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?

Well everyone's experience is different. My mum was pretty typical of women who had been young in the thirties, "The Women's League of Health and Beauty", lots of dancing and swimming. We were brought up to get lots of exercise and keeping your figure was a big deal. My Grandma (born 1883) was a champion bowler and quite famous.
I don't remember my friends running and we didn't join a gym until the eighties but "keep fit" was hugely popular and on telly and radio. I had lived in the south-east, Wales and the north by then so had seen quite a lot of different places and social groups.
I now have an earworm of, "keep young and beautiful, if you want to be loved."

Oh yes, I know that song! The 'keeping your figure' attitude completely chimes with my grandparents' generation's, born in the 1910s. As mentioned above, it was more than desirable to stay slim, to them. it would have been somewhat disgraceful not to.

My mother and her friends were slim - ate sensibly, an occasional calorie-controlled diet if going in the wrong direction, walked a lot in the course of a normal day. They didn't really exercise though.

My perception is that slimness and fitness were not necessarily linked. Likewise slimness and overall healthiness vis a vis the thread title.

School dinners were meat, potatoes and 2 veg - no choice at primary and only 2 choices at secondary - all nutritionally balanced.

Crisps were a snack and a treat, not something yo had everyday in a packed lunch.

Lots more exercise, housework was more physical, few women drove and even fewer had access to the family car so kids walked to school either with friends or with mum.

Not as much choice in the shops and seasonal eating. You could not buy 'old' potatoes in the summer.

If a family 'eat meat every day' it meant they were quite wealthy, egg or beans on toast were considered a reasonable evening meal.

Um they really weren't. We had spam fritters/ chips swimming in grease, fish and chips, 2 veg on a mince day was watery cabbage or chopped swede and an ice cream scoop of instant mash followed everyday by a sugary pudding- butterscotch tart,jam role poly,spotted dick and custard,Choc sponge and Choc custard,cream/ iced buns.....

I had crisps every day and penny sweets from the school tuck shop.

Much less food consumed on average. Far less sugary foods and drinks too. I don't mean that everyone eat less sugar but it was more normal to only have cakes/sweets etc once a week than it is now. In a school in the 70s it'd be different if you are sweets daily but now it's the child who doesn't have regular sweets that's unusual.

Also portion sizes were smaller, thise serve up and in things that could be bought, i do believe a slice of bread was small too, so you'd have needed less jam to spread on your sandwich!!

I am sure that everyone's experiences are different but I'm surprised that so many people think that less sugary food was eaten as it was much more common to eat pudding after a meal than it is today (I think). My memory is that we always had a pudding at school after meals and often at home. The school puddings were often stodgy and served with custard e.g. spotty dick, treacle pudding, jam role poly, chocolate sponge not exactly healthy.

"you'd have needed less jam to spread on your sandwich!!"

Good point! When I said about smaller loaves earlier I was thinking purely in terms of less bread but of course less filling/topping too.

My dad was army. High ranking officers may have had 2 cars, freezer, gch etc but certainly lower ranks didn't! First house we were in was wood/coal fire in living room electric bar fires in bedrooms. Single glazed Windows too. First quarter we had with a shower wasn't until the 90's!

I must have been a rarity as we had two cars in the late 70s - my mum drove, which I think was a rarity in itself - and my father had a company car. Before that I think we had just the one. I walked to primary school but we moved house in 1979 and it was further to walk from the new house - I think most of the time my mum dropped me off and collected me, so I wasn't walking much. I also wasn't at all sporty. I did go out on my bike a lot though.

I don't think food was healthier though, there were definitely trips to tuck shops etc and every Saturday I used to buy myself 10p worth of cola cubes or something similar (it may have been the very early 80s by then). Also the chocolate bars were much bigger, eg Yorkie bars which are a shadow of their former selves. I always had a school dinner though, for better or worse, it was meat and two veg and sometimes ok, sometimes disgusting. Then the catering staff went on strike and we had to take packed lunches (and I did have crisps and a small chocolate bar every day eg a Breakaway or similar). When they stopped striking, some people never went back to school dinners.

We always had brown bread at home - and juice rather than squash. But fizzy drinks were only for Christmas. We used to have fish and chips for lunch every Saturday and occasionally went to a local pub for chicken and chips in a basket. I think the all-year-round availability of food these days has made it all less of a treat, although Brexit could change that if supply chains dry up - we may well find we have less choice (as is the case in Switzerland - plenty of food, don't get me wrong, but they don't have the choice of brands).

We moved house about every 4 years. In terms of heating, I can't remember what we had in the first house I remember living in but we had electric wall heaters in the second house and the third house was pushing hot air through vents in the floor, my dad ripped that all out and put in storage heaters. The first house I lived in which had gas CH was from 1988.

We were both working and had a car each by 1976. OH had a red Beatle and I had a green one. All my female friends could drive.
Our first house that we bought in 71 didn't have central heating but we had gas central heating by 73. We bought our first washing machine when our second child was born.

I don't think that this thread tells you much really as everyone's experiences of the 70s varied just as they do today. I certainly don't eat more than people in the 70s did (and my diet is probably healthier) but as I don't weigh more than my parents that is not surprising.

I also think that seeing things through the eyes of a child is pretty much inevitably limited to personal experience. I could describe my childhood in the fifties, but I couldn't extrapolate from that to make generalisations or describe other people's experiences.

Fruit juice, highly calorific coffee type drinks, bubble teas, worse still energy drinks. We drink calories without thinking about it. I suspect the 70s were trs, coffee and water or cordial

Tbh we eat much like this now. Home cooked, no desserts etc.

Also my kids play out endlessly in the summer months.

BUT I'll admit, I always did snacks from when they were weaned. And I do wonder if snacking is a big culprit. Although my kids are slim but of course snacking can be a habit that is bad in adulthood.

Alcohol is the worse culprit for adults I think. Wine is cheaper, easier to obtain than ever before.

YY Mary. Anyone else remember pink custard and chocolate custard?

Helena I lived on custard (green, brown, pink and yellow) as I was a hugely fussy child and hated the endless sponge puddings we got at school.

Can't touch the stuff now.

Kids didn't spend half their lives in cars, coz mums generally didn't work, and families didn't have 2 cars, so "the man" had the car. We ate home cooked food, not processed crap from supermarkets. Kids played outside until it was dark. The extra calories we were eating came from fat, not sugar, and we ALL burned more calories because we lived generally more active lives.

No caramel lattes (no lattes!)
Food was pretty crap then, so much less inclination to over eat. Vesta curries used to be a treat. I tried one again recently, and it was absolutely disgusting.
We walked or bused everywhere.
A lot less money too.

because of the very fac tthey didn't care.they new and listened t their bodies not how others told them to eat.they ate crap but loved good home cooked meals too. there bodies asked they gave more. they had fun got out and smiled more.their bodies worked more because there minds were happier just being.
they didn't conform to shit diets that work zerooooooo of the time.becasue they lose and then put straight back on.
they moved about.
they had fun.
they liked life so liked good food,proper meals,meg salds.but a good suet and steak udding too.
balance.
happeiness
smiling.

We as children used to be parked outside pub with Coke and crisps while the parents went in for a drink!!!! It was in west wales so I guess relatively safe! But, yes, we did walk everywhere. All walked to school in a gang from age about six (with older ones). There was Vesta curry as a ready meal which was considered well exotic. And Heinz tinned soup. But mostly meals were cooked from scratch and were pretty healthy. And we had to do chores. Sweeping leaves, etc. No computers, tv was pretty sparse, so we were out on bikes, etc. Guess it all added up to a slimmer population.

Pink, brown, yellow and green custards depending on the delight in the bowl.

Used to get 'concrete' at school: still not sure what that was.

We ate crap but we ate less of it and were always active.Things like takeaways were usually fish and chips and happened about three times a year. Dinner out was to celebrate really important events.

The closest thing to a latte was 'Camp' coffee! Anyone remember it?

Portion sizes were smaller - look at the size of the buckets of soft drink and popcorn or chicken bits or whatever that you get at the cinema, or from fast food outlets. And the 'sharing bags' of crisps and sweets, which many people eat as a single serving. In the USA a pint tub of ice cream (eg the Ben + Jerries or Haagen Daaz 500ml tubs) are considered to be a single portion. People excercised more and so burned more calories, and, life expectancy was lower. In 1970 you could expectt to die about 10 years younger than in 2010.

Do people really eat out enough to make a difference to weight? I think it's more everyday eating /lack of exercise for most of us.
I'm also not convinced about the snacking thing - again, I'm not sure that I believe everyone snacks more now than they used to.

I do agree that portion sizes (at home and out) are increasing but also feel that increase in alcohol consumption is to blame for a lot of excess weight (my parents never drank at home (or went to the pub) unless it was Christmas or similar).