1975 diary shocker

[NorthernGirl1975]

As part of my PhD I'm looking at primary sources. I'm currently reading a diary from 50 years ago. The writer is obsessed with how she looks, what she eats and weighs and whether or not she's pretty.

There are lots of references to getting male attention. She goes to a summer gala with her friend and talks about the ice cream man being fit.

Then says she and the friend were chatted up on the bus and "Wolf whistled by two guys so that's not bad to say I'm a stone overweight". Earlier she's stated she weighs eight stone three. Says she's joining weight watchers as no guy would want to be seen around with a fat ugly girlfriend. Some guy who looks like Steve Harley keeps staring at her.

She went to buy a dress she liked but there was only one and it was a size 14 and too big. That's a 10 today isn't it? Christ knows what size she wanted to be. She's written measurements down as "35-25-35" and is obsessed with looking like one of Pam's People.

This is so depressing.

I remember the 70’s. That doesn’t surprise me.

Diet culture was everywhere and there were many very thin people about, especially older women who had been young during the war. Rosemary Conley (author of the ‘hip and thigh diet’ and slimming club club founder) was a prime example.

Even if you were slim you’d be constantly admonished by Mums, Aunts and grandmothers not to put weight on and admonished again if it was suspected you were not ‘watching your weight’ as well as you might.

Misogyny was also rife and being cat called and wolf whistled on the street was expected. If it didn’t happen my older sister used to think it was because they were unattractive and / or fat. When they got married their husbands called them fat all the time as a way to control and abuse even though they were extremely slim, which they achieved and maintained through black coffee and chain smoking.

I mourn the loss of many things from my youth, but not all that.

"In some ways it's worse, because now girls have to pretend - or gaslight themselves into believing - that it's about self-care / self-empowerment rather than male approval and attention."

Yes, I agree and a very good point.
I also find it worse now because you have to be strong as well as thin.

This was my point upthread. We didn't eat much at all. If we had a fry up it would be one egg, two rashers of bacon, two tinned tomatoes and one piece of bread or toast with a scrape of butter. Our meals were tiny growing up. A Fray Bentos pie would serve four of us with potatoes and green veggies. Although one of these nowadays would be slightly smaller due to shrinkflation, a person would eat a whole one of those to themselves now.

When I cleared the family home, I found the plates we used to eat off as kids and they are tiny. I have photos of the four of us sitting round the table to eat and I still have that table and it is tiny. We were all small thin people. We had small cars and sat in small chairs. Dad drove an Austin A30 and we all fitted in it with a stack of room for bags and picnics etc. but if you were to look at an Austin A30 now, the seats by todays standards are tiny. The whole car looks ridiculously small.

We were unhealthy in a lot of ways too though but not from overeating.

Analysing my diet when I was a kid (b 1963) it was not great. There was nothing like enough protein and I have issues as an adult that I'm confident are linked to my poor diet and lifestyle as a child. People had bad teeth and bad skin back then and a lot of disease went untreated.

Most of us could keep the protein intake but cut the carb intake by 2/3 and be a lot healthier for it.

That’s so sad as you were probably just getting great glutes, nothing to do with “fat”!

I appreciate that wedding dress sizing can be a bit iffy but I still have mine from the 80s - size 14 - and the waist measures 26 inches.

No, I don't 100% agree with you on Bridget Jones. Helen Fielding said later that it was largely autobiographical so I'd say it's making fun of things like obsessive dieting, but I wouldn't go as far as 'taking the piss out of'. She wasn't taking the piss out of herself.

You're right that Bridget was never meant to be fat. Her height wasn't disclosed because the whole point was that she would be weight obsessed whether she was chubby, average or slim.

In 1975, I was 15. My school pals helpfully told be that I was too heavy. I was 5ft 8 and weighed 9 stone 6 pounds and comfortably wore a size 14.

I started skipping lunch. By the time I was 18, I had grown nearly an inch, was 8 stone 10 and got into a size 12. A 14 would be a current size 10. I'm not sure about a 1978 size 12.

I recall that my mum was worried about anorexia.

I'm fat now. I've no doubt that the constant dieting in my teens mucked up my relationship with food.

This

She is a comedy character. To be laughed at and laugh with. Comedy is about stereotypes and exaggeration.

On portions I remember first going to restaurants quite regularly in my early 20s and thinking I could never eat a whole pizza to myself! But then I got used to it of course and started buying frozen pizzas just for me...
I really think that eating out changed what I considered to be a normal portion.

Would you like me to photograph the page and post it to show you?

People extrapolate from their own experience, and their friends and relatives.
Experience varies for lots of reasons, class, economics, area etc.
It’s not a big deal to disagree based on experience. This is just a discussion and nobody has to win,

This. When they made the Bridget Jones films, they missed the point completely. Asking the actress to put on weight was missing the point completely. I have never been able to watch the films as they made no sense compared to the books. BJs point was that she felt fat at 8s 3lb and all the rest of her lifestyle was surrounding this fact and the other factors mentioned in @Rallentanda 's post. I can't be the only one that thinks this was a massive goof.

OK, 'sending herself up', then? She definitely was.

I was 22 in 1975, 5ft 5" tall and wore a size 12, which was bust 34" - waist 26" - hips 38". That was considered average and most of my friends were the same size or slimmer.

One friend was a size 14 at 36/28/40 and nobody wanted to be that size. The goal was size 10 or 12. She was always trying whacky diets to lose weight.

I didn't have any friends bigger than a size 14 - maybe because being overweight as a young woman was unusual. At my all girls school (65 - 71) there were hardly any overweight girls, only one in my year group and she was plump rather than fat.

At primary school in the 1950s/60s there weren't any fat children - not even one. Takeaways didn't exist, sweets were a rare treat and nobody snacked. Drinks were mainly milk, water or tea. We walked a lot more back then - to and from school and then played outside until dusk. Going somewhere in a car was a weekend treat.

It is depressing. I found my teenage diary from my first few years at university in the 90's and I was so excited to read it and remember all this cool stuff I'd been up to back then, Instead it was all one long howl of despair over my appearance, my weight, boys not noticing me and so on. It also detailed my "year of success" where I starved myself down to a size 8 eating only 1 slice of toast with peanut butter for breakfast, an apple for lunch and a cup a soup for dinner. I ended up just binning it it was so depressing.

Having said that now in our 40's my friends have spoken about how common disordered eating was and still is amongst many women.

"as an adult that I'm confident are linked to my poor diet and lifestyle as a child."

Can you elaborate? I also didn't eat that well as a child and teenager (80s and 90s).

This is absolutely right. I married in 1975, aged 20, and dieted down to 9 St 7 lb, which at 5'9" was tiny. I still felt fat, with 37" hips. We obsessed about weight and size. A 22" waist was what every girl dreamed of. We felt unwanted if we weren't wolf whistled. My mother made it clear that my job was to get married and have children. Career prospects were limited, girls earned less for the same work and couldn't get promotion. They were not included in company pension schemes.
It's been such a battle for women of my generation to be treated with respect, and as equals, but I see so many young women behaving as we did. So sad.

I am very surprised.

It absolutely wasn't in normal vocabulary as a term for a good looking man

I love the film for what it was but exactly: they made so much of Renée Zellweger putting on weight and what that looked like, it was quite horrible actually.

Iirc in the 70s fit meant in good shape, sporty? Not hot or good-looking.

This is absolutely right. I married in 1975, aged 20, and dieted down to 9 St 7 lb, which at 5'9" was tiny. I still felt fat, with 37" hips. We obsessed about weight and size. A 22" waist was what every girl dreamed of. We felt unwanted if we weren't wolf whistled. My mother made it clear that my job was to get married and have children. Education was irrelevant for a daughter. Career prospects were limited, girls earned less for the same work and couldn't get promotion. They were not included in company pension schemes.
It's been such a battle for women of my generation to be treated with respect, and as equals, but I see so many young women behaving as we did. So sad.

I'm not sure. The point was that she was not fat, but in the film she's not fat either, just fat compared to a Hollywood actress. I do think they went a bit far - actress should have been a current size 12 rather than a 14 maybe - but in any case, even if Bridget was slim I don't think she was supposed to look like the real Renee Zellweger.

We used 'fit' to mean attractive in my area of Belfast in the late seventies/early eighties. Well, I say 'we' ... I mean my friends. I wasn't inclined to comment on boys' attractiveness or otherwise. Not sure why. I had plenty of thoughts in my head! They were also referred to as 'a ride' but that's by the bye😂

I also thought fit to mean good looking started in the 90s.
Could it have been used earlier in some regions and then become more widespread?