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?

You had to be really organised with your shopping. Supermarkets weren't open in the evenings -except on thurs & fri sometimes open till 8. There weren't even that many supermarkets and they sold far fewer things. More ingredients than ready made foods& snacks.

If you worked, you had to do the week's shopping on a Saturday or Friday eve, and there wasn't much opportunity to top up. Shops closed on a Sunday too.

Eating on the street was considered very bad form. The opportunity didn't often present itself because there wasn't much ready to eat food to buy. Food happened at home and I would have thought it a stupid waste of money to be buying things to eat when out as a matter of routine. Obviously there would have been the odd occasion, but in general I would have saved money for clothes, makeup or records.

Eating between meals wasn’t allowed

Unless it was an apple

I admit I allow ds to eat between meals and feel guilty if I’m he is complaining of being hungry and is having to wait half an hour

But it was normal for us to at times feel hungry now its considered not the norm and something that must be fixed instantly

A healthy weight young women of average height should have a 24in waist.

Unless you mean 'might' that statement is quite clearly utter nonsense. Different people are different shapes and builds, not everyone is an hourglass. And I'm slimmer 'than average' too.

I meant it is a perfectly normal measurement.

Although I seem to be something of a lone voice here, I'm really struggling with this thread.

For one thing, there's the banality of stating your limited experience as factual information about "The Past". So "you didn't eat between meals unless it was an apple" is a manifestly ridiculous thing to claim.

And then there's this sort of "othering" that's going on - the claims that "people nowadays" are all going from Greggs to McDonalds and then home to start guzzling again, as if the poster in question somehow isn't a member of "people nowadays"

And how can anyone claim we've lost sight of "normal"? "Normal" is literally what is normal at any given point. Normal is different now.

Average size was undoubtedly smaller decades ago. And of course the rise in obesity is bad news.

But there are plenty of people today (me and my family included) who are a healthy weight. We don't have the sort of appetite that, even with all the stuff available today, would lead to huge weight gain (barring unforeseen medical issues). We do expect to feel hungry at mealtimes, despite some posters suggesting people somehow don't do that anymore.

I don't like the judgemental tone and the constant suggestion that these hordes of thin people in The Past were somehow superior. I'll say it again - this is the sort of thinking that brought us Brexit.

there wasn't the push to be like it though either.they weren't this way through the obsesses ion or diet culture.or my force from the media or government to be a ceetain way.given the reason pp have its just was the way people were naturally.they weren't striving to be this thin,they eat more intuitively and exercised because the wanted and had to more.

more family time was spent with meals and leanring to cook.people were educated with food and cooking and
we cooked together,care more for eachother time.
emotional health too has suffered.this has had a great impact on mental health and how people feel and then look and eat.
the cost of food now too means people choices vary so much in what they can or think they can afford easily.
so whilst back then people were rationed people now with no money for food cant make the same choices with growing their own or choosing much cheaper cuts.if you can tafford it now there is no other option.
and whilst obesity is highlighted as being more now.eating disorders and the suffering of those sufferers has never been so awful either.

Looking back at family photos, I can absolutely tell you for sure not everyone was slim. I come from a long line of people on both sides built like pit ponies - small, strong and with a tendency to put on weight.

Oh - and it was considered good to have a bit of meat on you, as it meant you had money enough to put food on the table and you weren’t ill.

I was born 1960 ti an unremarkable family.We were all slim but walked or got buses everywhere.We didn't snack between meals because there were non.
We go hungry between meals and consequently ate everything on our plate(or swapped).There were no options .
We didn't really think much about food though I expect my mum did trying to work out how to feed us all on not much money.
That was then,now I am overweight and because of my working hours don't always eat as healthily as I should.I use the car because there are no buses.

For one thing, there's the banality of stating your limited experience as factual information about "The Past". So "you didn't eat between meals unless it was an apple" is a manifestly ridiculous thing to claim.

I understood that the poster was talking from personal experience not claiming to speak for everyone.
We didn't eat between meals in our family either. If we said we were hungry we were told we could have bread and butter so we never bothered. We weren't THAT hungry, although would have happily woolfed down a mars bar if offered.

cressida I agree with you. I also am about the constant braying about clothes sizes. Plus these threads are always about women's clothes sizes and it being shocking how fat children are, no one ever mentions men. But I guess it's more acceptable for them to be fat?

Not acceptable to me. I mentioned in a previous thread I would be less attracted to a partner if they put on shit loads of weight after we met. There are lots of threads about that if you look. Love and attraction are different.

The "we all did this" in the 1960s/70s/80s (based on one persons probably not very accurate memory) and "we all do this now is ridiculous. Not everyone was slim in the 60s and not everyone is overweight now. Speak for yourselves!

A healthy weight young woman of average height should have a 24in waist
I had a BMI of 18 in my 20's and my waist was 28ins (I'm 5'4"). My waist just doesn't go in at the sides, no matter how thin and fit I am.

Well I suppose we've done pretty well to get this far before the thread police joined us. If you object to what ( you percieve) as the general tone, why not jump back on your high horse and gallop off.

“The "we all did this" in the 1960s/70s/80s (based on one persons probably not very accurate memory) and "we all do this now is ridiculous. Not everyone was slim in the 60s and not everyone is overweight now. Speak for yourselves!”

Completely agree with this. There is a thread running here atm the called what did you have for tea in the 60s/70s and everyone is laughing at how uniformly disgusting the meals they ate were. Lots of rose tinted bull on this thread!

The "we all did this in the 1960s/70s/80s (based on one persons probably not very accurate memory)
It's not just one person's memory though, is it? Many posters who lived through these years seem to share similar memories and experiences, and in any case, it's quite well documented as part of our social history.

From what I understand, food was a lot more expensive a long time ago, or people had to spend a much bigger percentage of their income on it.
There's been a big change in attitudes, older generations of my family seem to have viewed food as something essential, as opposed to the something to be enjoyed/social thing it often is nowadays.
It seems like there was a lot less temptation before, now you see petty cakes, snacks etc everywhere. Even some shops like clothes shops have packets of sweets near the tills.
From what I remember of my childhood, a lot of the food in cafes wasn't very nice, it's a lot easier now to find tasty food out and about because every high street is filled with food outlets competing with each other.
I think it's a mixture of availability, price, attitudes towards food, attitudes towards spending money, convenience foods which people enjoy eating, easily available transport and less walking, kids staying in rather than going out all day to play, smoking did used to be more common. There are so many factors and there's a lot more to it than portion sizes and exercise.

Well treatment for obesity related illnesses is increasing massively so it is true to say that in the 50s and 60s there were relatively few overweight people.
Type 2 diabetes used to be a condition only seen in older people. Now we have kids with it.

It's not just one person's memory though, is it? Many posters who lived through these years seem to share similar memories and experiences, and in any case, it's quite well documented as part of our social history.

I agree. Things such as the cost of food relative to income, the availability of fast food, sugar consumption etc are all verifiable and statistics can be found quite easily. It's not relying on false memories to state that people ate a lot less junk food - the concept barely existed - and that food was generally a lot plainer and less plentiful 40 or 50 years ago.

There are lots of shared memories here. I was astonished to see how universal the cut up Mars bar was, I thought it was just my mum who did it.

before the thread police arrived

Lol. So disagreeing with the prevailing ideas makes me the thread police? And yet you're the one telling me to leave the thread!

I think it's healthy to challenge attitudes you find distasteful rather than pretending they don't exist.

There are lots of shared memories, yes - and it certainly is true that the average person was smaller years ago.

But I think there's also a lot of people choosing to 'remember' certain things because they fit a certain narrative.

Human memory is falliable, yes.

However, the essential points posters are making - that people ate less (if any) junk food, that snacking was rare, that food was relatively much more expensive and that obesity rates were significantly lower than today - are pretty well-known and easily verified should you be so inclined.

Not contradicting those trends, Iced

What I've found problematic is the tone, the othering, and the language used to describe "people nowadays"

It's also hard to take people seriously when they make sweeping, categorical statements as if they're solid fact. It's a poor way to approach a topic, in my view.