Do people really not know what to eat?

Because those that do eat like that, are not overweight, the poster made that point themselves.

The food landscape and food culture has changed significantly. We do not eat like we did 50 years ago as a nation, statistically, that is the point.

You don’t have to answer this, but…. how fat?

There are many many factors contributing to obesity, not all of them related to food. Stress, sleep, obesogenic chemicals and life stage, to name but a few.

Nevertheless, food is far and away the biggest influence. I find it difficult to believe that many people could become morbidly obese unless they are consuming a lot of UPF’s, eating in an addictive way, or both. Whereas a BMI in the upper 20’s you can probably reach eating real food as you describe, if everything else happens to be stacked against you. And it’s probably not terribly unhealthy either.

My kids (7 and nearly 5) eat UPFs, but in moderation. They like biscuits, but aren’t allowed more than one at a time. Ditto with packets of crisps. They like cereal, but we stick to Weetabix or Shredded Wheat. On holiday, they enjoy Coco Pops etc, as we don’t have them at home. I have replaced sweetened yoghurt with natural yoghurt and a bit of maple syrup, but if we are out and about and a sweetened yoghurt is what is on offer, they eat that. Grazing snacks at home are mostly fruit and or raw veg. I don’t demonise any food, as I believe in an ‘everything in moderation’ attitude. I am privileged and educated enough to be able to do this properly though. Not everyone is sadly.

Well, they were a much smaller percentage of the population than now. We don't actually know what the 70s obesity rates would've been had only about 12% of adults smoked like now, as opposed to the not far off half it was in 1974 when records began (probs a bit higher in 1970 as male smoking rates started to drop in the 60s). And what we know about nicotine suggests those adults, as a cohort, would've been hungrier.

The person who replied to this/ you replied to was saying that in the 70s/80s people didn’t eat UPFs and that learning to do that and continuing to do that now is why they weren’t overweight. My reply showed that 70s food socialisation clearly hadn’t worked for everyone. Do you not understand how to link a conversation together and instead rely on being patronising to make your points?

I cook from scratch with fresh ingredients, don’t eat between meals, do intermittent fasting (16:8) AND I smoke. I’m still fat!

What about those that didnt smoke?

My parents didnt smoke into the 70s, my dad smoked up to the early 70s.

Smoking was absolutely a factor. Such an effective appetite suppressant as nicotine being taken so widely, it could hardly not have been. On amphetamines, there were 1.7 million prescriptions in the UK in 1969 and this was a reduction!

hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1971-04-08/debates/00e3e71b-79fb-466a-9c58-4c08ffb7566e/Amphetamines

It was something that trended downwards rather than stopped overnight, so clearly it was very much a thing in the early 70s.

None of which is to say we shouldn't try and do something about the worst shit the food industry get up to either, but the environment that kept people so much thinner then was clearly about much more than food.

I also think we may see kickbacks soon from those industries even without any greater regulation, due to the impact of increased WLI availability.

Yes smoking was probably a factor but we would have to do without that, remember we do far far less active and mobile work/activity so that makes a difference in calorie requirement

If this experiment ever happened, you could expect food manufacturers and some restaurant and takeway systems to go bust.

After massive massive kick back and higher level attempts to keep you consuming.

The food industry, restaurants, takeaways, deliveroo, ubereats, food manufacturers and supermarkets need us to overconsume. They need us to be overweight.

Real food producers who grow boring old veg, produce meat and fish are way way down the line in the food industry. No one is lobbying for their interests. They dont make billions.

I don’t think there were huge numbers of women using amphetamines in the 1970s, it was very much known about abuses in the late 1960s and well past the peak of the forties and fifties.

70s was more about slimming biscuits, cabbage soup and smoking.

You’re missing the point, which is that the food environment we live in has changed. Amazingly enough people from the seventies are also affected by that.

If people want to recreate the 70s, we're going to need to smoke a loooot more. Nearly half the adult population on an appetite suppressant drug must've been a relevant factor.

I also learned on here that prescription amphetamines were quite common at the time!

This is all true.

There’s another way to look at this - the food culture of the 1970’s and 80’s was just what most people did, not specifically chosen to be healthy. As more UPF came in, people saw the convenience, and didn’t know then how unhealthy it would be if it became the bedrock of the diet. So they ate it.

And as more and more people found themselves becoming overweight, the processed foods and sweets were an obvious things to try to change. Unfortunately, many people by then were addicted. The food industry tried to help by providing lite versions….. but they were also UPF’s, they messed with our hormones and ultimately didn’t help. People saw the weight gain, and blamed the individual for being weak-willed, greedy whatever. We do love to fat shame. The problem goes far deeper than weight, however. People who are not overweight can still have major metabolic issues, and UPF’s are a major factor in causing them.

I’ve said this already. I think we need action at government level to reduce consumption of UPF’s, particularly sugar. Advertising bans, plain packaging, limits on the number of fast food outlets, taxation, subsidies on basic foodstuffs, cooking lessons, a return to school meals being cooked from fresh….. all of them. We need all of them to make a wholesale change. Until the , were left with individual and grassroots action.

@Xeracc no one is walking the walk, that’s the whole problem 🤣

I wasn’t alive then I’m just observing some older folks I know bang on about there being no fatties back in their day while looking like they walked off of 600lb life. Don’t talk the talk if you’re not walking the walk

Baahaha so true. I remember reading a thread where a poster said she never gave her kids grapes as they were “sugar bombs” and bad for them. Bonkers.

Ok, to make it easy for you as you're struggling to understand, what do you think would happen if for the next 5 years, 80% of society went back to eating the portion sizes, structure/routine, types of foods that 80% of us ate in the 70s?

The point is, no one eats like that now. Or if we do, we are apparently orthorexic and 'competitively undereating'.

But the people who love going on about “back in my days no one was fat” are all fat now! Same as some older folks go on about frolicking outside in their childhood while buying their grandkids iPads and complaining about children playing outside.

I think what it shows is that we can't assume everyone has had the same level of education around food.

Just because it's supposed to come from certain sources doesn't mean it does.

Thats very interesting, so much for the early years preventative support that some families need.

Nothing about food. They weighed her and she was always in the right place so maybe they didn't fee the need?

I'm a pretty good cook and we cook most things from scratch so it didn't even occur to me that this would be something they'd bring up tbh.

But the whole point is that people weren’t obese then. All the things we’re talking about back then have changed, and now we are.

And your ante natal appointments?

That is quite poor.

Midwives and health visitors literally asked me if DD was eating and that was that. There was no education on nutrition or dietary requirements.