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 just tried on a kilt from M&S that my mother has had for decades. It was a 14 and I couldn’t fasten it and when I buy clothes from M&S I’m a 10.

I’m 5ft2 and I was 7 stone when I went to university. I’d never given a moment’s thought to my weight until after I had my first child at 29. I took my ordinary jeans to the hospital because I thought they would fit! People on tv do.

Like PPs are saying, I never talked about weight with my friends because we were all slim.

Yes to the vanity sizing. In the mid 80's I was a size 10 at 7st8lb, my goal was to reach size 8, usually before a night out or holiday (my own diaries attest to that 😬)
Not a stealth boast as am pocket size-but at the same weight now, a size 6 M&S skirt falls down my ankles.
It's ridiculous.

People really don’t change much. I was in my early twenties in 1975 and embraced an “alternative” lifestyle to get away from what’s described here, as many women do today.
I was quite fit and athletic, which wasn’t the “look” promoted by fashion in those days. Neither was it the hippy aesthetic. I became a sort of early punk, got fed up of that and just became myself.

I was in sixth form in the late 80s and I felt an immense amount of pressure to lose weight despite being under 9 stone. I did have a mother who was pretty and looks obsessed. I was a plain jane and her scapegoat. (She had mental health issues.)
There were women who weren't like that though. I had teachers who were more focused on intelligence and personality and weren't so focused on looks.

That sounds a bit like me in the 1990s in my early 20s after reading Bridget Jones' Diary. I was ten stone odd and 5'7" - BMI 22/23 and sporty & fit. I felt like I had to get a stone off and it still might not be enough, ignoring that Bridget was quite a bit shorter. Also heard some men laughing about women who weigh ten stone, as if that was completely enormous. Also then studied in France for a year - shop assistants made me feel an enormous outsized person in size 10/12 clothes, 34C bra and size 40 feet (6.5).

I've just got back into the top end of the healthy BMI range at 50 and my body image is so much better these days, I can really see I'm not fat!

Where did you access the diary? I’d be interested to read this or similar. Thanks

You have to remember back then there was no Internet, no social media and only 4 tv channels! No mobile phones....I was at an all girls boarding school and from 15 - 17 years the chatter was always about weight and boys. We didn't have much to base it on but a few racy books that people smuggled into school but the boys were always hansom and the girls were alway very thin.
I remember doing the cabbage soup diet for weeks when I was 18 as I 'needed' to be smalled than a size 12 in Etam or Top Shop!
We all kept diaries and if anyone had read mine I dread to think what they would have said!

Huge pressure to be skinny.

Body positivity so no one knows what healthy looks like any more.

Neither do women any favours but the bottom line is that being slim is unlikely to kill you.

It's not really all that different to modern day though is it? Just different measurements.

As an aside I was 8.6 stone in my teens and thought I was fat (I’m 5’2 and very petite).

And vanity sizing is 100% a thing. I’ve been a size 12 with difference in weight pushing 2 stone.

@Ddakji I am 8st 3lb now and I am 5ft 1 and I AM fat in places. I have so much fat around my middle it's untrue. But I think that's age now, as a teenager I could have been the same weight and I would have been slim,er

Yeah shocker, 50 years ago, the level of obesity was low and being overweight was an issue. The NHS was coping much better then!

My mum is 83 and was telling me proudly she’s lost weight and is now seven stone four. Err well done??

its currency when women had none.

People smoked instead of snacking which put pressure on the NHS. There were far more smokers back then.

My mum is 83 and was telling me proudly she’s lost weight and is now seven stone four. Err well done??
If she is eating healthily and it means she doesn't need medication for diabetes or cholesterol, then yes, congratulations to her.

People smoked instead of snacking which put pressure on the NHS. There were far more smokers back then
That's very true. It's fantastic that society has changed for the best in that regard. We now need to tackle obesity and stop pretending that being overweight is healthy.

You’re doing better than me, I’m over 10 stone!

We definitely carry our weight differently as we get older.

I’d like to get down to 9 stone, I know carrying extra weight around as you get older isn’t a great idea.

When I see photos or videos of middle aged women from the past they weren't all very slim. Yes, no one was massive but people were overweight.

We now need to tackle obesity and stop pretending that being overweight is healthy.

Obesity isn't the same as overweight though

Father's would watch them dance and leer away as the camera did lots of up skirting. That was the time of young women reading Jackie and being told shit that goes on even today. It was about being thin or you'll never get married.

Well, that has sent me down a PAN'S PEOPLE rabbit hole!

They were originally going to be called DIONYSUS'S DARLINGS!

How very fabulous!

The NHS was coping much the same as it is now, lurching from crisis to crisis, for many of the same reasons. I remember it well. The difference now is that a far wider range of treatments are available. Now, as then, where management is good, services are good (as they generally are where I live).

It’s a mistake to think that things were better in the past. This is an interesting read.

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/chapter/1968-1977-rethinking-the-national-health-service-1

PAN'S PEOPLE
Top of The Pops
1968 - 1976
Dancers. Babs, Dee Dee, Flick, Louise and Ruth

And one more ...

What happened next for the dancers in the Top of the Pop troupes? - BBC Music

I'm a PhD student and it was given to me by a woman in the interview sample. It's her sister's diary.

I remember a friend from a family of smokers (parents and brothers) being hospitalised at 10 with pneumonia. The higher number of smokers caused its own issues.
Life expectancy in 1970 was only 71. Living longer now does put a strain on the NHS. Also pensions and social care are expensive.