Teenage appetites in the 70s/80s

[DuesToTheDirt]

So this is inspired by comments on a recent thread, but there have been similar threads quite frequently. Many posters seem to think that teenagers are permanently hungry and it is to be expected that they will consume vast amounts of food.

When I was a teenager (70s/80s) I really don't remember this being a thing. I had three meals a day, didn't load up with protein in the mornings (just a bowl of cereal), and would sometimes buy a morning snack at school or have a small bag of crisps in the evening. That was it. I didn't go through loaves of bread at a time making toast, or raid the fridge randomly and demolish meal ingredients. OK I'm female and girls need fewer calories than boys, but my brother was the same.

Were we unusual?

All girls in my family and one had anorexia, but no food wasn't vanishing.
Between me and my husband three boys and a girl - the boys could go through the kitchen like locusts.
So I think it is a boy thing. Girls I know either don't have the appetite or are too worried about their weight to eat loads.

sometimes we'd butter a few rich teas for a snack

YAVVVVVU!* *😖

And we played out too. It’s amazing that in a few decades…

”Britain has one of the highest obesity rates in Europe, with two in three adults overweight or obese”

@PestoPasghetti have you tried it? Real butter and rich tea biscuits was my absolute favourite treat as a child 😂

Teenager mid 80s here. We had a cooked breakfast as children and proper school lunch with a good hot pudding. I wasn't picky so there was often seconds! We had milk at break. We always had biscuits after school and a proper dinner. Nothing after that though.
Once I hit teens I decided to restrict my food and flirted with an eating disorder. It coincided with the demise of proper school lunches and so I was able to get away with a bread roll and a scoop of beans a day....
As a consequence my DC are allowed to eat what they want. My DS s are both over 6 foot tall despite no one on our family being that tall on either side. They have cooked school lunch and proper dinner and often makes themselves bacon or eggs for breakfast. They eat cereal most evenings and have homemade cake for morning snack. They are often hungry.
However they are also much more active than I was playing a lot of sport.
I guess it's swings and roundabouts.

Not unusual at all. We were often hungry in the afternoons but as a teenager I was pretty much always working or going to sport after school so never had time for snacking. We just ate a good dinner, did homework and went to bed. The problem isn't hunger necessarily, it's often boredom. Teenagers shouldn't come home and sit in front of Gaming/Social Media/Netflix etc

I was a kid in the 70s. I also have clear memories of filling the biscuit tin each week after the Thursday shop. And quite often buying some sweets from the penny tray in the local papershop. I can also remember my then teenage brother knocking back 3 peanut butter sandwiches for his supper (in addition to 3 square meals) on a regular basis.
Things were different, but not that different.

Portions were much smaller.
A roast chicken was only used on one side and the other kept for the following evening, for example. Family of 4.
Puddings were a thing too but snacking between meals less so.

I was a teenager in the 70s. I did have an enormous appetite. I remember eating bigger portions than my dad, huge platefuls.
We had puddings after every meal, usually fruit pie or crumble and cream or custard, and lots of homemade cakes and similar but no snacks between meals apart from a bag of sweets once a week.
The upshot was terrible teeth but no weight gain.

I still eat pretty much the same pattern today though a greater variety of fruit and veg and less sweet stuff. My own Dc also had huge appetites as teenagers but definitely more snacks. None of us is overweight.

My brother was a teen in the 80s and ate loads, definitely as much as my own son eats now. My brother spent most of his wages from his part time job on extra food from when he was about 14. I ate lots too as a teen but I did a lot of sport so probably needed to.

My son eats similar amounts to what my brother ate, although he’s eats healthier food. My daughter is 14 and has never been a big eater. From when she was little, she has said she doesn’t really get hungry. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Are you Scottish, #Wbeezer?

Rich Tea (or Plain Digestive) with butter - that takes me back 😀😋

Those biscuits were the only ones my parents bought.

Chocolate biscuits were rare.

Puddings aren't as much of a thing now. Used to be we would have porridge in the morning, milk and crisps or a biscuit at break time. Then school dinners with cake and custard for afters. Dinner at 5 and often a pudding after that too, maybe a just a choc ice or ice cream with tinned fruit or something but usually something more calorific than what we would give today.

School dinners had way more calories and fat in before the whole Jamie Oliver revolution, and kids who took lunches were allowed crisps and biscuits in their lunchboxes.

I'm not saying that was a healthier way to eat of course but it does explain why schoolkids didn't seem to snack as much in the past, they were filled with stodgey foods at mealtimes.

I don’t know.
if we went to my Nans in the 80s you would get breakfast - often eggs or similar plus toast/cereal or porridge and always a bowl of grapefruit.
mid morning snack of cup of tea and biscuits
lunch was was a cooked meal plus pudding
afternoon tea of bread and jam and cake
supper of cheese and crackers and cake etc

I was a teenager in the 90s. When I got home from school, I'd have a toasted teacake or a bit of cake. Then my tea a few hours later. In the evening we might have a few biscuits with a cuppa. I rarely ate breakfast but had a sandwich, fruit and yoghurt for lunch. My brother on the other hand was always on the scrounge for food. Always! As soon as he hit 13 he was hoovering food up. My teen boy is the same. He's gone from 5ft 4 to 5ft 11 in just over 18 months and has gone from a skinny little boy into having a more muscular, broad frame. He is always ravenous. Absolutely could eat a big dinner and then have a sandwich or two. He's not overweight at all, he's just really tall. I think all that growing does definitely boost appetite. My teen girl has a much smaller appetite, and she's much smaller than him in general

Somewhat off topic but I had a similar conversation with my mum the other day. She's a late 50s baby and she said growing up it was 3 meals a day and no snacks. She recalled starting work and having her own money and buying a cone of chips after work. She soon started putting on weight and was horrified so stopped. When we were children (80s and 90s) my mum gave us snacks because she said thats what it said to do in "the books" and its what her friends did. She couldn't really relate to snacks but put it down to being an older parent (which she was in that day).

I've a bit of perspective on the whole thing now but I've always struggled with my weight. The more you eat, the hungrier you get and the more you need to eat. This is what I have learnt of myself and also what I learnt on a nutrition course I recently took. I think teens also boredom eat a lot. I do think that boredom was less of a thing years ago. I'm only speaking anecdotally of course.

My DH was a teenager in the 80’s, he remembers going home to friends houses or their coming to his house, and they’d just set about making toast or sandwiches from a loaf of bread and some cheese or jam or something, and just keep going until the loaf was gone. He remembers it in a vaguely horrified “can’t believe we ate all that / were that selfish” way. But also kind of fondly. I think there were also biscuits on regular supply. His whole family are tall and skinny.

I didn’t do the same but I def ate as much as I could get at normal times. Love food. I’m more overweight than DH. Wish I had his metabolism!

The supermarket stayed open till 8 on Thurs/Fri but otherwise shut at 5.30, there was no popping into the shops after work for top-ups, no online deliveries,

Good point. Thursday night was shopping night, and I'd get dragged along despite wanting to watch TOTP and Tomorrow's World (Thursdays were the best telly night). Both my parents worked so my mum wasn't out restocking every day. I don't think supermarkets were open at all on Sundays. Even while my kids have been growing up, so the last 20 years or so, opening hours have extended.

We did have more puddings back then, as some others have said, but there wasn't a lot of snacking between meals.

And who remembers the ‘finger of fudge is just enough??? ‘👍😍

I was skinny when I Was teenager and I used to have cornflakes for breakfast, a bag of crisps at break, sandwich for dinner and then a normal dinner (shepherds pie, pork chop, new potatoes, fish fingers etc) and then pudding was a Kit Kat or chocolate biscuit. I didn’t really have much fruit.

I tried to do this diet as a grown up and felt really really hungry. I find cereal doesn’t fill me up very much.

I was skinny in my 20s and ate chocolate for breakfast quite a lot 🤷‍♀️

I’ve kinda got fatter now I eat stuff I’m ‘supposed’ to eat for breakfast

I can remember from school (it was boarding) the boys especially, but girls too, going through a fair bit of toast and cereal between meals in the 80s. We did have to play a lot of sport I guess. But I don’t think teens with big appetites is new, it was accepted then, and that’s why it that food was around.

Never was though 😤

We didn't have much in the way of snacks when I was a teenager in the early 80's. The fruit bowl was always full, but mainly with apples and oranges - we had one bunch of 6 or 7 bananas a week between us (parents and kids) and when they were gone that was it. Portion sizes were probably smaller, but anyone who was hungry could have a slice of bread and butter with a meal. We drank tea or instant coffee with 2 sugars, water or weak orange squash: No fruit juices or fizzy drinks in the house unless it was a party.

I don't recall being active, save walking to school and the recreation ground where we mainly hung around smoking and chatting. I played sport once a week in PE lessons and only walked for a purpose rather than a leisure activity. My teens are more aware of the need to eat healthily yet are bigger than I was at a similar age despite exercising. I can only imagine the constant grazing and availability of prepared foods is the reason.

I was at a boys boarding school in the 80s and I'm pretty sure each boy was given half a loaf of mothers pride bread every day on top of their 3 meals.

Bigger meals rather than grazing but brothers and cousins were permanently hungry at that age.

proper breakfast, cereal then toast at the very least but porridge or eggs not uncommon, fruit and revolting warm yoghurt from mum’s yoghurt maker thing too.

11ses - 2 biscuits or a slice of cake.

lunch usually cold but plentiful.

after school 2 biscuits or cake or flapjack.

evening meal always with substantial pudding.

Cheese and biscuits and coffee before bed.

my grandmother used to remember making enormous rice puddings for her boys at the same age. My mother remembers arguing over who would get the crusts because they were more filling. Older relatives talk about being fed vast quantities of Yorkshire puddings and gravy before the meal, or getting through a loaf of bread in a meal.

I think what’s changed is that people are helping themselves and eating as and when, rather than eating plenty but all at the same time and mostly the same thing.