was everyone slim in the 1950s/60s

[ambereeree]

I've been watching old films and it seems that everyone was slim in the 50s and 40s. Even women with quite a few children. Is this reality or just in films?

We eat out so much more than even 20 years ago.

Just watched today's Home Front Heroes on iPlayer. Seriously, watch it and see why British people were so healthy when food was rationed.

@Bluelady ooh that's on my 'to watch' list now 😁

These threads come up every now and again and go exactly how Mawkish stated. They're not about anything other than moralising and being judgemental, hence, you never see threads such as 'Everyone wore hats in the 1950s-60s' it's always about size.

I think perhaps people are confusing observations with moral judgement here - on both sides of the argument really.

Some older posters are saying "this is how it was in the 50s/60s/70s." But this is not to say that people were morally superior then, just that this is how it was. Take cooking from scratch. People did it because they often had no other choice. It's not because they were all super keen on feeding their family healthy, freshly prepared food so much as the alternatives didn't exist or, if they did, they were unaffordable. The first "ready meal" I remember seeing would be in the late 1970s when the supermarkets started to sell pizzas, but they were a rare treat because my Mum had a fairly tight budget. Dad grew all of our veg - but this wasn't because he was some kind of veggie eco-warrier but because we lived in the country, had a big garden and that is just what people did to make ends meet.

Perhaps we did walk more rather than using a car. But again, this isn't because people back then were naturally less lazy. No doubt if more families could have afforded a car, or afforded two cars one for Mum and one for Dad, then they would have used them.

So I think saying there were fewer fat people in the 1950s/60s/70s is fact.
And that this was largely due to lifestyle differences is also true.

However, the older generation shouldn't feel superior about that because it wasn't a moral choice it is just that there weren't many alternatives to that lifestyle.

Similarly the younger generation shouldn't be so snippy when it is observed that there were fewer obese people then because, in general, people ate less and moved about more. People did eat less and move about more but they did so because they had no other choice.

Thin does not equal healthy. Infectious diseases were still rife during the war and children were especially vulnerable.

We eat out so much more than even 20 years ago.

Yes this is a very good observation. We rarely ate out when I was a child. I hadn't even had a takeaway until I got to University. Again, not any sort of superior moral choice, simply that the opportunity and the money wasn't there.

My Grandmother wasn't slim. After having 12 children over 21 years her boobs were down to her stomach and her stomach was down to her knees.

She was only about 5ft tall and apparently never cooked again after the first chip shop in the village opened.

The great actresses of the '50s all used corsetry of some description, whether that be underwear or integrally in their costumes.

Very likely both.

Even now, actresses on the red carpet have a huge amount of undergirding beneath their designer dresses. I read an article about how actresses prepare for big shows like the Oscars, and it said that usually they will be wearing 'shapewear' in addition to having some sort of corsetry built into their dresses.

Totally agree 5foot5.
It is such a nonsense to talk about what "everybody did" at a particular point in history. There were trends based on available technologies and economic circumstances, but that is all you can say.
FWIW in my family nobody smoked, we ate well and some family members were overweight and some were thin. And all the women wore corsets. 😊
I do wonder what these threads will look like in 50 years time.
In the 20teens every one was overweight, ate tons of junk foot and made sweeping generalisations based on a shak

... grasp of history.
And MNHQ still won't have sorted the problems on the ipad....

Thin does not equal healthy. Infectious diseases were still rife during the war and children were especially vulnerable.

This is true.

And you'll often read people fawning over how wonderfully slim the French are, but their health outcomes and life expectancy are no better than ours.

I just checked, as the fat girl at school in the 1980's. I used to walk 2.8 miles each way to and from school every day. And I was still 13 stone at 13 years old. As far as I am aware, we had a meat and 2 veg evening diet, poached eggs for breakfast and school dinners that nobody ate. I don't remember eating much sugar other than Sunday when we had rice pudding or crumble.

I did feed my 3 x DC's the same, none of whom are remotely overweight, and my DH, their DF is the same, not remotely overweight.

I was never slim, neither were my DM, DAunts or DUncles. My DCousins from the same stock are the same as me.

Thin does not equal healthy. Infectious diseases were still rife during the war and children were especially vulnerable

Not sure what the size of people's bodies has got to do with how rife infectious diseases were or are now.

Vaccination for common childhood diseases wasn't introduced until after the war so of course infectious diseases were still rife during the war. The same with penicillin, which wasn't used in Britain until the mid 1940s.

I can remember how fearful people were of diseases like polio when I was a child as there was nothing to treat it when my older brothers and sisters were children.

One thing that is very rarely mentioned on these threads is the increase in hormones that we are all consuming - since the 1960s, many more women are on the pill (probably most women of childbearing age now) and there are said to be a lot more hormones present in our food (eg in milk and meat). I don't doubt that the other reasons mentioned here (more availability of calorie rich sugary foods, less exercise in day to day life) contribute the biggest part of the increased weight gain but I wonder what effect all those hormones sloshing around have had?

Likely heart attack causes in skinny adults from the 50s 60s I've known : heavy smoking, alcohol, stressful life, after effects of Scarlet Fever.

The death rate due to cardiovascular disease in bad in ex Soviet states. If you look at European life expectancy info the UK overall isn't too bad (I know we have some really bad areas within that though) and most of western Europe is on a par but ex Warsaw pact and Soviet look bad by comparison.

Every era is different. Generally I feel lucky to be living in the UK now.

But people generally aren't dying at a younger age now than they were in the 1940s and 50s?

Thin doesn't automatically equal healthy and I speak as someone who has been slim all my life.

My whole family was slim. All had reasonably healthy diets - none of them ate junk food - but few members of my immediate family have lived beyond their 70s.

Sometimes it's just the luck of the draw.

My late MIL had a very high fat diet and lived to 102. My exh has smoked all his life and is 82 and still works full time and still plays a full round of golf.

This is a picture of a relative with her college friends in the 1940s. They all look like pretty solid girls to me!

My granny was built like an ocean going liner and worked like a horse on a farm. Died aged 80 of a sudden heart attack. Grandad thin as a pick. Died of cancer aged 83. Very limited diet of what they could grow or ra8de low meat. Low salt. Low fat. Lots of fish fresh veg....hard to explain other than genetics metabolism dunno.

I think alcohol has an awful lot to do with it. Women didn't drink at home or at all as a regular occurrence. It was too expensive and just not done. I can't remember my mother drinking alcohol ever really.

Portions were much smaller
We ate out very, very occasionally .
If we went on a shopping trip to nearby town it would be rare to stop for anything to eat or drink.

I agree with 5foot5
I walked everywhere as a child.
My mum walked to school which was at least 1 mile each way, from the age of 4.
It wasn't that I liked walking. I remember it being cold and dark, but that was how it was.
We never, ever had a take away other than the occasional fish and chips, and then we would share portions.
The first time I saw a MacDonalds was on a trip to London and the tour organiser pointed it out, it was so rare!
I had no idea what he was talking about at the time.
I do remember my mum dieting and it was all calorie control - no mention of health. She was a size 10 which would be a 6-8 now.
I remember thinking I was fat. As a 20 something I was a 12 with a flat stomach, I was 9 stone.
Years ago as a size 10- possibly an 8- I tried on an old suit I had kept which was a 12, I could barely get the trousers fastened.

My mother drank at home, though not every day. Gin and orange, gin and It, Dubonnet and soda, port and lemon, Babycham, sherry.... you youngsters haven't lived. 😀

Multi packs and personal transport plus the over reliance on effing takeaways.
We are turning into a nation of fat wobbling slobs!!

My mother drank at home, though not every day. Gin and orange, gin and It, Dubonnet and soda, port and lemon, Babycham, sherry.... you youngsters haven't lived.

Yeah, not sure where this idea that women didn't drink until the 1970s is coming from. True, it may not have been the done thing for 'ladies' to drink too much in public, but they certainly did in private. Same with smoking. In fact, many housewives those days were so bored and frustrated that alcohol was their main joy in life.

Also, while these threads always focus on women - which annoys me btw - men have also become fatter over the last few decades.