To think that people were thinner

[Elfina]

In the past in the UK, up until about the 80s because food was less 'interesting'; less variety, seasoning etc so because it didn't taste that amazing you'd just eat your full and no more?

[cory]

I grew up in Sweden where food pre-1980's was seldom poor quality or badly cooked. But even so, it was more "everyday", there was less variety, less of the kind of flavour that encourages you to keep eating for the sake of it.

A typical meal would be boiled spuds, boiled fish or meat, parsley sauce or gravy and grated raw carrots, washed down with milk. Perfectly nutritious and not at all unpleasant, but you wouldn't be tempted to keep snacking on the leftovers: you ate until you stopped feeling hungry and then you didn't eat until the next meal.

My parents and most of their friends had pen pushing jobs, but still stayed slim for the most part.

[Pipbin]

That said, we are all talking about how people don't walk any more, but I didn't know anyone who did any other form of exercise 'back in the day'. No one jogged or went to the gym really.

[harticus]

Supermarkets have a lot to answer for - easy access to cheap crappy food.

I remember visiting the US in the mid 80s and being stunned that their supermarkets had 2 aisles dedicated solely to breakfast cereals.
Now we have followed down that overindulged path.

People in the UK were thinner then because we regarded certain foods as treats - chocolates, cakes etc. We only ever had them on special occasions and for treats - and they weren't cheap.
Now you can buy 10 doughnuts for a quid. Family sized packs and portions are the norm.

The booze thing is particularly crazy as people now seem to regard alcohol as an essential element of their diet.
A 250ml glass of wine is the same calorific intake as eating a Cornetto.

[phantomnamechanger]

boiled spuds, boiled fish or meat, parsley sauce or gravy and grated raw carrots, washed down with milk mmmm, yummy I'd be very thin indeed if I had to eat that!

[ArgyMargy]

YABU. And very silly.

[BIWI]

We had great food when I was growing up (also in the 70s.) My mum was a really good cook, and we used to go out for Chinese meals occasionally, or to a steak house occasionally. No problem with food being interesting in our house!

However, we didn't snack and we didn't drink fizzy drinks except for on special occasions.

[DonnaDishwater]

I agree with the OP. But another reason is people being so lazy nowadays. And not having proper hobbies that get them out of the house and being active.

[ziggiestardust]

nearthewindmill yes, my nan was always a good size 16-18 but never looked fat because of the panty girdles she used to wear.

I think we are more aware of it now, as in the 80's/90's when I grew up, I really don't think people looked an awful lot different to the way they do now when I look at photos of my family and friends etc.

Dinner wasn't always meat and 2 veg either! It was pie, chips, mash, and always bread and butter on the table to mop up the gravy/juices with. There was usually pudding too; jelly, homemade cakes, or sponge type pudding. We weren't fat either, but I wonder if it's because our meals were so substantial, we didn't need to snack? They were all homemade meals too, cooked from scratch. And there was a lot of pastry/potatoes etc going on. More than I'd ever serve my family now.

I honestly think that awareness has increased.

[Sirzy]

I think snacking is the biggest issue, and the fact that pretty much every leisure activity is accompanied by 'junk food' we don't seem to be able to do anything in this country without it involving eating - even sports centres have rooms full of vending machines containing sugary/fatty foods

[MoominMammasHandbag]

I think it's a bit of a myth that Marilyn Monroe and Diana Dors were big women, just google their images. Yes Diana Dors was bigger in middle age but she was a very slim young woman.

[phantomnamechanger]

school dinners were very calorific but also nutrient dense - I am talking well before convenience frozen junk and the subsequent return to better standards

meat pie with mash gravy and 2 veg, rice pudd
fish chips and peas with tinned peaches and ice cream
roast dinner with crumble & custard
stew and dumplings with boiled spuds and veggies, cake and custard
toad in the hole with mash and veg, syrup sponge and custard

we might have fruit salad once in a while but never anything like melon or a banana like kids can choose thesedays

BUT we were not fat, because we exercised more and walked to school, also most kids did NOT get a treat when they were met from school, and most kids had a sandwich/soup/beans on toast evening meal - so many thesedays seem to get 2 cooked meals a day! fizzy drinks were a rare treat, sweets were once a week on pocket money day. we also did not have the thing of every child bringing in sweets or cakes on their birthday. at the moment DS is coming out of school every day with haribo or mini choc bar! I wish school would ban this practice I really do.

[ziggiestardust]

I also remember my mum, and a lot of my friends mums being a good hefty size 16 (I remember playing dress up in their clothes) and they were all on the short side. There was this one mum called Jane who they all envied, for being a size 10.

This would have been 80's/early 90's.

We were an average middle class family on a naice estate too, so not a lack of education.

[NearTheWindmill]

cory we had Swedish au-pairs for many years. Girls of 18 in the mid noughties were fantastic cooks because they told us that ready meals, etc., were way behind the UK in Sweden and they still had to learn how. They made us some fantastic meatloaves and snickerdoodles and one used to make a fabulous pie with mince and tomato and some egg I think. I lost the recipe. She said it was a traditional Swedish dish but I've never been able to create it. You don't know how to do you please?

[DonnaDishwater]

In the 80s a Vesta meal was a special treat. Now people gorge themselves on Indian and Chinese food all the time. Children once drank cordial, or tea or coffee, now they neck coca-cola or other fizzy drinks throughout the day. I remember getting a 10p mix from the newsagent as a friday afternoon treat, now most kids seem to be handed chocolate and sweets as they leave school daily! It's all wrong IMO.

[Bonsoir]

The food I was given as a child in the 1970s was most definitely less appetising than the food I eat now - and my family was MC and knew about nutrition and cooking (to the extent that information was available then). There was clearly less temptation back then. People didn't eat in between meals the way they do now and food took longer to prepare.

I don't think people required the same degree of self-control in the face of temptation as they do now in order not to overeat. That goes for other things than just eating...

[phantomnamechanger]

yeah sirzy, our local leisure centre has chocolate and fizz filled machines, or the café where you can have pasty, pizza, sausage roll, hot dog, chips or a huge cookie or slab of cake!

[Elfina]

argy fair enough if you think I'm BU, but why am I being "silly"?!

[ziggiestardust]

donna I've got to say I don't know any children who drink that much pop, or have sweets that often. I think that's a common misconception and not the norm, tbh. In my experience, anyway

[chrome100]

I was born in 1981. I don't think food has changed particularly in that time? Although I do eat out more as an adult than my parents did.

[MoominMammasHandbag]

I was born in the sixties, raised on traditional, cooked from scratch British food, albeit with plenty of veggies and salad. I had sweets everyday and drank loads of pop too. I have always been slim, but have pretty mediocre teeth.
I think the difference is, not the presence of crap, but the quantity of crap, that people consume.
There was one chubby kid in our village. Poor kid was a victim of a family tragedy and raised by an overindulgent, overprotective grandmother. It was the stuff of legend amongst us kids that he has once eaten a whole packet of biscuits himself. I remember we were all totally aghast. That kind of gluttony is relatively commonplace now.

[BlueberryWoods]

I think advertising plays a part too. Maybe food is more aggressively advertised now. These food manufacturers are no longer happy with a moderate profit - they want a massive profit and a bigger profit the following year.

[NearTheWindmill]

And whoever thought in the 60s and 70s (early part anyway) that we would all end up buying bottled water.

[maleview70]

My mum now in her mid 60's was telling me the other day that when I was little, she walked me every day back and too to her mums 2 miles away. A daily 4 mile walk. They rarely drank alcohol as couldn't afford it and a takeaway was a once a year treat.

As a kid I went out to play at 9am and came back at 5pm with no contact in between. It's just what we did.

The having no money will actually come back for many people due to the poor pension provision that people have made.

[Birdsgottafly]

I grew up in the area that I now live.

It is an area that suffers from Obesity.

The first difference is disposable income, there was real poverty still around in the 60/70/80's, where I live.
Food shopping meant potatoes, oats, veg and baking ingredients.

Supermarket foods were rubbish and expensive unlike now.

Fast food wasn't about until the 80's and as Marketing hadn't convinced us all that we should be eating it, it was rate that we ate out.

Cafés were a treat, but they served "real food".

Income changed and so did cooking and eating habits.
This means that families now stock up for the week at Farm foods/Iceland etc, pies, ready cooked foods and then cheap crisps, cakes etc.

The range of prepared plastic food/drink is vast compared to what once was.

Then the issue is that what goes into those foods has changed, this is born out by every piece of research. It is a fact that all of our food is different, even the veg we buy.

We change how we digest and use food, when we take in some of today's ingredients.

I can remember everyone either walking or riding bikes and carrying sacks if potatoes etc home, whilst growing up.

Housework was harder, if your electric wasn't on the fiddle, you brushed up, rather than hoovering. People still had mangles and twin tubs and still hand washed, when money was really tight.

In terms of some of the teen girls I see about, I think it is alco pops and what is in them, as well as other drinks that cause the fat storage the way it is.

Even the Cider pre 90's didn't have the calories and crap in. Everything was made differently, even the bread.

I google recipes and it can be a search to find one with a list of ingredients that don't contain prepared foods, such as Soup.

People were overweight, though and Heart Disease was killing Men.

[Trills]

I was born in 1981. I don't think food has changed particularly in that time?

I was born in 1984 and I think that the variety of foods that I eat (and that my parents eat too, it's nt just a generational thing) have massively increased since then.