Younger gen X and millennials didn't stand much of a chance with healthy eating growing up did we!

[CandleInTheStorm]

I've been doing a lot of research for work (and no, I'm not a journal, nor am I trying to find research here for my work) and it's got me thinking about my own experience of food growing up.

I was born in the mid 80s, and my school experience food wise in the 90s was pizza/chips/doughnuts and those turkey twizzlers (which weren't a personal choice.) We had vending machines full of chocolate/crisps/fizzy drinks around school too. From my research, I learned that compulsory school meals were abolished in 1980 along with nutrition standards for schools, and many private catering contracts could bid for tender from then on, who put cost and profit above health.

Alongside this, there was the rise of takeaways/fast food outlets and 'the ready meal', all full of salt, sugar, and fat.

Younger gen X and millennials didn't stand much chance did they because kids/young people will mostly always choose 'junk' foods over 'healthy' foods especially after the 'traditional ' meals of years gone by, and parents back then mostly chose cheaper food that their kids would actually eat! There's always exceptions, of course, where kids would choose the healthy option or parents gave no choice but to eat the traditional 'healthy' foods, and I'm not saying that 'junk' was their "whole" diet. But between school/fast food outlets and major advertising aimed at kids, my goodness it wasn't made easy for us to choose/want healthy!

The 'junk' foods high in fat, sugar and salt were banned from being sold in schools, including vending machines, in 2006 with the help of Jamie Olivers campaign and the School Food Standards were bought in to action in 2015, so kids at least stand a small chance of getting healthier choices. Plus, people are more health conscious these days with the rise in plant based/vegan diets, etc.

But us in previous couple of generations had unhealthy foods and their advertising thrown at us all ways!

I'm 34 and remember chips/pizza being far cheaper than the salad bar in the school canteen.

I rarely bought either. I used to save my lunch money of £2 a day and buy fags from the nearby petrol station 😁 yeah, definitely not healthy 😬

Oh yeah that too! 🤣 Always knew which newsagent sold the fags to kids!

I ate two packs of jammy dodger at break and then school dinner of turkey twizzlers and chips for over a decade.

I can’t say it’s affected my weight or how I eat. But then we did eat proper food at home and just toast or cup of tea for breakfast.

Did go through a period of polishing a bottle of Diet Coke a day between my mum and I at one stage though which wasn’t very good for my teeth.

Weight is perfect. BMI is perfect.

That sounds much the same as my school meals and I'm older Gen X (born 69). No vending machines though.

Yeah I was fortunate really I guess- always had a good diet at home, plenty of healthy meals, but treats too. I was always naturally thin as a kid and am still slim now in my mid 30s.

Attitudes towards alcohol that we grew up around weren't great but that's been the case for many many years.

I was from a county which removed all the kitchens in the 80s so a hot meal was never an option! It wasn't until I went to secondary school that canteen meals were an option, but mainly just bought a sausage roll, chips, an iced bun or a doughnut! All delicious 😋 But hardly healthy!

My experience growing up definitely affected my mindset towards unhealthy foods.

I was born in the 80s too, and this wasn’t my experience at school so can’t have been universal, but yes sounds far from ideal. I do think what kind of eating habits children have at home is probably more influential l in long term, and one of my memories of the admirable Jamie Oliver campaign was parents trying to stuff junk food through the school gates for their children.

Born late 70s and also skipped lunch to buy fags from the age of about 14 <eek>. I think I survived my days on Ribena and chocolate and B&H. Was skinny as a rake!

School dinners were indeed grim at 80s primary (spam and Smash!) and 90s secondary (twizzlers & chips).

But wasn’t the endless snacking culture there is now. We also didn’t have takeaway delivery and the food culture was totally different. Takeaways were rare. Eating out was a treat. People didn’t spend a fiver on a massive 1200 calorie ‘coffee’ from Starbucks or a meatball sandwich from Subway. People just didn’t seem to eat as much!

In the 80s and 90s I had a packed lunch (school dinners were expensive) and ate home cooked meals at home. Takeaways were for birthdays.

Same at uni.

Now, we cook from first principles at home, and so do our kids. They also have packed lunches 4x a week, dh & I take packed lunches to work and we have takeaway once a month or so.

Oh yes the alcohol! My parents were and still are very much drinkers. It’s funny, until it isn’t and then it’s like right please go to bed without falling down the stairs 🤣

I sort of agree. I also think that we grew up in the low fat high sugar era before it was recognised just how bad sugar was for us....so much worse than the fat it replaced in many foods.

Look at the average breakfast I ate all through my childhood, mega-sugary cereals, and drinking so much fruit juice because it was seen as the healthy option.

I think it set me up for a real default towards sweet foods and I have struggled with my weight all my life.

Thinking also of all that focus on low fat foods combined with increase in prepackaged foods plus diet culture and focus on thinness.... Growing up in 80s and as a teen in the 90s....it was a bit messed up.

That's a good point. People now buy a coffee with loads of calories and snack constantly. Interestly though, young people doing this are most the children of gen X/millennials. 🤔

I'm a bit older, but none of this applies to me. My mum fed us well and we ate healthily.

Born early 70’s and the school meals weren’t healthy - spam fritters and semolina anyone? At high school they put a ban on just chips for lunch but if if you wanted chips with a potato waffle then that was fine 🤣

I went to secondary school in the 90s. I usually took a packed lunch but I remember the canteen just selling crap, I remember seeing chips and waffles dripping with loads of grease.

I always had a sugary cereal for breakfast but to be fair my mum always cooked dinner from scratch.

I give you, the spam fritter. Processed meat and a layer of grease contained in batter. Yum. 🤮

The diet culture of the 90s and even the 00s was awful. I remember the obsession to be thin and magazines that had "the circle of shame" which was pictures of celebrities and their cellulite/fat/wrinkles literally circled! Disgusting to think that actually happened!

Anyone remember the milky way adds? The snack you can give your kids right before a meal and it won't fill them up! Good old empty calories 🤣

I think I consumed a lot of donuts in my teen years. They were pudding at school and college. We ate some home made food but a lot of frozen stuff as well.

DH keeps telling me about his healthy food growing up. It wasn’t. Everything that could be deep fried was, they had chips almost every night. Served with tiny portions of overcooked veg. Lots of takeaways.

DD is ND and has massive issues with food and a limited diet, it’s still overall better than either of us was eating.

My mum did cook fairly healthy, from scratch dinners. She was seen as a bit of a ‘health food freak’ by some friends and family as we only had brown bread and wholewheat pasta, and she made us have a green salad with every meal .

But we did have a lot of sugar looking back. Sugary cereals, juice, fruit yoghurts. Porridge for breakfast in winter but with loads of sugar on top 😋

Yes between that and people smoking in their homes with children there it wasn’t the healthiest environment for many.

My primary school had the usual chips, burgers and things like caramel cake and tablet for dessert.

But that said takeaways were less common and children were generally far more active and walking to school was more common . I think the rates of childhood obesity are much higher now than back then?

I remember every single word of that advert despite not having seen it for thirty years, like some kind of hypnotised milky way sleeper agent ready to regurgitate the red car and the blue car song at a click.

There was only one obviously obese child I can think of in my junior school, and two at a large secondary school.

We may not have been healthier, but we were definitely less overweight.

Chips and a potato waffle 😂

Before I started smoking, so maybe when I was about 12, we used to go over the chippy across the road for lunch too. And then over to the shop to buy gobstoppers and the little exploding things you could throw on the floor and they'd make a bang. Hours of fun in our geography lessons 😂

Yes…we are all going to suffer massively for it. All that processed food over many years…as we hurtle towards middle age I predict a massive rise in cancers and diseases caused by all prolonged exposure to all those artificial preservatives and chemicals. My kids eat WAY healthier than I did. Convenience food for just about every meal. Sweets and fizzy juice on tap.