from many of the people who reported in this thread ?
I am from the German Black Forest where we truly walked a couple of kms to school, in winter on skis.....of course my childhood and youth were much earlier . I was 30 when I moved to Iowa and remember very clearly thinking that Americans were kind of lazy, stuck in front of their TV a lot and eating out at chain restaurants ( Country Kitchen, Sambo's, Howard Johnson, Golden Coral and Westtern Sizzler if I remember right were the most popular ones) a lot . It is true portions were smaller then, but still really big for someone from the European hinterland. What really never ceased to amaze me was the lack of sidewalks....there was nowhere to walk safely.......the same was btw. true for Waterloo and Cedar Falls the two biggest town close to us.

PS: I also remember lots of people eating frozen TV dinner from " Hungry Man " stuff to pot pies and those with a bit more awareness ( or maybe $$$) eating Stouffer's. Lots of Mac & Cheese, Tatertot casseroles , brownies, ice cream by the gallon...at least that is my experience.

You make plenty of good points. I was just a kid in the 70's, but I remember plenty of overweight people, fast food restaurants and plenty of overeating going on, as well as plenty of other unhealthy habits. Our memories get coloured by nostalgia. There was certainly a ton of smoking going on, everywhere you went.... the only exception was hospital rooms where there was oxygen. Everywhere else was fair game. And if you needed information about something, you had to truck your butt to the library and hope that THAT letter of the encyclopedia hadn't been checked out by someone else. :laugh: There was an awful lot of drinking and driving going on too, and you don't see that nearly so much anymore. We've made a lot of progress in some good directions.

Microwave ovens came main stream in the mid 70s. Hot food in a minute. When you could buy a stove/oven combo for under $400, our first microwave was $800. We were never come home from school and have PB&J people. Actually didn't eat them until I was much older. I wanted food. My mom had stuff delivered to the house once a week. All those cheeseburgers, pork sandwiches, etc. that you could get in convience stores that were in the freezer and you could pop them in the microwave. Looking back now, I realize how nasty they were. My parents were both at the store we owned, and we got home at 3, and dinner would not be ready until 6 or 6:30. I think that, and the beginning of cable TV and Pong was the beginning of the bloat.

Cocaine.