why were people so skinny in the 70s?
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My family was poor and we ate processed food like Spam, government cheese, Tang and Kool Aid. We went out to eat once a month if Dad got his bonus. We walked everywhere or rode our bikes. And we were out playing War or Capture the Flag or Hide and Seek all day until dark if we weren't building forts or roller skating.6
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I was an adult in the 70s. There was processed food. I grew up on Wonder Bread! I think portions were smaller, whether it was homemade or a TV dinner (which I also grew up on). We weren’t as sedentary, that is true. I also think stress has something to do with weight gain and we are living in a stressful world. And there is high fructose corn syrup in everything.5
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Snowflake1968 wrote: »beaches222 wrote: »People had gardens and grew much of there own food and kids played outside constantly. Now days you have to make your kids go outside. It wasn't much eating out like people do now and it definitely wasn't any SUPER SIZE IT. LOL
Listening to complaints from the young mothers in my life, so many people disagree with children being outside playing now without adult supervision 100% of the time. I think it causes fear of CPS being called with parents that want to raise their kids "the old fashioned way" and send their kids outside.
I 100% agree with the food, we got to eat out as a treat maybe once a month or so and even then it was a sit down restaurant, not fast food so the food was always "homecooked" style. The area I'm from only got it's first fast food place in 1997. We did have in the summer, drive up canteens but again, all fresh never frozen except the fries. Headquarters of McCain's was close by.
Dang! The first fast food place was in 1997. Which one did you get?0 -
I know we could all discuss and debate this forever. And probably will.
Talking about it recently with friends (offline) we were all considering one possibility that food wasn't as much of an entertainment thing as it is now. I am sure that's been mentioned in this thread many times but I do think it is true.
Even in the 90s for example, teenage girls pretty much acted like they never ate or drank. It wasn't cool to be seen chowing down at Taco Bell even though everyone did just that. Now, even stylish teenage girls are featuring their acai breakfast bowl brunches, bowls of pho & ramen, sushi, unicorn Frappuccinos, boutique cupcakes that cost $9...food is an accessory and an activity more than it ever was in the past.
I think in the 70s, there were not all that many "cool" or "fun" foods...food was seen more as fuel or something nerdy that just wasn't cool to partake of. Marketing was not targeting the segments it is now. Food was for kids and for families, pretty much. Wholesome & boring and bland. Now we have food companies marketing to every category of people and often focusing on the young and hip. It's even seen as aspirational and definitely as a source of entertainment & "fun".
In our shift to not smoking and drinking being less glamorous, we've embraced food, food, and more food...bigger, better, faster food...along with high-calorie venti lattes and mochas. Just another thought.7 -
seltzermint555 wrote: »
Talking about it recently with friends (offline) we were all considering one possibility that food wasn't as much of an entertainment thing as it is now. I am sure that's been mentioned in this thread many times but I do think it is true.
Now we have food companies marketing to every category of people and often focusing on the young and hip. It's even seen as aspirational and definitely as a source of entertainment & "fun".
In our shift to not smoking and drinking being less glamorous, we've embraced food, food, and more food...bigger, better, faster food...along with high-calorie venti lattes and mochas. Just another thought.
I was thinking about this too... food as entertainment. I know some years back when I still watched morning shows (Today), I remember wondering when every minor holiday/event had become an excuse for a food blowout ("Coming up... the perfect Arbor Day menu!"). And of course nowadays we have hundreds of websites/channels devoted to food. I have a couple of FB friends that post a steady stream of decadent recipe ideas. Food shows & recipes don't make people fat, of course, but I think it helps keeps food on the brain. And I think you're on to something there with the thought about trendy beverages & food taking over for smoking & drinking. In the 70s, my parents always had a cigarette and/or a drink in their hands, but didn't seem to care so much about food. Now everybody has a Starbucks cup in their hands and our entertainment often revolves around food.
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We've already mentioned portion sizes and fast food. Not to pick on Starbuck's but considering that a lot of people make it a daily habit to buy these coffee milkshakes (and they aren't small either) that's a lot of calories if one drinks one daily. In the old days, in 1980s, it was very rare to buy coffee to go. I remember a few trucks when I was working in NYC, that would self coffee (I think it was 25 cents back then) but the paper cups were small about 6 oz - 8 oz. and you could get it black or with milk/sugar. But that was it. No such thing as a latte. At work there was a coffee pot and you drank it black or with milk/sugar and it was 4 oz. There is one coffee chain shop in my city that makes delicious COFFEE, but you cannot get any flavored stuff at all. They have lattes, capuccino and mocha, but that's it for the fancy stuff. Today I bought a coffee from them and there were tourists in there who asked for flavored coffee latte (milkshake) and they didn't know what to do when they said they had no flavors!2
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lucerorojo wrote: »We've already mentioned portion sizes and fast food. Not to pick on Starbuck's but considering that a lot of people make it a daily habit to buy these coffee milkshakes (and they aren't small either) that's a lot of calories if one drinks one daily. In the old days, in 1980s, it was very rare to buy coffee to go. I remember a few trucks when I was working in NYC, that would self coffee (I think it was 25 cents back then) but the paper cups were small about 6 oz - 8 oz. and you could get it black or with milk/sugar. But that was it. No such thing as a latte. At work there was a coffee pot and you drank it black or with milk/sugar and it was 4 oz. There is one coffee chain shop in my city that makes delicious COFFEE, but you cannot get any flavored stuff at all. They have lattes, capuccino and mocha, but that's it for the fancy stuff. Today I bought a coffee from them and there were tourists in there who asked for flavored coffee latte (milkshake) and they didn't know what to do when they said they had no flavors!
I was never a coffee drinker until coffee *drinks* started to come in vogue and my mom would always tell me, "You don't want coffee... you want dessert." She wasn't wrong4 -
The Happy Meal size was the adult portion size! Portion sizes have doubled or more for restaurants.2
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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?
Because the small soda we have today at the fast food restaurants is the large of the 1970s. Plus, we now have free refills.
I'd say we eat more and move less than we did then.
I was a kid in the 1970s and we were outside on our bikes or playing football, baseball and basketball all summer. Today, kids (and parents) are on some screen that hadn't been invented back then.
We eat more and move less.1 -
I remember the 70s pretty well. As a rapid growing kid (I pretty much peaked in 8th grade/9th grade in height to 5' 10") and the youngest of six, food was pretty basic. If we got Pop Tarts or Cereal, that was a treat. You'd look in the pantry and it was either Peanut Butter or Oatmeal a lot of days. I do think the convenience foods (both at home and out) contribute to obesity, along with lack of exercise today. Soda was also a huge treat back then, not something you drank morning, noon and night (I live in Southern Ohio, where the breakfast of champions is Mountain Dew, Cigarettes and BBQ chips and I'm not kidding).1
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This is really interesting. I grew up playing outside every day, TV was only on for an hour max per day with Saturday morning cartoons being the exception, mom cooked all our meals and we had reasonable portions and one plate (though we did the 'don't get up until the last bite is eaten'), we never had fast food, pizza was home made and restaurants didn't really happen unless it was a family event of some sort. We did have sweets and candy bars for snacks and mom liberally buttered and salted all food, but I was always super active playing with friends outside for hours and hours.
And yet, I was a fat kid. So I'm not really sure on the whole 'we were more active, normal portion sizes' hypothesis.
In any case nicotine is an appetite suppressant and for adults I'm convinced there's a correlation.5 -
So, I was a kid in the 70's. I can assure you that sugar and processed foods abounded and parents were far less hung up on it than parents are now (seems like every kid in my class had Twinkies or cupcakes or Oreos in their lunches every day). We did NOT eat meals cooked from scratch every night (my mom worked nights, Dad made us frozen chicken pot pies, hot dogs, or something out of a can) or grow our own food. We had PE twice a week (my kids now have it 3x) and we ate fast food at least once a week, sometimes more, since we had piano lessons, soccer practices, and assorted other things in the evenings that prevented us from eating at home on those nights. I took the bus to and from school. We played outside sometimes on weekends, but were just as likely to be inside doing chores or dragged to some event by my parents. We played video games for hours on end. We ate cereal and drank juice for breakfast every morning and took PB&J in our sack lunches. Granola bars were health food. We overdid it on candy every holiday. We drank soda multiple times a week. In spite of all this I was a skinny kid. So were almost all my friends.
Some of the people posting here seem to be confusing the 70's with the pioneer days, lol.
Bottom line is that I don't know why people were skinnier then because people seem a lot more health conscious now. I do think that people eat in restaurants more often now, but probably not that much more. Portions are probably larger. Kids have somewhat less free time, but not that much less, we had school and homework and working parents and lots of activities back then, too. It sure seems to me that there has to be something else going on.5 -
I also believe that the food industry is guilty of using additives that have a known addictive effect. The cigarette industry was caught red-handed doing that and they were forced to stop the additives. We have grown to crave sugars and salt and highly seasoned foods. It's like we have to be over-stimulated to be satisfied. Also, what you said, much less activity and poor eating habits.
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Larger portions, housewives would cook dinner, more likely to walk/bike instead of drive, more pressure to stay thin, less options for plus size clothing, gov't didn't subsidize the crap out of sugar and corn, etc...2
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There's the obvious... all the fast food and little to no exercise. Working an office job and sitting in front of a computer all day instead of moving around and then coming home and being too tired to work out surely plays a part.
But what about prescription medications? It's been estimated that upwards of 1/4 of people on an antidepressant gains weight. These medications are a lot more prevalent now than they were in the 70's.5 -
So, I was a kid in the 70's. I can assure you that sugar and processed foods abounded and parents were far less hung up on it than parents are now (seems like every kid in my class had Twinkies or cupcakes or Oreos in their lunches every day). We did NOT eat meals cooked from scratch every night (my mom worked nights, Dad made us frozen chicken pot pies, hot dogs, or something out of a can) or grow our own food. We had PE twice a week (my kids now have it 3x) and we ate fast food at least once a week, sometimes more, since we had piano lessons, soccer practices, and assorted other things in the evenings that prevented us from eating at home on those nights. I took the bus to and from school. We played outside sometimes on weekends, but were just as likely to be inside doing chores or dragged to some event by my parents. We played video games for hours on end. We ate cereal and drank juice for breakfast every morning and took PB&J in our sack lunches. Granola bars were health food. We overdid it on candy every holiday. We drank soda multiple times a week. In spite of all this I was a skinny kid. So were almost all my friends.
Some of the people posting here seem to be confusing the 70's with the pioneer days, lol.
Bottom line is that I don't know why people were skinnier then because people seem a lot more health conscious now. I do think that people eat in restaurants more often now, but probably not that much more. Portions are probably larger. Kids have somewhat less free time, but not that much less, we had school and homework and working parents and lots of activities back then, too. It sure seems to me that there has to be something else going on.
Different from you, in high school we had PE DAILY. So 5 days a week. I took it every year, I loved it. We had so many different classes, gymnastics, slimnastics, modern dance, all the team sports, running. Snacks were not something we did in my home, and like others said we didn't eat out much, soda was a treat--we rarely had it in my house and we had to ask permission to eat or drink anything (but water). That was probably a big difference from many families.1 -
People didn't stay cooped up inside or glued to a screen, like they are now. People also did stuff, alot of stuff, that wasn't sitting down at a desk.2
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lucerorojo wrote: »So, I was a kid in the 70's. I can assure you that sugar and processed foods abounded and parents were far less hung up on it than parents are now (seems like every kid in my class had Twinkies or cupcakes or Oreos in their lunches every day). We did NOT eat meals cooked from scratch every night (my mom worked nights, Dad made us frozen chicken pot pies, hot dogs, or something out of a can) or grow our own food. We had PE twice a week (my kids now have it 3x) and we ate fast food at least once a week, sometimes more, since we had piano lessons, soccer practices, and assorted other things in the evenings that prevented us from eating at home on those nights. I took the bus to and from school. We played outside sometimes on weekends, but were just as likely to be inside doing chores or dragged to some event by my parents. We played video games for hours on end. We ate cereal and drank juice for breakfast every morning and took PB&J in our sack lunches. Granola bars were health food. We overdid it on candy every holiday. We drank soda multiple times a week. In spite of all this I was a skinny kid. So were almost all my friends.
Some of the people posting here seem to be confusing the 70's with the pioneer days, lol.
Bottom line is that I don't know why people were skinnier then because people seem a lot more health conscious now. I do think that people eat in restaurants more often now, but probably not that much more. Portions are probably larger. Kids have somewhat less free time, but not that much less, we had school and homework and working parents and lots of activities back then, too. It sure seems to me that there has to be something else going on.
Different from you, in high school we had PE DAILY. So 5 days a week. I took it every year, I loved it. We had so many different classes, gymnastics, slimnastics, modern dance, all the team sports, running. Snacks were not something we did in my home, and like others said we didn't eat out much, soda was a treat--we rarely had it in my house and we had to ask permission to eat or drink anything (but water). That was probably a big difference from many families.
I wasn't alive in the 70's, but PE was required in my school up until 11th grade when it became an elective. This was the early 2000's. I don't recall there really being a lot of overweight people in my class at all. But even when I was a child we played outside all the time after school. Summers were spent biking around the neighborhood and playing sports and tag. I don't see kids outside playing like they used to anymore because there's so much concern for their safety. So much has changed in a lot shorter period of time than the 70's.4 -
Round and round we go...5
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