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?

The facts on obesity seem to support this.

No McDonalds or late opening fast food places in the 80s, most people walked reasonable distances. Among many factors.

Self control.

Yes, but I'm wondering why we eat more "crap" now and have less self-control. Those things aren't the full answer

One reason is that people have far more money to spend than they did 30 years ago, and as many have mentioned, food is much cheaper.

Not sure whether they were healthier but I can tell you it was a lot more boring.

:)

I am not sure about being slimmer in the past- I have done a lot of family history research, and have some photos of my G-grandparents, they were pretty chubby actually, and this was not due to affluence- they were a Welsh mining family, so I imagine food was not in abundance and the work was physically hard. What I do know is that three of their seven children died before the age of 18 due to tuberculosis- thankfully not something that is widespread in this country these days (although I appreciate some parts of the world it is still rife)

Maybe it is genetic though- the father of the family lived to a ripe old age of 81- and was still hewing away at the coalface aged 78, according to the census. He must have just been very hardy (he drank like a fish and was constantly drunk of an evening too!)

One of the things that has significantly increased over the years is the pushing of drinks by marketing , as giving you "energy"

Its one of the biggest cons - "a sportsdrink" - that is subliminally telling you - yep that its healthy.
We didnt drink fizzy drinks everyday- xmas,birthday etc
Another reason we eat more is that the sweet taste of even diet drinks/low cal sports drinks raises your insulin production.
The body anticipates some sugar arriving when it tastes the sweetness and insulin is produced .
This leads to hunger/feeling wobbly so you eat /drink another sweet drink.
Esentially our metabolisms are being screwed up.

diet coke didn't arrive till the 80s
shops were not open so late every day
mc Donald's and other fast food chains were in their infancy back then
M&S were the only ones who really did "convenience food" back then and I think it was pretty straight and unadulterated.
there were less supermarkets and fast food outlets too.
Low fat food (and therefore high sugar content) was in its infancy

people were more active generally for a number of reasons.

Also, I'm not sure if it was just my parents but I always ate what they ate. There were no chicken dinosaur shapes or anything like that.
It had been referred to a beige food. Children get so used to eating beige food, like chicken nuggets and chips, that they won't eat anything with any colour.

The only difference I can remember really is that kids weren't given food on demand. We had breakfast before school, lunch at school, we could have a snack as soon as we came home, then it was dinner and pudding after. Mum would have taken it as an insult if we'd gone hunting for biscuits afterwards! Sweet money on Fridays which had to last all week. Big roast on Sunday, with toast for tea.

Another thing was that we were very active. After the cartoons finished there wasn't too much to interest us at home so we went out until dinner time. On Saturdays I would take my bike out in the morning with my friends and only come back at 5-ish to watch the A Team.

But of course some of the junk food we did eat was less healthy than it is now. Like Pot Noodles, they taste of nothing with all the salt and MSG taken out!

We were never allowed to go to MacDonalds, my Nan was scandalized that they didn't have cutlery! We went to Wimpy instead. (I miss Wimpy...)

GatoradeMeBitch That's funny.

My mum would never allow me to go to the Wimpy because of the men who worked there.

She regarded the arrival of a MacDonalds an hour's bus ride away as A Very Good Thing.

Now I'm her age, and know what I know, I can see her point.

I'm not saying she was glad it was an hour away.

She gladly gave me the bus fare because it was a great deal more savoury.

On so many levels

interesting thread

I grew up in the 80's and 90's and certainly we didn't go out to eat, even though my parents were well off, it was a once or twice a year treat and really special, whereas dh and I take the dcs out for lunch most weekends at least oncentbh

we also didn't have fizzy pop or sweets in the house as kids but we do

The men who worked there limited? Was that a thing specific to your local branch?

(I avoid my local BK for this reason, my son knows some lads who work there so I know what goes on in the kitchens...)

Yes it was specific to my two nearest branches gatorade.

There was a third one in another town about three miles away but my mum decided not to chance it but to give me the bus fare going four miles in the other direction every Saturday afternoon even though it was in touching distance of That There London .

limited

The suburban south east of England seems to be the last refuge of Wimpey. When we are visiting my wife's relatives down there we try to visit as many as possible. So far Eastbourne (swish new one) and Saltdean (80s timewarp) are top of our Wimpey charts.

Yes we still have a wimpy. They do a spicy bean burger that is quite nice.
Some one asked how much taller are we nowadays ? A good couple of inches on average I would guess. Also shoe sizes have definitely got bigger now.
A really interesting thread, as someone who was born in 1960.
From my memories, it was pretty common for people simply not to have enough to eat. TBH, I think quite a few people were underweight for that reason. There was quite a lot of (quite extreme) poverty around - not that everyone has it easy nowadays of course but I do think hunger is less common in this country nowadays.

I'm not getting this vision of healthier eating a few decades ago, or this lack of snacking and fast food.

Growing up in the 70s, we snacked several times a day and McDonalds had arrived in our town. That said, if we had a takeaway, which we did occasionally, my mum and I would opt for the vegetarian wholefood place (with my brothers having the McDonalds). We also ate out maybe once a month (mainly Italian style). My parents were into health foods - brown bread, wholegrains etc - but this was not the norm (I remember wondering why our food seemed to be browner than everyone elses!).

There may be more processed foods available now, but there's also a huge amount of choice, including healthier options - the array of fruits, vegetables and salads in supermarkets now bears no comparison to equivalent aisles 30-40 years ago.

As said earlier, I buy into the difference being exercise/movement. The shift in lifestyle, entertainment, transport etc has led to a massive reduction of incidental movement.

This thread is so full of bullshit. I've lost count of how many times I've read the word 'nowadays'.

I blame family sized bags of crisps. Or normal, as we tend to think of them.

totally agree fridgepants. There was no healthy eating in my day and we didnt/dont put on weight.