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1980s definatly, and back..Why were people more fit, toned and healthy Looking?
Replies
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I was an 80s kid.
We had one meal a day.
The rest were... snacks. So, so many snacks.
Also gained weight when I started working at a desk job.3 -
janejellyroll wrote: »People in the 1980s ate 3 meals per day and didn't snack.
Every time you eat you spike your insulin. If you're constantly snacking your basal insulin levels are UP.
years of excess carbs -> high basal insulin -> obesity -> fatty liver -> ever increasing insulin resistance -> T2D -> strokes, heart attacks, blindness, kidney failure, dementia, amputations, ED, cancer, etc -> early death
Good for big food, big pharma, and big health insurance. Very bad for you. Physicians are their unwitting "agents"..
I have actual memories of being alive in the 1980s. There were snacks.
So do I and there were definitely snacks. My family did not eat 3 meals a day - usually never had a 'breakfast' type meal, just lunch and supper. We had breakfast foods in the house (cereal - Wheaties, Cheerios, Wheat Chex, Pop Tarts, etc) but being busy high school students, we just didn't eat breakfast before school. Weekends we were either busy with some school activity or working, so no breakfast then either. We made up the difference in calories by snacking from the machines at school (cokes mainly) or grabbing something on the go between activities. Oh, and just for the record, I weighed about 150 lbs (at 5' 8") when I graduated high school. The biggest difference has been the amount of physical activity I did then vs what I do now - I did not gain any appreciable weight until I got a desk job and stopped moving so much.
There definitely were snacks. I remember getting Little Debbie cakes between class and after-school activities. We sometimes had commercial snack foods at home. I remember bugles. I remember baken-ets. We weren't allowed to eat them often. I remember cans of mixed nuts. My mom used to roast peanuts. There were also usually some kinds of baked goods.
I definitely had classmates that weren't, shall we say, svelte. There also were adults of all sizes.
But that was all the real world. The actors on television were not a reflection of real people all the time. There was even Fat Albert in the cartoons, and nobody thought that it was odd that there was an oversized person even on a cartoon.3 -
I’m older. Grade school in the 50s. 3 meals a day every day. We could eat between times, but no pop tarts, chips, candy bars in the house. We could snack on fruit or carrots or celery or a pb sandwich, or we could cook(including cake or brownies). To drink at my house was water or milk. Sometimes kool aid. No soda.
That was typical of my friends‘ houses too.2 -
janejellyroll wrote: »People in the 1980s ate 3 meals per day and didn't snack.
Every time you eat you spike your insulin. If you're constantly snacking your basal insulin levels are UP.
years of excess carbs -> high basal insulin -> obesity -> fatty liver -> ever increasing insulin resistance -> T2D -> strokes, heart attacks, blindness, kidney failure, dementia, amputations, ED, cancer, etc -> early death
Good for big food, big pharma, and big health insurance. Very bad for you. Physicians are their unwitting "agents"..
I have actual memories of being alive in the 1980s. There were snacks.
So do I and there were definitely snacks. My family did not eat 3 meals a day - usually never had a 'breakfast' type meal, just lunch and supper. We had breakfast foods in the house (cereal - Wheaties, Cheerios, Wheat Chex, Pop Tarts, etc) but being busy high school students, we just didn't eat breakfast before school. Weekends we were either busy with some school activity or working, so no breakfast then either. We made up the difference in calories by snacking from the machines at school (cokes mainly) or grabbing something on the go between activities. Oh, and just for the record, I weighed about 150 lbs (at 5' 8") when I graduated high school. The biggest difference has been the amount of physical activity I did then vs what I do now - I did not gain any appreciable weight until I got a desk job and stopped moving so much.
There definitely were snacks. I remember getting Little Debbie cakes between class and after-school activities. We sometimes had commercial snack foods at home. I remember bugles. I remember baken-ets. We weren't allowed to eat them often. I remember cans of mixed nuts. My mom used to roast peanuts. There were also usually some kinds of baked goods.
I definitely had classmates that weren't, shall we say, svelte. There also were adults of all sizes.
But that was all the real world. The actors on television were not a reflection of real people all the time. There was even Fat Albert in the cartoons, and nobody thought that it was odd that there was an oversized person even on a cartoon.
I would disagree the the bolded. Fat Albert was a character because he was significantly fatter than the other kids and therefore unique. Now Fat Albert is much more of the norm.4 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »People in the 1980s ate 3 meals per day and didn't snack.
Every time you eat you spike your insulin. If you're constantly snacking your basal insulin levels are UP.
years of excess carbs -> high basal insulin -> obesity -> fatty liver -> ever increasing insulin resistance -> T2D -> strokes, heart attacks, blindness, kidney failure, dementia, amputations, ED, cancer, etc -> early death
Good for big food, big pharma, and big health insurance. Very bad for you. Physicians are their unwitting "agents"..
I have actual memories of being alive in the 1980s. There were snacks.
So do I and there were definitely snacks. My family did not eat 3 meals a day - usually never had a 'breakfast' type meal, just lunch and supper. We had breakfast foods in the house (cereal - Wheaties, Cheerios, Wheat Chex, Pop Tarts, etc) but being busy high school students, we just didn't eat breakfast before school. Weekends we were either busy with some school activity or working, so no breakfast then either. We made up the difference in calories by snacking from the machines at school (cokes mainly) or grabbing something on the go between activities. Oh, and just for the record, I weighed about 150 lbs (at 5' 8") when I graduated high school. The biggest difference has been the amount of physical activity I did then vs what I do now - I did not gain any appreciable weight until I got a desk job and stopped moving so much.
There definitely were snacks. I remember getting Little Debbie cakes between class and after-school activities. We sometimes had commercial snack foods at home. I remember bugles. I remember baken-ets. We weren't allowed to eat them often. I remember cans of mixed nuts. My mom used to roast peanuts. There were also usually some kinds of baked goods.
I definitely had classmates that weren't, shall we say, svelte. There also were adults of all sizes.
But that was all the real world. The actors on television were not a reflection of real people all the time. There was even Fat Albert in the cartoons, and nobody thought that it was odd that there was an oversized person even on a cartoon.
I would disagree the the bolded. Fat Albert was a character because he was significantly fatter than the other kids and therefore unique. Now Fat Albert is much more of the norm.
Winnie the Pooh was also not svelte. Nor was Home Simpson, but that was after the '80s; that was in the '90s when it started, and there's quite a few plus sizers there. There was Wimpy who would pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Even Fred Flinstone. Elmer Fudd. Porky Pig. Not everyone was thin in the '80s. I wasn't. I'm not even a cartoon.
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »People in the 1980s ate 3 meals per day and didn't snack.
Every time you eat you spike your insulin. If you're constantly snacking your basal insulin levels are UP.
years of excess carbs -> high basal insulin -> obesity -> fatty liver -> ever increasing insulin resistance -> T2D -> strokes, heart attacks, blindness, kidney failure, dementia, amputations, ED, cancer, etc -> early death
Good for big food, big pharma, and big health insurance. Very bad for you. Physicians are their unwitting "agents"..
I have actual memories of being alive in the 1980s. There were snacks.
So do I and there were definitely snacks. My family did not eat 3 meals a day - usually never had a 'breakfast' type meal, just lunch and supper. We had breakfast foods in the house (cereal - Wheaties, Cheerios, Wheat Chex, Pop Tarts, etc) but being busy high school students, we just didn't eat breakfast before school. Weekends we were either busy with some school activity or working, so no breakfast then either. We made up the difference in calories by snacking from the machines at school (cokes mainly) or grabbing something on the go between activities. Oh, and just for the record, I weighed about 150 lbs (at 5' 8") when I graduated high school. The biggest difference has been the amount of physical activity I did then vs what I do now - I did not gain any appreciable weight until I got a desk job and stopped moving so much.
There definitely were snacks. I remember getting Little Debbie cakes between class and after-school activities. We sometimes had commercial snack foods at home. I remember bugles. I remember baken-ets. We weren't allowed to eat them often. I remember cans of mixed nuts. My mom used to roast peanuts. There were also usually some kinds of baked goods.
I definitely had classmates that weren't, shall we say, svelte. There also were adults of all sizes.
But that was all the real world. The actors on television were not a reflection of real people all the time. There was even Fat Albert in the cartoons, and nobody thought that it was odd that there was an oversized person even on a cartoon.
I would disagree the the bolded. Fat Albert was a character because he was significantly fatter than the other kids and therefore unique. Now Fat Albert is much more of the norm.
Winnie the Pooh was also not svelte. Nor was Home Simpson, but that was after the '80s; that was in the '90s when it started, and there's quite a few plus sizers there. There was Wimpy who would pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Even Fred Flinstone. Elmer Fudd. Porky Pig. Not everyone was thin in the '80s. I wasn't. I'm not even a cartoon.
Fat Albert was the cartoon version of a childhood friend of Bill Cosby's who was fat. The idea of a fat kid in Cosby's childhood (which was more like in the 1950's) was unique.
Fat Albert Robertson (voiced by Bill Cosby; singing by Michael Gray)[9] is based on Cosby's childhood friend Albert Robertson. The main character in the series, he is usually the conscience of the Junkyard Gang. Though very obese, he is athletic and enjoys playing sports. He always wears a red shirt and blue pants. Civic-minded and wise beyond his years, Fat Albert works hard to maintain integrity in the gang and with others, and is the lead singer as well as bagpipe-accordion (made from a funnel, radiator and an airbag) player in the Junkyard Band and on occasion, plays the bedspring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Albert_and_the_Cosby_Kids
The characters you mention are totally made up.
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Winnie the Pooh was also not svelte. Nor was Home Simpson, but that was after the '80s; that was in the '90s when it started, and there's quite a few plus sizers there. There was Wimpy who would pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Even Fred Flinstone. Elmer Fudd. Porky Pig. Not everyone was thin in the '80s. I wasn't. I'm not even a cartoon.Theoldguy1 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »People in the 1980s ate 3 meals per day and didn't snack.
Every time you eat you spike your insulin. If you're constantly snacking your basal insulin levels are UP.
years of excess carbs -> high basal insulin -> obesity -> fatty liver -> ever increasing insulin resistance -> T2D -> strokes, heart attacks, blindness, kidney failure, dementia, amputations, ED, cancer, etc -> early death
Good for big food, big pharma, and big health insurance. Very bad for you. Physicians are their unwitting "agents"..
I have actual memories of being alive in the 1980s. There were snacks.
So do I and there were definitely snacks. My family did not eat 3 meals a day - usually never had a 'breakfast' type meal, just lunch and supper. We had breakfast foods in the house (cereal - Wheaties, Cheerios, Wheat Chex, Pop Tarts, etc) but being busy high school students, we just didn't eat breakfast before school. Weekends we were either busy with some school activity or working, so no breakfast then either. We made up the difference in calories by snacking from the machines at school (cokes mainly) or grabbing something on the go between activities. Oh, and just for the record, I weighed about 150 lbs (at 5' 8") when I graduated high school. The biggest difference has been the amount of physical activity I did then vs what I do now - I did not gain any appreciable weight until I got a desk job and stopped moving so much.
There definitely were snacks. I remember getting Little Debbie cakes between class and after-school activities. We sometimes had commercial snack foods at home. I remember bugles. I remember baken-ets. We weren't allowed to eat them often. I remember cans of mixed nuts. My mom used to roast peanuts. There were also usually some kinds of baked goods.
I definitely had classmates that weren't, shall we say, svelte. There also were adults of all sizes.
But that was all the real world. The actors on television were not a reflection of real people all the time. There was even Fat Albert in the cartoons, and nobody thought that it was odd that there was an oversized person even on a cartoon.
I would disagree the the bolded. Fat Albert was a character because he was significantly fatter than the other kids and therefore unique. Now Fat Albert is much more of the norm.
Yup. Excess weight was less common, but not non-existant. In the 1960s, my mom was overweight then obese, one grandmother was definitely obese.
I was an adult in the 70s, and there were definitely snacks. I do think snack foods were less frequent/ubiquitous in an overall culture sense in the 1950s-70s compared to now, but lots of variation among families and individuals in eating patterns. I wasn't the only person who had snacks in the 1950s and beyond. (Candy dishes and cookie jars go waaay back, y'know. People don't have specialized dishware for things they don't eat.)
Now that I think of it, I probably transitioned from a healthy weight to overweight then obese starting in the 1980s (I turned 25 in 1980), kind of in parallel with development of the "obesity crisis". The reason was *not* a shift from 3 meals a day to snacks. It was 100% for sure eating more (mostly in the 2 to 3 meals a day, BTW) and moving less.4 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »People in the 1980s ate 3 meals per day and didn't snack.
Every time you eat you spike your insulin. If you're constantly snacking your basal insulin levels are UP.
years of excess carbs -> high basal insulin -> obesity -> fatty liver -> ever increasing insulin resistance -> T2D -> strokes, heart attacks, blindness, kidney failure, dementia, amputations, ED, cancer, etc -> early death
Good for big food, big pharma, and big health insurance. Very bad for you. Physicians are their unwitting "agents"..
I have actual memories of being alive in the 1980s. There were snacks.
So do I and there were definitely snacks. My family did not eat 3 meals a day - usually never had a 'breakfast' type meal, just lunch and supper. We had breakfast foods in the house (cereal - Wheaties, Cheerios, Wheat Chex, Pop Tarts, etc) but being busy high school students, we just didn't eat breakfast before school. Weekends we were either busy with some school activity or working, so no breakfast then either. We made up the difference in calories by snacking from the machines at school (cokes mainly) or grabbing something on the go between activities. Oh, and just for the record, I weighed about 150 lbs (at 5' 8") when I graduated high school. The biggest difference has been the amount of physical activity I did then vs what I do now - I did not gain any appreciable weight until I got a desk job and stopped moving so much.
There definitely were snacks. I remember getting Little Debbie cakes between class and after-school activities. We sometimes had commercial snack foods at home. I remember bugles. I remember baken-ets. We weren't allowed to eat them often. I remember cans of mixed nuts. My mom used to roast peanuts. There were also usually some kinds of baked goods.
I definitely had classmates that weren't, shall we say, svelte. There also were adults of all sizes.
But that was all the real world. The actors on television were not a reflection of real people all the time. There was even Fat Albert in the cartoons, and nobody thought that it was odd that there was an oversized person even on a cartoon.
I would disagree the the bolded. Fat Albert was a character because he was significantly fatter than the other kids and therefore unique. Now Fat Albert is much more of the norm.
Winnie the Pooh was also not svelte. Nor was Home Simpson, but that was after the '80s; that was in the '90s when it started, and there's quite a few plus sizers there. There was Wimpy who would pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Even Fred Flinstone. Elmer Fudd. Porky Pig. Not everyone was thin in the '80s. I wasn't. I'm not even a cartoon.
Fat Albert was the cartoon version of a childhood friend of Bill Cosby's who was fat. The idea of a fat kid in Cosby's childhood (which was more like in the 1950's) was unique.
Fat Albert Robertson (voiced by Bill Cosby; singing by Michael Gray)[9] is based on Cosby's childhood friend Albert Robertson. The main character in the series, he is usually the conscience of the Junkyard Gang. Though very obese, he is athletic and enjoys playing sports. He always wears a red shirt and blue pants. Civic-minded and wise beyond his years, Fat Albert works hard to maintain integrity in the gang and with others, and is the lead singer as well as bagpipe-accordion (made from a funnel, radiator and an airbag) player in the Junkyard Band and on occasion, plays the bedspring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Albert_and_the_Cosby_Kids
The characters you mention are totally made up.
I forgot that Bill used people from his childhood for this cartoon. Oh how times have changed. Certainly our response to Mr. Cosby has changed in recent years. While I may long for the innocence of youth, I don't want to go through it all again.1 -
I waswunderkindking wrote: »So, so many snacks.
Having an afternoon snack right after school was a solid tradition. We lived near a Hostess Bakery outlet and boxes of Ho-ho's, Banana Flips, Snowballs and Zingers could be had for 50¢. We kids thought nothing of polishing off half a box in one go. Little Debbie apple cakes didn't last long either.2 -
I waswunderkindking wrote: »So, so many snacks.
Having an afternoon snack right after school was a solid tradition. We lived near a Hostess Bakery outlet and boxes of Ho-ho's, Banana Flips, Snowballs and Zingers could be had for 50¢. We kids thought nothing of polishing off half a box in one go. Little Debbie apple cakes didn't last long either.
Of course the activity after the snack was going outside and playing not sitting on a video game eating more snacks like now.
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »
Of course the activity after the snack was going outside and playing not sitting on a video game eating more snacks like now.
Aww heck no! There was serious TV watching to do! lol
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »I waswunderkindking wrote: »So, so many snacks.
Having an afternoon snack right after school was a solid tradition. We lived near a Hostess Bakery outlet and boxes of Ho-ho's, Banana Flips, Snowballs and Zingers could be had for 50¢. We kids thought nothing of polishing off half a box in one go. Little Debbie apple cakes didn't last long either.
Of course the activity after the snack was going outside and playing not sitting on a video game eating more snacks like now.
Well, sometimes I'd have a snack and read a book or play with paper dolls or draw on the Etch-a-Sketch. Modern kids didn't invent sedentary hobbies. There probably are trends in physical activity that are relevant here, but I feel like this conversation overall is really flattening out differences and assuming an experience of 1980s life that is not necessarily accurate.
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »I waswunderkindking wrote: »So, so many snacks.
Having an afternoon snack right after school was a solid tradition. We lived near a Hostess Bakery outlet and boxes of Ho-ho's, Banana Flips, Snowballs and Zingers could be had for 50¢. We kids thought nothing of polishing off half a box in one go. Little Debbie apple cakes didn't last long either.
Of course the activity after the snack was going outside and playing not sitting on a video game eating more snacks like now.
Honestly, no. No. I was playing atari and watching a lot of tv after school from a very young age, too. More balance in my life (as in I played outside - but my kids decades later did that, too, and I still see plenty of kids on bikes, too) - and did a lot of dance, but lots of TV.
Again my weight gain happened when I both got pregnant and started working behind a desk instead of on my feet and walking everywhere. I'm pretty clear what changed from the 80s for me. My activity level and my ability to buy whatever I wanted, in whatever quantity I wanted, without adequate education in nutrition/calories/knowing what TDEE even WAS.2 -
janejellyroll wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »I waswunderkindking wrote: »So, so many snacks.
Having an afternoon snack right after school was a solid tradition. We lived near a Hostess Bakery outlet and boxes of Ho-ho's, Banana Flips, Snowballs and Zingers could be had for 50¢. We kids thought nothing of polishing off half a box in one go. Little Debbie apple cakes didn't last long either.
Of course the activity after the snack was going outside and playing not sitting on a video game eating more snacks like now.
Well, sometimes I'd have a snack and read a book or play with paper dolls or draw on the Etch-a-Sketch. Modern kids didn't invent sedentary hobbies. There probably are trends in physical activity that are relevant here, but I feel like this conversation overall is really flattening out differences and assuming an experience of 1980s life that is not necessarily accurate.
Agreed.
I also feel like it's treating the 80s like it was a million years ago and an entirely different world.
No.
We had prepackaged snacks. Video games. Television/cable. EVEN ELECTRICITY AND INDOOR PLUMBING.8 -
I feel like some of the people on this thread are talking about the 1880s, with their visions of kids who spent no time with "screens" (television and video games).8
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wunderkindking wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »I waswunderkindking wrote: »So, so many snacks.
Having an afternoon snack right after school was a solid tradition. We lived near a Hostess Bakery outlet and boxes of Ho-ho's, Banana Flips, Snowballs and Zingers could be had for 50¢. We kids thought nothing of polishing off half a box in one go. Little Debbie apple cakes didn't last long either.
Of course the activity after the snack was going outside and playing not sitting on a video game eating more snacks like now.
Well, sometimes I'd have a snack and read a book or play with paper dolls or draw on the Etch-a-Sketch. Modern kids didn't invent sedentary hobbies. There probably are trends in physical activity that are relevant here, but I feel like this conversation overall is really flattening out differences and assuming an experience of 1980s life that is not necessarily accurate.
Agreed.
I also feel like it's treating the 80s like it was a million years ago and an entirely different world.
No.
We had prepackaged snacks. Video games. Television/cable. EVEN ELECTRICITY AND INDOOR PLUMBING.
Heh, that's exactly what I've been thinking -- it's the 1980s, not Little House on the Prairie!6 -
wunderkindking wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »I waswunderkindking wrote: »So, so many snacks.
Having an afternoon snack right after school was a solid tradition. We lived near a Hostess Bakery outlet and boxes of Ho-ho's, Banana Flips, Snowballs and Zingers could be had for 50¢. We kids thought nothing of polishing off half a box in one go. Little Debbie apple cakes didn't last long either.
Of course the activity after the snack was going outside and playing not sitting on a video game eating more snacks like now.
Well, sometimes I'd have a snack and read a book or play with paper dolls or draw on the Etch-a-Sketch. Modern kids didn't invent sedentary hobbies. There probably are trends in physical activity that are relevant here, but I feel like this conversation overall is really flattening out differences and assuming an experience of 1980s life that is not necessarily accurate.
Agreed.
I also feel like it's treating the 80s like it was a million years ago and an entirely different world.
No.
We had prepackaged snacks. Video games. Television/cable. EVEN ELECTRICITY AND INDOOR PLUMBING.
Heh, that's exactly what I've been thinking -- it's the 1980s, not Little House on the Prairie!
I keep both cracking up about it and being overcome by memories of me asking my dad if they had color when he was a kid (because of black and white tv shows) and feeling appropriately old.
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Wait, the answer’s cocaine right?3
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Ready made meals, Huge supermarkets taking over the local smaller butchers, fishmongers etc where you planned what you were buying in each shop for your weekly food needs. Technology was becoming a regular pastime. Eating out was no longer a treat but the norm. I could go on but you get my meaning. And as always the poorest people suffered the worst in this changing society.0
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Penny_Loafers wrote: »Wait, the answer’s cocaine right?
That's what I said back when this thread was started. Chances were, those thin bodies on TV, in magazines and in films reflected a the acceptance of cocaine use as a chic thing to do. I remember attending a posh wedding back in the day where every table had a 'special' centerpiece decorated with colorful straws. Whenever I watch old episodes of 'Love Boat' or any of those 80's shows, there is no shortage of very thin women and energetic-looking men. "Fitness" is not the first thing that springs to mind.
1
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