People were so thin in the 70s

What is this ambrosia of soups and cheese you speak of?

What's your point? I got out of HS in 82. People were thin back then. Not everyone smoked and the fattest kid was really only chubby. Food quality and growth hormones in the food supply are responsible for a lot of today's obesity as well as portion sizes.

Are you trying to excuse today's obese children?

No computers and phones to make us sedentary.

Portions of food and drink were not trough-sized.

No compulsion to "reward" workouts in gyms with extra calories, since only musclemen back then used them.

People didn't eat nearly as much back then and they also walked more.

In the 70s, people who worked out in the gym or were on low fat macrobiotic diets were known as “health nuts”. Highly processed food was definitely around back then.

Long walks were common. People might play squash a few times a week and go for a run a couple of times a week. But most people didn’t exercise to work out per se the way people need to today as a matter of course if they want their bodies to look toned.

That said, my mother, a nurse, wouldn’t eat meals on days she worked. She would eat cottage cheese, some almonds, a boiled egg, an orange. And endless cups of black tea and coffee.

I grew up in the deep South in the 80's. Everyone was thin except for maybe one of your grandparents had some extra weight, maybe you had one kid in your grade that was a little chubby. Everyone ate fried food and junk food and washed it down with gallons of Coke or sweet tea. People were more active and more of them smoked, but that cannot explain the disparity in size from back then to now. Beginning around the mid-90s everyone began ballooning up. It must be something in the food.

sedentary lifestyle and bigger portions.

They smoked non-stop

R5, I don't know how people can eat like that. I am envious of people like that.

R7 plus shitty, fucked up food. Fruits and vegetables don’t even taste as good as they used to. Some have no flavor at all.

Dexatrim.

Food was more expensive, you didn't have as many choices, and it wasn't always available wherever you happened to be 24/7. People tended to eat organized meals in the company of other people rather than go off by themselves and eat whatever they felt like. And people did a lot more walking and physical work. Even a manual typewriter took more muscle power to use than a digital keyboard.

Processed or not, we eat more today. It's just that simple. We ingest more calories.

Back in the day, people ate three meals. Snacking wasn't really much of a thing.

Today, people can put back 700 calories snacking alone.

They did not take so much Tylenol. And they used more bleach.

Back then, kids were allowed to make fun of other kids for being fat. For the most part, that did wonders.

Now, kids get chastised for doing that.

[quote]you can see their bony protruding sternums

Pics please.

I really do wonder how so many people get so fat. It's insane how little people understand and/or care about diet and nutrition, especially when the information is readily available online. I'm thin, and it's because I am careful about what I eat.

If you know why you are thin, r17, then why do you wonder why people get fat?

It was Twiggy.

It's wild to watch movies and TV shows from the '70s and the '80s and no one has any muscle tone whatsoever.

People are fat because we have an abundance of food whereas that was not the case throughout most of history unless you were wealthy. Seriously, look up how much people like coal miners ate back in the day. It's a shockingly small qty of food versus what we eat today.

Big Food hadn’t yet figured out how to turn food into addictive products.

That is the primary source of obesity. Plus ridiculous portion sizes.

R22, what? The 70s had tons of packaged food (the kind that is usually considered "addictive").

[quote]Big Food hadn’t yet figured out how to turn food into addictive products.

I think they have, R22. FFS, don't ever try nacho-cheese-flavored Bugles.

Oh Georgy, I long for the old days!

Kids playing outside after school or until dark during vacations and summer. Fast food was actually a luxury for us. My parents wouldn’t let me eat sugary cereals, junk food, or sweets. My snacks were fruit, cheese, deli meats. In Chicago there were softball and bowling leagues.

Also there were fewer cars, so people walked or bicycled more. There was a movement for more natural stuff: Earth shoes, yoga, health food, clean earth, etc.

r15, you've obviously never been bullied by a fat person. They're some of the worst.

Portion size was smaller and people ate less junk food. Also there was much less snacking. You ate three kind of boring meals a day. People smoked and were less sedentary.

Also food wasn't a "thing." That started to happen in the 80s with celebrity chefs, etc. Food was eat to live not live to eat.

When I was in college back then I lived on black coffee, cigarettes and a chocolate bar a day. People who focused on eating would be seen as losers. I'm not recommending that diet but that's how alot of people saw it then.

Obesity rates were already starting to go up in the 70s, they've been going up for decades

[quote] R22], what? The 70s had tons of packaged food (the kind that is usually considered "addictive").

Of course. But those products are now precision engineered with combinations of salt, fat and sugar together with “mouth feel” and spices etc in ways they were not in the 1970s. Back then they were just cookies and chips.

Also, portions sizes were much, much smaller.

[quote]Back then, kids were allowed to make fun of other kids for being fat. For the most part, that did wonders.

[quote]Now, kids get chastised for doing that.

So by being cruel and causing lasting emotional pain, those mocking kids were actually doing the fat kids a favor!

It’s the food, the hormones. Yes food was processed back then but not nearly to the level they are today. Additives, chemicals, everything used to grow the animals and food we eat to massive quantities. Even “healthy” foods are made are processed in ways that harm the body.

I live abroad and can spot Americans. It’s not just fat. People keep saying fat, but it’s more than that. Americans look bloated, inflamed, swollen. Just massive like their bodies are reacting to slow poisoning. When it looks like the skin is gonna split, that’s not just fat. And even people who are fit are just big beyond reason - like you double clicked on a normal sized human being.

It’s the food itself.

As a child of the 70s, I'm quite surprised when I drive past our local elementary school and the cars are lined up in two lanes and the line goes around the corner and down the street for at least a half-mile. I walked at least a mile and a half each way (or rode my bike) to school every day from K through my sophomore year in high school, and even then I only drove when I had to, no more than 2 days a week. My friends and I rode our bikes for miles and miles every day throughout the Summer. I had a minor accident and blew a tire so had to call my father once to come get me, and I was more than 12 miles from home (he asked "what in the hell are you doing way out there?").

On a recent trip home to visit family, I drove past my old elementary school. They had ripped out one of the two playgrounds and turned it into a pickup/dropoff zone, and even got the church next door to allow them to cut in a driveway through their parking lot so the flow of traffic could be controlled.

I'm not saying it was better or worse. It just was how it was — but also explains why kids today are less fit than they were 50 years ago.

We only had one car and my father took that to work, so the rest of us were left to walk or bike wherever we needed to go. We had milk or water with meals. Soda, chips, or candy were once a week treats and there were no fast food restaurants in out town then. We had to make a major excursion to get to McDonald's so it was a very rare treat, especially during the energy crisis when gas was absolutely not wasted for frivolous trips. The whole child abduction/kids on the milk carton hysteria really led to the end of unsupervised children playing outside, riding bikes everywhere, and walking to school.

Didn’t Pringle’s come out in the 70’s? Those were addictive.

R23 they didn't have the amount of chemicals they do now. I remember shit like twinkies tasting much better and being moist with that cream center. Now, they are dry and the cream is dry too. They changed the the way they were made.

It’s the volume of food that is eaten. Remember Mary Richard’s dinner party where Lou took two servings instead of one and had to put one back? He was the fat one at the party and of course he tried to eat more than he should ans fatties always do. Everyone else was satisfied with one portion.

We need to get back to eating one sensible serving of an item instead of eating a whole platter of it. If you are at a dinner and you see a fat person taking too much on their plate, chide them for it and help them to understand what a normal portion should be.

There weren't nearly as many fast food and chain restaurants before the 1990s. When I was growing up in the 80s/early 90s there were two McDonald's and one Burger King in the immediate area around my hometown. I can't remember any chain restaurants like Chili's etc. Now, I can't even count the number of places when I go home to visit. Fast food/chain restaurants seemed to explode around the late 90s.

[quote] So by being cruel and causing lasting emotional pain, those mocking kids were actually doing the fat kids a favor!

If you wander onto eating disorder reddit, almost all the anorexics and bulimics we’re triggered into their illness by commentary on their bodies, usually by their mother or some authoritarian figure like a ballet instructor but also by their peers at school.

So yes, insulting people into weight loss can work. It doesn’t make them healthier, but it may well make them skinnier.

Also! Doctors and psychologists, especially in decades past, were often disgusted by fat people. Not because they don’t like that their health may be poorer due to their weight, but for a baser reason, they’re just really grossed out by pudge.

If you're going to be a public figure, you don't get the "leave her alone" excuse normally given to celebrity children.

Only whole processed foods with zero weird chemicals in the 1970s!

[quote]As a child of the 70s, I'm quite surprised when I drive past our local elementary school and the cars are lined up in two lanes and the line goes around the corner and down the street for at least a half-mile.

This always makes me laugh when I drive past the local schools. So many kids get chauffered by their parents to/from school these days. We took the school bus or walked. If we got a ride to/from school by our parents there was always some kind of specific reason for doing so.

Those frankfurters were probably made without all the chemicals added now though.

That looks disgusting though.

Things really have changed. I was in elementary school then and out of 50 kids in our grade, maybe two or three were chubby/overweight. There was only one really obese kid, a grade younger and I felt badly for him, he seemed to get a lot of bullying and social rejection for it.

Today I reckon at least a quarter of the kids are chubby. I think most of it is a math problem. How many daily calories are going in, how many are being expended. In too many people the answer is one that builds fat over time.

When I was a kid we rode our bikes constantly, and there was a lot of skateboarding. Even in the winter. We weren't sitting on our asses playing video games and listening to shitty podcasts.

Yes, I sound like a cranky old asshole but goddammit we were all so thin back then!

People also smoked a LOT more back then and smoking does help stop cravings.

I think so, R32. You young'uns are such special snowflakes!

My cousin dropped about 50 lbs. in his teens because he had to shower in the nude and other kids made fun of him because he had stretch marks. But I'll tall ya what -- his mother (my aunt) was an incredible cook! [And needless to say, she had stretch marks as well.]

I was despised in high school because I was an out lesbian in the heart of PA Dutch Country ('72-'76). Once a kid put a diagram of the female anatomy (from health class) inside one of the slits (OK, shut up) in my locker. I rolled my eyes and just kept hanging out with my friends. Believe it or not, I had a small but tight circle of girlfriends who were very supportive of me being out. That was back when it was "cool" to be "liberated."

So suck it up, buttercup! Grow a fucking spine! And lose the weight!

R24, do you not understand the past perfect?

Smoking did have a lot to do with people being thin back then. People smoked all the time, at every work break, and even while working, which cuts down on the mindless snacking that goes on now. Coffee and a cigarettes kept the country running. We also have food available to us at all times, including things that were harder to get in the 70's. Desserts and other high calorie foods that took time to cook back then can now be purchased easily and daily.

r31 is so right. We did have some of the things back then that we do now (Pringles, Coke, hot dogs, Twinkies etc.).

However, NONE of it had the level of chemicals in it that those food do now. Not to mention that even WHEAT has changed and is the shittiest kind of wheat you can get and all the antibiotics and other shit that is added into food. I don't think anyone quite realizes that food manufacturers have spent the last several decades behind closed doors doing the equivalent of what the Sacklers did with opiods: strategized on how best they could addict people to maximize profits.

They have chemists, scientists, psychologists, behaviorists, physiologists, marketers all working together to create the most crave-inducing, addictive product to maximize profits and sell their food. It's NOT just a "math problem" / calories in/calories out. It's the substances they put into food, what KINDS of food are available where, marketing, etc. It's all added up to a perfect storm of FAT. The food industry has really even changed the way people eat...no longer family meals around the table.

It's an incredible mind-fuck that has been pulled over on the American people all in the name of money and profit. It's time for someone to do a movie that will really expose the industry for what it is. We are all being led to the slaughter by our noses and mouths...they don't care if it's addicting, disease-causing, kills people or who dies. It's all about the almighty dollar. That's the great country we live in!

Cigarettes were the original Ozempic.

[quote] People were so thin in the 70s

Everyone was.

It’s the processed foods and sedentary lifestyle. We never ate anything that came in a package. We ate meat, potatoes and vegetables. A can of Campbell’s soup was about the extent of processed foods in our house. We also didn’t drink sodas. We didn’t watch tv every night, and even when we did, it was only for a hour or two. And we certainly didn’t sit in front of a computer for hours and hours. I could go on, but life then was so different from life today.

I think we’re overlooking the damage of the “low-fat” diet fiasco. People were told the problem was dietary fat, so Big Food made tons of low-fat products that people felt they could eat with abandon, when the real culprits were sugar, starches and other carbs.

It's hard to buy a sandwich today that's not Super Size. Back in the 1970s, portions were smaller and a sandwich was HALF of what it is today.

r17 I wonder why fat people don't care about their health as much as I do. That's what I wonder. I guess I need to accept that people are self destructive and get defensive when their bad habits are explored & discussed.

r18 I wonder why fat people don't care about their health as much as I do. I need to accept that people tend to be self destructive and get defensive when their bad habits are explored & discussed. And I care because the obesity epidemic keeps health care costs high for everybody.

"So many kids get chauffered by their parents to/from school these days."

Thanks to urban sprawl lots of kids don't live within walking distance of their school, nor do they live within walking distance of shops, stores, etc.

People going on and on about how kids are "snowflakes" and everything was so much better back when you were a kid are ignoring that obesity has increased among all ages. It's not like the kids are all fat and adults are all thin. Everyone is heavier.

r60 there's still the school bus.

[quote]Smoking did have a lot to do with people being thin back then. People smoked all the time, at every work break, and even while working, which cuts down on the mindless snacking that goes on now.

I don't think younger people can truly comprehend how prevalent smoking was in this country until the 1990s. People smoked like chimneys, everywhere you went. Hell, when I was in elementary/middle school in the 1980s there were teachers who would pop off to the teachers' lounge to have a quick smoke while class was in session! They'd give us a ditto to keep us occupied that was really just busywork because they had to have five minutes to smoke a cig! The hallway outside the teachers' lounge always stank of smoke. That is just incomprehensible today.

[quote]It's an incredible mind-fuck that has been pulled over on the American people all in the name of money and profit. It's time for someone to do a movie that will really expose the industry for what it is. We are all being led to the slaughter by our noses and mouths...they don't care if it's addicting, disease-causing, kills people or who dies. It's all about the almighty dollar. That's the great country we live in!

Calling Michael Moore!

Oh, wait...

[quote]I wonder why fat people don't care about their health as much as I do. That's what I wonder. I guess I need to accept that people are self destructive and get defensive when their bad habits are explored & discussed.

You are thinking of obesity as a moral failure or choice when science now understands it more as a disease similar to addiction. Very few obese people are successful at permanent weight loss through diet and exercise alone because the body’s systems want to maintain weight and they lower the metabolism is response to weight loss.

Look at the numbers of obese people (myself included) clamoring for the new weight loss drugs which, among other things, trigger addictive centers in the brain.

Be thankful you don’t suffer from the disease, but don’t feel superior to those who do.

Yes, I know about Roger & Me, r63. I am 56 years old.

That was 23 years ago, and it needs to be re-done and pushed in people's faces, because you can bet your sweet bippy it's gotten a WHOLE LOT WORSE in the 23/24 years since that film was made. More and more diabolical ingredients have been added to the recipes, causing further harm and damage to human's bodies. It's so worth revisiting with the obesity epidemic. And don't think I haven't thought about the Ozempic angle either...that the massive obesity weigh has been almost perfectly been queued up to lovingly embrace Ozempic as the answer and line the pockets of Big Pharmas pockets as well. How much you want to bet that Big Pharma and big food manufacturers are in bed with one another on this to all make a huge, fat profit off the sheeple that line up for yummy, addictive food, then eventually line up for the meds to cure them of their love of food.

And we also have this lovely thing called "streaming" now that would put the realities a lot more front and center for people, instead of people schlepping out to their local arthouse theater to see the film. Imagine a real, raw expose with hidden cameras in those corporate meetings we don't see behind closed doors. We need some journalists willing to go the extra mile to infiltrate and bring us the real meat and potatoes, and gain us a free ticket to the whole buffet of corruption and profit at the cost of human lives.

meant to say "massive obesity WAVE," not WEIGH. ^^

R62 People were so addicted to nicotine, it was unbelievable. People who couldn't go an hour without a cigarette. I don't miss going to restaurants and having to smell all the cigarette smoke, or sitting at work next to your pack a day co-worker smoking like a chimney. I'm glad those days are gone, even though we went from being addicted to nicotine, to now being addicted to smart phones and highly processed food.

Well of course the obesity epidemic has created profit opportunities for pharmaceutical companies. Are you suggesting that they are somehow responsible for the disease because they profit off the cure?

The American system is surely responsible. We put profit above all and consider regulations to protect public health an assault on FREEDOM. But in this case, the enemy was Big Food, not medical research to offset its effects.

People didn’t just stop smoking. And many today are just getting nicotine through other means. The war on cigarettes was long-fought and the key weapon was the discovery that second-hand smoke was harming other people.

Without a weapon like that, taking on Big Food is much tougher.

It's the damn high fructose corn syrup!

[quote] You are thinking of obesity as a moral failure or choice when science now understands it more as a disease similar to addiction. Very few obese people are successful at permanent weight loss through diet and exercise alone because the body’s systems want to maintain weight and they lower the metabolism is response to weight loss.

Fat people love excuses as much as they love an unlimited buffet. People who successfully diet feel the pain of being hungry and their bodies too want more. That’s where the will power comes in, to fight through it. If a person has a lowered at-rest metabolism, that’s where the exercise comes in, to raise the number of burned calories.

You don’t know what you are talking about. The obesity epidemic is not the result of a massive collapse of “will power.” There is clearly something more going on.

Grew up with an Italian mother churning out lasagnas, rich dishes, always encouraged to eat as much as I liked in the 60s. Yet only much older people were overweight, not obese. The lifestyle was different, you ate three times a day, breakfast was light, lunch a sandwich, home cooked dinner. We had cake on special occasions, our desserts were fruit. Kids ate penny candy at recess, but there were no snack packs, chips, ice cream, processed foods available 24/7. Kids were outside playing all day on weekends, after school. We walked to school and home for lunch then back again, again at days end. Always active, there were no cell phones or tablets, no game stations, no cable tv with hundreds of options at all hours. Middle class and working class adults lives were work, home, church/synogogue, family. Perhaps a vacation one or two weeks per year.

My mother did not have a cleaning lady, my father did the yard work and stuff around the house. I remember both of them as usually busy and active, maybe sitting to read the newspaper after dinner, watch tv for an hour or so. Regular bedtimes, rising also scheduled around school and work.

All of this vastly changed, along with the modified foods we now eat, the dining out and ordering in of much too large portions of unhealthy food. In addition, our lifestyle makes it necessary to seek out physical activity in gyms since we are mostly inert.

[quote] you can bet your sweet bippy

Are you 56 or 86?

r74 my mom would have been 80 (she died two years ago) and she said that all the time. I learned it from her!

Every casual group shot now is mostly overweight people.

Most europeans are built like the guys in this video. Nobody goes to the gym more than Americans. No country is into fitness more than Americans. But some how most cultures are in better shape than us. Here in Italy, they eat McDonalds, they eat junk food, they have dessert for breakfast - basically a donut and a caffè. They live on pasta and pizza. Some go to the gym, but they don't kill themselves doing it. I go to a gym that is half Italian and half American because of all of the students here. All the Americans are carrying around their Stanley cups and lamenting the lack of protein options. They are obsessed with fitness with their youtube routines, HIT, sets, reps. The Italians sit on the machines on their phones, or spend half the time just standing talking to each other or they will take a class. But at the end of the day, as a culture they are healthier. It's the food and how they eat it.

R33 I’m curious, do you find that even thin Americans also look inflamed, bloated, etc?

All that disco dancing kept folks thin!

Processed foods.

I doubt Italians eat as much as Americans, and I doubt they eat such huge portions.

R73 I agree.

It’s a movement thing as well as diet.

When I began working from home my steps were down 80%. That’s huge. So I went to the gym every morning. But I was working hard and still needed to consume either a stimulant or calories so I could concentrate. I don’t smoke and didn’t want to scarf endless cups of coffee so it is down green tea and intermittent fasting.

The 3 C’s: Coffee, Cigarettes, and Cocaine.

Fast food is more common but also portions are flintstone sized. I don't know when it started, but small drinks are like 20 ounces--- that used to be considered a large.

yeah, there was some skit (I can't remember what it was) where they talk about the small now being called a medium and the medium being a large, large being extra large and there was also a jumbo size. The thing is while that was humorous, that's exactly what was done...everything was jumped up to the next size/level. It's nuts.

I can never eat the full amount food that is served when I go out to a restaurant. It's usually AT LEAST one more meal...sometimes two. That's the only consolation to the ever-increasing price jumps as well.

R84 That was a pretty funny bit from Parks & Recreation--the "child size" at Paunch Burger was called that because it was the size of a small child.

This map is for Ultra-Processed food.

So not, say dried pasta, tinned fruit, preserved herring or bacon.

But chicken stock cubes, frozen vegan chicken nuggets, corn chips and Little Debbie Snack Cakes.

The more temperate your climate is, in Europe, the fresher your food.

And that makes sense. I spent winter in Italy in 2002 and I really did experience the upside and downside of eating locally and in season in Winter. Lots of turnip, cabbage and some lettuce but little else in terms of variety. I was craving really juicy fresh fruit .

I would say a good third to a half of actors and models still smoke.

Most people ate mostly unprocessed and nutritious home cooked meals then. Fifth years later people eat mostly hyper processed foods with chemicals that are added to stimulate your brain's receptors so you eat more.

R86 I'm surprised to learn Northern Europe has become so ultra processed food dependent. I thought they were comparable to Southern Europe, but I guess they have adopted much of the US junk food habits.

IF the child were liquified, R85.

What science says:

• A 2011 study in PLoS Medicine found Americans eat 570 more calories PER DAY than they did in the 70s. The difference was attributed to more frequent snacking and bigger portion sizes. (And that was 14 years ago — it's only gotten worse.)

• A pound of fat is 3,500 calories. 570 calories a day = a pound of weight gain per week.

• A 2020 study found that calories consumed in restaurants have doubled since 1970.

• Ultraprocessed foods now comprise 70 percent of the American diet. Two studies found adults consumed about 500 to 800 more calories per day when their diets were made up of ultraprocessed foods instead of minimally processed foods.

Yeah, r20. I was watching The Hitcher recently and there's a scene where the cute lead is shirtless and has essentially zero muscle tone. That wouldn't fly in a modern movie where every guy under 40 has a muscly torso.

"Smoking did have a lot to do with people being thin back then. People smoked all the time, at every work break, and even while working, which cuts down on the mindless snacking that goes on now" This is true. But even the kids were skinny back then, and SO MANY kids are fat today - that has nothing to do with smoking.

Portion size is at least part of it. I look at bowls from a set of dishes I grew up using. We had cereal and ice cream in these bowls that were normal to us at the time but look TINY today. Today, the bowls of my dish set are at least 3 times in volume. And I fill them accordingly, without stopping to think about it, because one of these bowls would look ridiculous with, say, just one scoop of ice cream in it.

[quote] I'm surprised to learn Northern Europe has become so ultra processed food dependent

They’re heavily industrialised nations but I suspect the main factor is that they are limited by the climate.

R5 I was a teen in the 1970s and I did not smoke. But I was active and muscularly toned. I recall being a college freshman in 1978 and weighing 120 pounds. At least 90% of what I ate was meals at home. This was true for most people.

Today we spend a lot less time preparing food at home from scratch. Most prefer the convenience of processed foods and eating out. Bigger portions, higher carbs, higher bad inflammatory fats, higher calories, has become the norm.

[quote] I think so, [R32]. You young'uns are such special snowflakes!

Oh, I'm not a young 'un.

And if you're going to be so childish as to call me names, I have a few I could call you.

It's calories. I sometimes watch prison documentaries (there's a bittersweet one where these lifers make quilts for kids in foster care. They're incredibly invested in it )

Anyways, no one is obese, despite eating literally institutional, dirt cheap food.

Why? Because the portions and calories are limited.

[quote] wonder why fat people don't care about their health as much as I do. …And I care because the obesity epidemic keeps health care costs high for everybody.

Fat people don’t have self control because their endocrine system works differently to skinny people’s. Once they become overweight, their hunger signals work similarly to people who are addicted to drugs.have signals of starvation, low blood sugar, heightened digestive enzymes, when skinny people don’t.

Your version of hungry is not their version of hungry.

If you truly would prefer to keep insurance costs low, then your interest as an economic rationalist is to vote MAGA. The Trump solution, like Reagan before him, is to let the market outliers - the mentally ill, the unhooked, the addicted, the unwell- die in the streets.

I grew up as a member of a large family. We NEVER had snack food in the house. No potato chips, no tortilla chips, no soft drinks, no cookies, no candy (except at Halloween). An afternoon snack (if we were starving) was a piece of bread with some butter on it. School lunch was a sandwich (a single slice of bologna and mayo, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich) and a piece of fruit. Breakfast was usually a bowl of cereal (no sweetened cereals - things like grape nuts, cheerios, wheat chex, raisin bran) with some milk. Dinner was always a family affair. Some sort of meat - chicken, pork chop, spaghetti sauce with ground beef, a potato, rice or pasta, a salad, and a cooked vegetable - often a mixture of corn, peas, carrots and green beans. Dessert was usually a small serving of canned fruit

We walked to and from school. I measured it once as an adult. 1.8 miles in one direction, so 3.6 miles roundtrip every day.

Yes, we were VERY thin.

I was still smoking then. I did not become a fat whore until I quit in the late eighties

Ayds.

[quote] The 3 C’s: Coffee, Cigarettes, and Cocaine.

This. Especially cigarettes and cocaine. And remember doctors would prescribe speed. Lots of energy, lots of weight loss.

Back in the day it wasn’t just eating well or eating nutritionally or eating three hearty but sensible meals a day. There was a lot of, simply, not eating, for instance, if you were what the Zoomers call a “high value” woman.

In the 70s, being a “foodie” was kind of unusual like being a “health nut” or a vegetarian. It was a fringe interest. Sure people had favourite local restaurants, their favourite Chinese joint, favourite pizza parlour, but that was as much about socialising and community. Being obsessed with trying all the best banh mi, matcha lattes or lobster rolls the way people do now would be considered straight up odd.

People fetishise foodstuffs today because of the expense of good quality food and because we know the drawbacks to indulgence down the macro. And food is inherently classist. It’s ok say you love burgers and dumplings and pasta if you’re thin, distasteful and off putting if you look like someone who actually eats a lot of burgers and dumplings.

I was not around then, but it seems pretty simple to me.

People sit in front of their TVs and computers these days. People were more active back then. Sometimes people object to this being the reason and say that you don't burn that many calories by walking around, but that misses the snacking that goes along with just sitting around. Kids out and about doing things may have a treat or soda with their friends from time to time but they aren't shoveling in handfuls of chips like pigs.

R78, people's bodies respond differently. Higher rates of heart disease, high blood pressure, celiac disease, high cholesterol, diabetes and more thyroid and autoimmune diseases are all things thin people in the States can have that their equivalents in other countries do not. Do you notice how in the last five years in the states everything is about "Gut Health." Cleaning your body of all of the toxins that the food ushers in has become a big business. "Gut Health" isn't nearly as big anywhere else in the world as it is in the United States.

I don't think Americans are fully aware of how little food is actually in their food. Even "healthy" options can be highly processed. I am looking at you Vegans. This is all because there are no real trustworthy government oversight that protects the production of food. There are so many loopholes and lowering of standards when it comes to designations on products. The people's health is not paramount, money is. Other countries have much higher standards when it comes to food sources. Processed foods might be available, but everyone's access to unprocessed food is a human right regulated by the government and written into the law. That's why a shitload of products regularly consumed in the United States can't even be sold in other countries, or if they are the ingredients are drastically changed.

I have a pen pal in prison (she’s 58) who said the food there is terrible, so she and others purchase quarterly shipments of packaged, processed food to supplement meals. Even though she works out, weight is a constant struggle for her, and she knows other inmates who are on weight loss drugs.

Meanwhile, my mom is 84 and eats and drinks whatever she wants, but only half what she did 20-30 years ago. Her only exercise is gardening, and she still maintains a healthy weight. I’ve never been as fit and trim as she is.

R99 similar childhood. We didn’t have snacks because my single teacher mom of three couldn’t really afford them. If you wanted a snack, you had to walk to the market and buy it with your own money. We walked and biked to school and everywhere else. Every kid in my poorish neighborhood was skinny. My friends with more affluent parents were the overweight ones because they ate all day long and their parents drove them everywhere. The only obese kid that I knew had wealthy parents. Now all the poor people are the obese ones.

There are probably a lot of factors. Appetite suppressants (speed, cigarettes) were widely available. "Eating disorders" were not on anyone's radar. Most of the U.S. was in the Dark Ages concerning deluxe dining. Even given all that, probably the most important factor was that people had predictable schedules. People didn't work around the clock; they had meals at regular times, usually with the rest of their family. That convention stopped people from randomly eating when they felt frustrated or bored.

Back then, we ate fast food maybe 3-4 times a year. It was a treat. I’m sure if you ask some fat kid today how often he gets fast food, it’d be more than 3-4 times a year. A lot more. Access to high fat, high sugar food is so much easier now.

Also fast food is cheap to feed your family vs preparing meals for them. Like a bucket of chicken wings, or Happy Meals, $5 foot longs, etc.

I was 10 years old before I had my first McDonald's burger and fries, and that was because a friend's dad picked us up from the beach and treated us. We were poor and didn't have a car. We almost never had fast food, though my mom would occasionally buy some cookies. Most of our snacks were fruit.

[quote] Also fast food is cheap to feed your family vs preparing meals for them. Like a bucket of chicken wings, or Happy Meals, $5 foot longs, etc

Is that still the case, post-pandemic?

I wanted something salty on a car trip and ordered fries at McDonald’s. I was stunned at the price of a Filet 0’Fish.

Even Coca-Cola is expensive now.

I was in HS from 1978-82. We had a McDonalds and a Roy Rogers within driving distance of the school. We'd sneak off school property and I'd get a regular burger, small fries and a coke. The meal was a dollar and the adult sizes were the size of happy meals now. The food also tasted much better then.

I think whenever they started loading up food with HFCS is about when supersizing started happening. Portion sizes are ridiculous. Why do restaurants feel you have to go home with a doggie bag? I work with a lady, very nice, but both she and her daughter are obese. Turns out everything they eat is prepackaged and processed. Hamburger helper, fast food every day, etc.

Our food is poison and we're obsessed with it. It's gotten to a point where people always have snacks with them. Why? People are going to starve to death between meals? Do we need to sit and shovel food in our mouths while watching TV or a movie?

Yes, the non-stop snacking. That didn't happen years ago. People stuff their faces all day.

R114, some groups, known for constant public eating and late, disorganized meals now have lived with obesity from the same patterns for over a century.

More I shall not say.

[quote] Yes, the non-stop snacking. That didn't happen years ago. People stuff their faces all day.

Because they were non-stop sucking on cigs al day, as has been noted. Humans are still hardwired to enjoy addictive bad-for-you shit, only the addictions have changed.

My brother and his wife. Stayed with them for 2 weeks and they'd eat a big dinner, she was big on very scheduled meals, and an hour later they were snacking while watching TV while I sat in silent amazement and horror still stuffed with food.

r115 who are "some groups" with constant public eating and late, disorganized meals?? I honestly don't know to whom you are referring.

Growing up, I don't remember fast food being a staple of anyone's diet like it is now, and of course the number of fast food places was only a fraction of what it is now. My parents actually hated McDonald's food and never ate it but they would get it for me and my siblings only once in a while, just a few times a year. As I got older I lost my taste for McDonald's and haven't had it in over 20 years.

Back then, parents who fed their kids fast food on a regular basis (like many do now) would've been considered shitty parents, if not downright deviant.

[quote] People were so thin in the 70s

Not everyone, dear.

People weren't getting fat because they smoked like chimneys.

So no obesity, but you had to endure restaurants that were covered in fog, and smoke everywhere.

Then as others mentioned, speed was readily available. So you get yourself a good drug addiction instead of thrombosis.

Personally, there's much more of a fitness regimen now. A lot of the 70's men have zero muscle tone and look wimpy.

I have already known three Boomers (long time smokers) die from lung cancer in their 60’s. Anyone else seeing this?

I gave up smoking years ago out of fear of premature skin aging, not for health reasons. That's the tactic people should use to convince gay men to stop smoking.

R122 most of the heavy smoking boomers I knew who hadn’t quit by their 40s had heart disease or cancer by that time.

Junk food is the main culprit. That’s the diet for the poor and they suffer from obesity the most.

As others have said, the low-fat movement has a lot to answer for. This was gospel in the '80s and '90s.

Dietary fat fills you up, so you're satisfied for longer and consume fewer calories.

"Low-fat" processed foods are full of sugar and empty carbs, which not only don't fill you up — they make you hungrier by causing blood sugar spikes and crashes. So you consume more and more calories in pursuit of satiety. You think they don't matter because at least they're low-fat! WRONG.

[quote] "Gut Health" isn't nearly as big anywhere else in the world as it is in the United States.

It’s a big thing in Germany. Maybe all that beer, bread and nitrates in pork.

It's only in retrospect do I see how we stayed thin back then. First, we were barely driven anywhere. My mother hated driving us places and so we walked or took bikes. Kids can't do that today.

Mom didn't have the time or the inclination to tailor what she was making for dinner to individual tastes. If one of us didn't like stew, too bad. We ate it or starved.

Most families didn't snack. No one kept chips or cookies or whatever lying around.

And then there was the social pressure. People back then were not shy about telling you that you were getting fat.

R124 I have two friends who smoked until their 50s. Both are now in their early sixties. One now has developed COPD and needs an oxygen machine, the other has just recently been diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer. I'm glad I quit at age 23.

I think snacking is too big a thing.

People snack on fruit. It’s nutrient dense in very small amounts. But fruit still has lots of calories. Lots of sugar. I just ate a mandarin because I like the taste. 10g net carbs and 45 calories.

People won’t eat one, they will eat a bag. It’s crazy.

No muscle-tone, then. Look at Cheryl Tiegs, for example: gorgeous, but not a bicep or tricep in sight.

Muscle tone was considered very butch and masculine up until the late 90s almost. It was skinny and lean and soft for women.

I remember being stunned by Linda Hamilton’s physique when Terminator 2 was released. I watched a rerelease at the cinema before lockdown was surprised by how relatively “normal” her body now looked. Like you can go to any gym and see the women who train several times a week who look like her.

I feel like Linda low key made toned women seen as hot. Every straight guy i knew thought she looked amazing in that movie.

Funny, I don't remember many overweight or obese people back in the 70s. A few chubs but nothing like the grossly overweight fraus lumbering around today.

R134 I mean...yeah, guy. That's kinda the entire point of this thread.

Linda Hamilton's physique was impressive, but it certainly wasn't attractive. Those kind of muscles on a woman are mannish.

R136 = Cheryl Tiegs

Charlotte Rampling had sort of what was considered an ideal1970s female physique.