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!