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 was born in the 70s and in my household weight was often discussed between my DM and DG, as in you watched what you ate. Now in my 50’s and still a size 8 and that’s not because it comes naturally but because of the message I had growing up.

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

We have more older people now living longer

There were fewer overweight people then. There are many overweight people now (or was before the jabs). Maybe we should become more obsessed again, we’d be slimmer.

I mean it has changed in the fact that a wolf whistle was appreciated.I am only 46 but in tje 90s I would have appreciated it. Sad I know.

Teens today definitely would not and think its inappropriate.

One of my daughters works at John Lewis.
There are women there now (so not yet retired unless they have returned I suppose) used to be weighed by JL every single week at one time.
They are still very very slim and obsessed with weight which is understandable but also sad. Women that only eat less than half a sandwich for lunch and worry about their weight constantly.
It definitely isn’t or wasn’t healthy.

This thread has made me remember the awfulness of TFI and bloody Chris Evans.
Weighing Posh Spice and talking about “the fat one” of The Cheeky Girls.

Also remembered reading Jilly Cooper in The Common Years writing about being huge at ten stones.

The girl in the sodding balloon in the Nimble adverts.

How much money has been made by the diet industry over the decades from making women feel bad about thenselves?

I’ve just remembered that my mother, born in 1916, was obsessed with her weight when I was a child. At one point she bought a special plastic suit that you wore round the house while doing housework (which was pretty strenuous in the 1960s). The idea was that you lost weight by sweating. She abandoned it when she found it was horrible and didn’t work.
There were lots of “slimming” versions of everyday food available, such as Nimble bread, which was mostly air. Ryvita was recommended for those on diets, or just eating grapes all day on some days (a sort of early version of the 5-2 programme).
People didn’t drink so many fizzy drinks - in general they didn’t have that much disposable income - but three or four teaspoons of sugar in coffee or tea wasn’t unusual. In fact, cutting that out was probably the quickest way to lose weight back then. Sweetners (saccharine) were available instead.

People are fatter now. Fat has been normalised. Back in the 70s it would have been considered quite big.

Life expectancy was 72 in 1975, it’s a good 10 years more now. The later years of life and life-extending treatment are very expensive to the NHS.

I was 20 in 1975 and think the diary was spot on. The obsession with boys and weight etc. When I was at school in about 1972 my friend and I worked out how many times we'd have to walk round the cricket pitch to burn off the calories in a whole packet of biscuits. (Source of our information The Manual of Nutrition from HMSO, one of my books from A Level Home Economics) As I recall we didn;t have time to complete the required circuits - we would have been there all night.

Christ yes. And "Sturdy girl, thighs of steel, look out boys, her strength is real!" re a perfectly normally sized producer, who seemed to take it in good spirit.

But weirdly many people are fitter now. Hardly anyone went to the gym in the seventies - gyms were for boxers and the like.
All those super skinny models and actresses were seriously not toned. There’s a scene in Carry on Doctor where Kenneth Williams slaps the very lovely and shapely young Barbara Windsor on the bum while she’s lying on the examination couch, and her whole body wobbles.

i dont find that depressing, it is her diary, was she 16?
sounds pretty typical

I was a teen in the mid 90s and kept a diary (I still have it) and yes pretty much the whole thing was based on which boy I fancied that week and all the teen girl dramas that I had with my friends.

I Didn’t write about my weight or looks (I was VERY self conscious) but it was on my mind constantly. My mother was also looks and weight obsessed and still is. It’s very tiresome.

Cherry?

and size 14 was large when you are 16 - well it was to me
i was 10, creeping up to 12
size 11 actually

These women brought us up so that's why not that much has changed. Obviously they were prisoners of a societal phenomenon just as we are so I'm not really blaming them.

I have some letters between my parents when they were courting and then engaged in the 60s and my mum is always banging on about how fat she is in them. Then she will mention other women derogatively saying at least she's not as fat as them. When I read them it made it click into place why she was so obsessed with my weight growing up and put me on a diet at 10 because you always want your children not to suffer what you did. Made me happy about the modern body positive movement even if certain quarters will get cross about health as if other people's bodies are a moral issue that could pollute themselves.

Fairly usual diminutive for Cheryl.

I dont remember men being as obsessed by their weight and appearance back then so I'm not convinced that women being less obsessed now is the reason for the obesity crisis. There was a smoking crisis back then instead. Maybe more equality means women are able to focus on other things like their career rather than looks.

But weirdly many people are fitter now. Hardly anyone went to the gym in the seventies -

I don't think any of my mums friends or aunts had abs, six packs or even knew what they were.

It was pam, not pan wasn't it?

I was born in 1970, I went to secretarial college at 16 and we had to do aerobics every Monday morning as “no one likes a fat receptionist!”. That’s what we were told by the woman who ran the course!

I've always gone to the gym and have a toned stomach but never a six pack. It requires specific exercises and a strict diet, neither of which I care for.

It was Pan's People.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan's_People

Presumably you are writing a PhD about life and/or attitudes 50 years ago because you think things have changed? Why are you not hugely encouraged by this? I was 17 n 1975 and probably wrote similar in my diaries about hoping for male attention. I was skinny, never thought I was too fat, but despaired of my flat chest.