To not understand why the 70s were so much healthier considering the crap we ate?

[Destinysdaughter]

I'm currently reading the thread about what was considered normal in the past, cooking with dripping, jam sandwiches etc and am curious as to why obesity was so rare in comparison to now where it's virtually an epidemic?

echt I was a fussy eater in the 60's and 70's. I was from a poor family, you literally ate what was put in front of you or went hungry. I often went hungry, or got by on the potatoes or bread and butter that was part of every meal.
stiliz it sounds as if your family was comparitively well off. Though things were slowly starting to improve for many people by the early 80's. Perhaps that is the time period you are thinking of.

The availability of takeaways must be a factor somewhere. I was born late 60s, there was a chippy at the local shops. There's a photo of DH (also born late 60s) on his chopper bike at the top shops taken in about 77. There was a butchers, greengrocer, hardware, 2 bakers, small Hintons grocers, chippy, off licence, wool shop, post office, paper shop etc. Most of these have gone now. The chippy is still there but in addition there's one Chinese, two curry/Thai, three pizza and parmo places plus a subway. Where we live I can think of 8 pizza parmo shops, 4 Chinese, several curry shops within walking distance. In the village high street there are 14 pubs, all serving food, and restaurants. It's soon to be 15 as another shop has closed and being refitted at the moment. There are takeaways and food places everywhere you look but we only have one butchers and one veg shop. Lifestyles have changed so much. There must be a market for all of them!

What the fuck is a pizza parmo shop?

My friends and I used to go to Covent Garden on Saturdays (late 80's) and would have to queue up and wait for a table to have coffee and share a slice of cake (in the wonderful convent garden General store) now there are lots of coffee shops if one is busy easy to move onto the next it shows how habits have changed

Some of these descriptions of life in the 70s seem a bit odd, as though they are describing life two decades earlier. My family were pretty hard up, there was lots of robbing Peter to pay Paul, I never had the latest toys and many of my clothes were hand me downs or home made but we were still living in a house with central heating by 1978 and we had a car.

They do pizzas and parmos. I think it must be a local thing. It's chicken beaten flat, deep fried in breadcrumbs, covered with white sauce and cheese then grilled

Rose tinted glasses. The parents of the 70s were raising the obese generation.

In people saying people didn't diet. I remember my nana born 1919 going on a 'reducing diet'. Which was a version of Atkins. A boiled egg for breakfast, rasher & grilled tomato for lunch & chop, cabbage for dinner.

My eldest 3 sisters who were teenagers in the 70s were regularly on diets. They were both about 8 stone at 5'5! Their diets seemed to involve starving yourself all day then a very small portion of dinner. The aim Was to be a size 10.

They'd buy a vesta curry & divide it between them, the portion size would fit on a modern day saucer

My mother also did weight watchers & lost about 9 stone, slimmer of the year & all that. Then put it all back on.

Because children weren't fed snacks every two minutes and we had three meals a day and not many sweets

On a side note, what the hell is a parmo?

Even in the 80s portions were much smaller - remember the crisp packets.
Snacking was less and all this blood cupcake rubbish wasn't as popular.
Houses were also colder so out basal metabolic rate was higher! Really now we are all cosy and fed and sedentary. It makes for a perfect storm for putting on weight.

Just looked up Parmo seems to be a teeside thing not reached the south yet

They do pizzas and parmos. I think it must be a local thing. It's chicken beaten flat, deep fried in breadcrumbs, covered with white sauce and cheese then grilled.

There's your obesity crisis, right there!

all this blood cupcake rubbish wasn't as popular.

A 'cupcake' in those days was about two inches in diameter and covered with a thin layer of glace icing. Generally only served at parties.

The modern abominations covered in mounds of sickly goo in oh-so-artistic glittery pastel colours were unheard of.

They seem to be everywhere up here! I hadn't realised it so much a regional thing. If I walked to the butchers to buy a chicken I would pass about 8 or 9 places where I could get a parmo. There's so many takeaways. Obesity is such an issue round here and I'm sure the two are linked

maddie I would do that amount of food for 4 people? I've always eaten a whole pizza, 3 sausages (so 2 packets for 4), half a tin of beans and I've always been fairly slim. If I ate half a pizza id be hungry half an hour later so id have to eat something else.
I think people were a lot more active in day to day life.
The junk food of the 70s probably isnt that bad calorie wise, e.g. jam sandwich isn't really any more calories than a ham sandwich, take away fish and chips has a lot less calories than dominoes etc.
It looks like people were eating a lot but I also think bigger meals leads to less snacking so lower calorie intake overall.
My dad says he was always starving as a child so probably less food overall plus being a lot more active.

And yy re activity. Hardly anyone got driven to school - even my cousin who went to school in a town miles away was expected to walk to the train station. Now if children have to suffer the privations of getting a train, I see their parents dropping them off right at the entrance so their little darlings don't have to expend too much energy

Lost You know people have different experiences depending on money, location etc? It seems a little odd that people can't get their head round that!

Until I was 17 (1987) I lived in a house that was so cold in winter there was literally ice on the inside of my bedroom window.

We had a car but lots of people didn't.

There's a Wikipedia entry for Parmo - definitely a Teesside thing, and apparently short for Chicken Parmesan.

The accompanying picture is horrible - it looks like someone has thrown up on a plate of chips!

I think that is the problem with generalising, people's experiences would be so different. With hindsight we were relatively affluent, 2 cars, central heating, a "daily help" who was an older lady who cleaned and babysat for us, a holiday to France every 2 years and eating in restaurants, having a daily bath etc. I thought all these things were completely normal, and they were amongst the people we knew but I think that the gap between standards of living must have been much higher. I remember going to all the shops with my mum including the butcher, greengrocer etc and spending every Thursday morning bored out of my mind while she had her weekly blow dry. A child hood possibly very different to many other people here and probably our food is another representation of that.

Fat Shaming was alive and well in the 70s. I think that makes a huge difference. The "tut factor" works to change behaviour.

thenightsky our treat was a 10p mix on a Sunday afternoon.

A good Parmo is absolutely lush! My local pub does them in two sizes. I can manage a small one but only a couple of the chips. Even teenage DS can't manage a big one, certainly not the chips as well.

A bad Parmo is completely disgusting.

And yes Parmo is short for Chicken Parmesan.

It contains no Parmesan cheese at all!

I recognise a lot of what people have said about growing up in the 70s and 80s, although different families and lifestyles would have had different norms.

In our aspirational lower middle class suburban home on the outskirts of London:

Portion sizes were smaller - for meals and snacks.
Eating out was rarer - and special.
There were fewer opportunities to pick up food outside the home (for example, of course you could buy sweets and crisps in a newsagent, but you couldn't pick up a sandwich or a pasty in WHSmith or Boots or a petrol station etc etc).
Snacking meant, in our house, three biscuits (maybe digestives or Rich Tea fingers).
Alcohol was for Christmas.

Lost - I was born in 72, apparently our house had no central heating and ice on the windows. We moved out when I was 2 so I don't remember it, we went to a nice council new build which was properly heated. Didn't get a car til the mid 80's though.

Saying that, I lived in a house with no central heating in 1999! We had oil filled plug in radiators on timers in every room.