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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that people were thinner

245 replies

Elfina · 09/02/2014 14:06

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?

OP posts:
Lovecat · 13/02/2014 18:55

There's still pride in being 'well-covered' - DD was a bit of a chunk when she was born and MIL, who grew up in Aberdeen in what appears to have been quite grinding poverty, was ecstatic that I had a 'good, meaty baby'!

I grew up in the NorthWest in the 1970/80's. McDonalds didn't open until the mid-80's and a cheeseburger with small fries was the most that most people would have. All we had before that was Wimpy (considered 'posh') and Chinese chip shops. I first went out to a restaurant for a formal meal for my friend's 16th birthday and was utterly intimidated by what I now realise was a very ordinary Chinese restaurant! Growing up, crisps were a once a week treat (on a Friday, watching It Ain't Half Hot Mum) and a few sweets from the penny tray if we'd behaved ourselves in Church. We walked everywhere and that was normal.

My mum was not a good cook, I thought I hated vegetables until I left home and realised they didn't have to come boiled to mush with the Sunday roast (which was courtesy of Bernard Matthews and his turkey roll), we otherwise lived on Fray Bentos pies, horrible 'value' grey beefburgers, tinned ravioli, Bigga marrowfat peas (God, I still love them!) and homemade chips. And always something for afters, a slice of battenburg or a jam tart, or tinned peaches in evaporated milk. It was not a healthy diet, but none of us were overweight. None of us were particularly toned, though, six packs were unheard of. And yes, most adults smoked.

limitedperiodonly · 13/02/2014 19:22

The suburban south east of England seems to be the last refuge of Wimpey.

Come on ComposHat with one last big push we can drive them into the sea Grin.

But seriously, I completely agree with you that many people born in the '10s, '20s, '30s, '40s and even '50s were thin because they were malnourished, not because they were fit.

To think otherwise is bullshit.

ComposHat · 13/02/2014 22:32

Nooooo! As a veggie in the 80s/e 90s Wimpy's spicy bean burger was the only vegetarian food for sale. I still remember the first day I found them at the Wimpy kiosk on Milford Common.

DuckworthLewis · 14/02/2014 10:48

I agree with much of what has been already mentioned, but I think attitudes towards obesity have changed too and there is something of a 'snowball' effect going on.

As more and more people have become obese, the anti-fat-shaming voice has got louder and it is now becoming increasingly less socially acceptable to mock obese people.

This serves to normalise obesity and, IMO, reduces the incentive for people to take the (admittedly very difficult) steps to lose their excess weight.

...so more people become (and stay) overweight, the anti-fat-shaming voice gets louder still and so on...

Annoyingly, I can't find a link to the study now, but it has been demonstrated that obesity is 'catching' for want of a better word. That is to say that if, in your social group, obesity is common, you are much more likely to be obese yourself.

This had only ever been studied in family groups where the correlation was attributed to genes, but it is demonstrably a socially transmitted phenomenon too.

IMO, vanity sizing, and increasing mannequin sizes to reflect the obesity crisis are incredibly worrying social developments.

fridgepants · 14/02/2014 15:36

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the user's request.

JamNan · 14/02/2014 17:12

I was a child in the Sixties. We did have quite a high carb diet then and the only convenience food we had tinned soup, tinned meat pies, ready meals were not available. But I remember the food as being very tasty. Suet puddings, rice pudding, shepherds pie, yorkie pudding, dumplings, rissoles, roast beef. And lots of veg too - soup, lentils, pease pudding, cheese and onion pie. Haddock and mash with egg.

I think in those days we used up a lot of the calories we ate to keep warm because the houses we lived in were so bloody freezing cold! One coal fire heated the whole house. I can remember ice on the inside of the windows in winter and going to bed wearing bed socks and knitted woollen bed jackets. How my mum ever washed and dried any clothes or nappies in the winter months before the advent of a self service laundry I don't know. We wheeled it there and back in my sister's pram.

Sweets were a treat on Fridays. Maybe a small cake like a doughnut or Florentine from the baker on a Saturday lunchtime followed by a traumatising episode of Doctor Who in the evening. Also vegetables were seasonal. You could not get veg like tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce or oranges year-round.

The advent of refrigerators, freezers, a profit-hungry food industry selling mostly crap food often to consumers who are uninformed or disinterested about nutrition; then using TV advertising and marketing campaigns to promote their products such as 'health-giving' breakfast cereals for kids, has resulted in a deterioration of food choice. Children see these ads all the time BTW.

Just look at the incidence of newly diagnosed diabetics in the UK including children. Sorry rant over there!

OP, YANBU, people were definitely thinner.

limitedperiodonly · 14/02/2014 19:13

I lost it with OP from the start when she was prattling on about meat and two veg.

That's so fucking lazy I imagine that she'd be borderline obese too.

Elfina · 14/02/2014 19:37

Well, the good thing about obesity is that the weight can be lost. Rudeness to others is something that tends to be a trait.

And nope, not even nearly overweight, thanks for your concern though Smile

OP posts:
AskBasil · 14/02/2014 19:45

I don't think saying something nasty to someone gives them an incentive to lose weight tbh.

I also don't believe that those people who are nasty to someone fat, are being nasty in order to motivate them.

limitedperiodonly · 14/02/2014 20:21

Rudeness to others is something that tends to be a trait.

So is ignorance, OP.

You fail to understand diets or lifestyles or anything much before the 1980s.

You do realise there was a life before that, don't you?

fascicle · 15/02/2014 13:34

DuckworthLewis wrote:
it is now becoming increasingly less socially acceptable to mock obese people.

This serves to normalise obesity and, IMO, reduces the incentive for people to take the (admittedly very difficult) steps to lose their excess weight.

Mocking people as a route for change? Dubious success rate aside, you cannot be serious. Motivation has to come from within, not be inflicted by cruel words! I agree with Basil and Fridge.

Orangeanddemons · 15/02/2014 13:43

I remember muffins and cookies arriving in supermarkets in the 80s. I was early 20s mid eighties and had never any cakes or cookies of that size before. I think it started then!

Pipbin · 15/02/2014 13:50

Good point Orange. Baking has changed from fairy cakes to the bigger cupcakes without anyone noticing.

DuckworthLewis · 15/02/2014 16:38

Motivation has to come from within, not be inflicted by cruel words!

I partly agree with you, nobody wants to live in a society where people are cruel to each other for any reason.

However, I also believe that, if society conditions people believe it is perfectly ok to be obese, then they have less incentive to do anything about it.

Obesity is incredibly bad for your health, there really are no two ways about it. All other things being equal, a person with a normal BMI will always be healthier than an obese one.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think it disingenuous to suggest that there is no causal link whatsoever between the normalisation of obesity and its shocking increase in prevalence.

DuckworthLewis · 15/02/2014 16:44

...while I'm on the subject...

I also think that successful motivation comes from various sources depending on the characteristics of the individual.

For some people (myself included) clothes becoming tight, or seeing a photo of them looking chubby is a very powerful motivational tool.

For others, it would be terribly upsetting and would send them straight to the biscuit tin.

For some obese people motivation does indeed need to come from within, but it is also true that for others, external motivation is necessary.

Lumping all obese individuals in together, and suggesting that they are all motivated by the same thing, is far too simplistic an analysis.

fascicle · 16/02/2014 13:49

Lumping all obese individuals in together, and suggesting that they are all motivated by the same thing, is far too simplistic an analysis.

I certainly didn't say that. Motivation coming from within = the person has to want to change, rather than have change imposed. I haven't talked about what form that motivation will take.

As for this normalising of obesity - you can argue that the greater prevalence of obesity is a normalising factor in itself. But there's a huge amount of information out there (e.g. through schools, department of health, countless tv programmes, press articles etc) that reinforces the message that obesity is dangerous to health. I think it's absurd to say that lack of mocking normalises obesity, and sadly, I bet that on balance, the incidence of judgmental comments outweigh people not making comments.

All other things being equal, a person with a normal BMI will always be healthier than an obese one.

Not necessarily true. BMI might be a guide, but it's a crude one. Ask any muscled athlete how accurate BMI is, as an indicator of health.

SingMoreWhenYoureWinning · 16/02/2014 13:56

Agree on the BMI thing.

I wouldn't say dh was 'hugely' muscled. But he's 6 foot 3 and has a very large build...very wide shoulders and chest etc.

To be a 'normal' BMI, his maximum weight is something like 14stone. He's around 15stone atm, so officially 'overweight' and with a higher BMI. He's very fit, eats very well and doesn't have any flab to lose.

At 14stone he would look ill. No account is taken of build or muscle mass, so BMI is an indication at best.

FudgefaceMcZ · 16/02/2014 14:00

I don't think people really were that much thinner in the past, even though diet bores like to drag it out as a justification of their sad existence. I have family photos from way, way back, 1880s ish when my mum's side of the family were all farm workers on a large estate, and they really aren't skinny in the way that models and actresses now are skinny (or that people in the 70s, including my eating disordered mother, were, so that isn't a proper comparison as it was the time when eating disordered behaviour became fashionable). They aren't (with one exception who is clearly very fat) obese, but they would certainly be in the high normal to overweight BMI range now (healthy BMI back in the day was counted as up to 27, which is now classed as overweight- think it was around the 90s it was lowered, probably due to obesity panic, countereffectively as people don't bother trying to maintain weights that are unattainable for most people eating a normal diet).

Of course posh people were possibly thinner back then, especially posh women who aspired to consumptive kind of appearances, but I think normal people probably had more important things to worry about (my gran mentioned trying to scrabble cash together to get a doctor in when children were ill in her childhood). People who would be seen as very plain now (myself included) would be considered perfectly average looking then due to not having scars or deformities. Photoshop didn't exist so no one would have expected anyone to have poreless skin and no wobbly bits.

DuckworthLewis · 16/02/2014 20:41

We will have to agree to disagree, BMI is, on the whole a good indicator of whether a person is carrying too much fat or not.

You can always point to a handful of individuals for whom it is slightly out, but a for the vast majority of us, it is a good predictor.

I hate to say it, but the arguments from fascicle and sing are excellent examples of the apologist direction society is taking, and are not least of the reasons for the obesity epidemic we are seeing.

TalkinPeace · 16/02/2014 20:48

stuff BMI
waist should be less than half of height
if more than hal, you are carrying dangerous levels of visceral fat
end of

pictures of people from 1880 are misleading because they wore inch thick clothing where as now people wear lycra

Sirzy · 16/02/2014 20:50

I don't think BMI is reliable at all tbh.

I am a size 12 top size 10/12 bottom yet according to BMI I am still obese?

People have different body shapes/sizes and I don't think BMI does enough to take that into account.

TalkinPeace · 16/02/2014 20:55

clothes sizes are utter and complete bilge

BMI is standardised
clothes sizes are fiction

chances are that a size 12 under 5'3 has a BMI over 25

but
what is your waist height ration ?

TalkinPeace · 16/02/2014 20:57

ratio, not ration

the tape measure does not lie

clothes : depending on brand I'm between size 6 and size 10 : ladies clothes sizes are inflated rubbish

waist sizes on size 10 jeans are 4 inches larger thanthe wre in 1970

Sirzy · 16/02/2014 21:07

Im not disputing that clothes sizes have changed, but I still firmly believe that BMI is not an accurate measure for all because it is way too simplistic.

TalkinPeace · 16/02/2014 21:13

and you think clothes sizes are better?

what is your waist / height ratio ?
utterly simple
no discussion : fat waist = dangerous visceral fat

BMI is an allegory for body fat
its a very, very good one.
even with the 10% adjuster for build (if your wrist is under 7 inches around)