To think people looked and felt better back in the old days vs now?

[wildernesswild]

Currently watching videos of Olivia Newton-John (rest in peace ) and I always notice people born years and years ago, maybe in the 60s/70s/80s look amazing then and now, no fakeness, I'm always told by my grandparents nobody really back in the day was majorly obese or had any mental health issues. Even the men groomed themselves and dressed amazingly.

What do we think contributes to our issues these days? Is it social media, processed food, unrealistic standards? I'd love to hear everyone's opinion

Are you mixing up GP meaning grandparents in this thread not doctor?

Born "years and years ago" seriously! I was born in 1966! Being overweight just wasn't a thing in the 70s and 80s.

People did have mental health issues. Those so severe were locked up. There was alot of damage to mental health. It just wasn't recognised. Nothing has changed accept we know more about it today

It was a thing. It was just less common.

I was born in the early 60s. My mum was always on a diet. And I remember work colleagues doing the Cambridge diet in the 80s.

My friends mum was very large in the seventies.

Its quite widely accepted that fast food is addictive and causes obesity. It only became widely available in the UK during the 70s. Its partly attractive because of low-cost. Its true how much thinner people were generally. Looking at old photos of gatherings eg on beaches its very noticeable.

Are you kidding? Back in the seventies most people looked like extras from "on the buses". Mind. I prefer that to some of the plastic horrors around these days.

Culture around food has changed immensely. Eating between meals was a no-no. Soft drinks were only found at parties. Pudding on a Sunday.

I am 63 and don't remember eating between meals being a no-no. It was quite common to have something to eat at morning and afternoon tea time - although the size of cakes, muffins etc. has definitely increased, and as for pudding we had it every day when I was a child. However most people were far more active than they are now, and didn't have the processed food we have available these days.

I remember everyone’s mum being on a different fad diet every week and quite a few friends with eating disorders ‘years and years ago’ in the 70s/80s because they considered themselves overweight. I on the other hand was rail thin and smoked like a chimney but was considered healthier than someone who was fat or overweight. It’s all relative. You can’t tell how healthy someone is just by looking at their size.

For women, the arrival of the contraceptive pill led to curvier, fuller figures. Also, people walked more 40 years + ago. Photos of beauty pageant contestants and aspiring actresses ( including Marilyn Monroe), show women with smaller busts and more evident muscle.

Suicide was a crime and so was homosexuality. Mixed race marriage was forbidden and unwed mothers had their babies ripped from their arms. People are tired and drained now after years of fighting to be treated with dignity.

It's easy to loo back with Rose tinted glasses but we are now feeling the effects of previous generations and clearing up mess of environmental catastrophe, high taxes and constant threat of war.

I think people were overweight , they just tended to be older when they were. There are plenty of pictures of older women in particular in shapeless big dresses out shopping.

I remember being shocked by the super obese in America years ago. We get them here now. I’ve worked with someone who can hardly walk. They drive to work, walk to their desk, don’t move all day, then walk to their car. That walk seems an enormous struggle.

There were v few fat kids in the 80’ 90’s IIRC. I think every school had one fat kid and everyone knew who they were. These days, it’s every other child.

Hiwever there were definitely overweight people, it’s just that they wore baggy thick-waisted clothes to hide it. And people dressed like they were middle aged from about 32!

I don’t think people drank as much in the 70s/80s either. Maybe with Sunday lunch or a night out, but people didn’t sit in front of the telly drinking wine like they do now.

People were definitely slimmer back then. Many parents had lived through the war/post war time and had grown up with food being rationed. My mum was careful with money, food was expensive so we had three meals a day and not many snacks in between, also there wasn’t the choice there is now. People looked older because they were thinner and they were more physically active.
People looked more natural, making the most of what they had rather than trying to change themselves to follow a particular look. Make up and hair products have improved massively since then, there is more knowledge now about healthy lifestyles and many people do look younger. Mental health has always been around, there used to be a lot of mental health hospitals around but they closed and the patients got integrated back into society.

don’t think people drank as much in the 70s/80s either

You have to be kidding?!!! This was when 18-30 holidays hit the headlines due to the amount of drinking. I drank all the time as a student in the mid 80’s. So did everyone else. 10 pints a night for me sometimes.

Mainly because wine was expensive. But it was also far more common for men - who weren’t usually expected to be home to help with childcare decades ago - to be down at the pub after work drinking beer several evenings a week.

Yes maybe the 18-30s had a heavy drink culture. I was a student in the early 1980s and certainly downed a fair bit - although could mostly only afford beer or lager not spirits and I don't think alcopops had been invented.

But among the "proper" adults, our parents generation, then I think it was certainly the case that they didn't drink as much. My dad would go to the local for a couple of pints once, sometimes twice a week. Very occasionally my Mum would go with him (her choice, she could have gone more often if she wanted to). But they very rarely had alcohol in the home.

For a start it wasn't as available as it is now, most supermarkets didn't stock it. My parents would get a few bottles of things in at Christmas so they could offer a drink when people came round. Usually sherry (Harveys Bristol Cream), whiskey, port and maybe Advocaat (bleugh). My mum used to make wine from foraged ingredients e.g. blackberry, elderberry. But it was very rare to have a bottle of "proper" wine in.

Compared to how we will crack open a bottle of wine to drink in the evenings in front of the TV several nights a week, they drank far, far less.

You’re correct about not cracking open a bottle of wine in front of the telly. Most alcohol was drunk as beer or spirits in pubs and not at home - hence the closure of so many struggling pubs in the last twenty years and the tendency of pubs to remodel themselves as gastropubs focussing on food. This is an interesting article about the huge increase in alcohol consumption in the UK between the 1950s and 1970s.

academic.oup.com/shm/article/30/3/612/2731736

I agree with all of this.

We were allowed the occasional snack to put us on until tea time, though woe betide you if you then couldn't eat your meal.

Puddings happened every day - though often it was some sort of milk pudding like rice or semolina.

Very little processed food though, everything cooked from scratch. Helpings of everything were smaller. I like cake as much as the next woman but I am often startled at the size of a slice of cake served nowadays. What's wrong with just two layers on a cake, why does it have to be about seven layers and six inches deep? Only yesterday we were in a cafe and I thought a slice of Victoria sponge would be nice but when I saw the size of the slice I demurred, couldn't eat all that.

Tattoos have been around for years they just weren’t so popular

Mixed race marriage was forbidden

Where? When?

You’re surely not talking about England in the 1960s or later? Because I was there and knew plenty of mixed race marriages amongst my parents friends.

Are you thinking of some other country?

People were certainly more openly racist ,but I don't think mixed race marriage was forbidden
Some people certainly might have frowned upon it .

I like cake as much as the next woman but I am often startled at the size of a slice of cake served nowadays. What's wrong with just two layers on a cake, why does it have to be about seven layers and six inches deep?

I agree they are ridiculous. DH and I usually a slice of cake when we go to a coffee shop. One coffee shop near me has toasted teacakes that are almost the size of a dessert plate.