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

1981 in Scotland

I was born in mid sixties. When I was in my twenties, women in their forties/ fifties looked like women in their eighties now.

They dressed very drably, and were just old.

The main thing I do notice is the amount of teenage/young person obesity. Of the 300 kids in my school year at secondary, probably 5 or 6 kids were really fat. I live very close to a secondary school in a naice part of the SE and half of them are noticeably overweight.

You can't compare a celebrity to the general population.

I'm always told by my grandparents nobody really back in the day was majorly obese or had any mental health issues.

Sure, a lot fewer people were fat, but a lot more people smoked and many more young adults drank than now. A lot of what we would now call mental health was self medicated even more then which is how we've developed the cultures around drugs that we have and self-medication is a lot rougher on looks, before getting into .

There is actually a lot of pop sci written on people having aged faster, at least in looks in the generations that would include your grandparents, largely around differences in lifestyles and that self-medicating addictions to various drugs taking it's toll was more common. That's known to be rough on everything, skin included. We now have a generation of young adults that are smoking, drinking and doing other drugs less, real tans aren't that popular, and the ratio of

I think for younger children back in the seventies, they were out playing far more than today's kids. I walked to school and back, no bus etc. I also walked to the shop before school as well come rain or shine. Never got offered a lift. After school, had my tea and out again or a friend called round and we went out.

This describes my kids in 2022

Some of the comments! I remember some in the 80s having tattoos- usually a rise in their shoulder or something like a cartoon character or dolphin. Those women were not natural with massive bouffant perms and pink eyeshadow.
The comment about tongue piercings is just strange because I don’t tend to base how I see someone’s appearance on jewellery inside of their mouth
I don’t think women
looked particularly natural in the 60s and 70s either.

Older people tended to look a lot worse. People in their 40s+ look a decade younger than 40+ year olds did in the 70s and 80s. I suspect this is likely attributable to so much less smoking, less pollution and less sun worshiping, as well as better health care and nutrition.

Er where I'm from I remember loads of wee grannies with terrible hunched backs and back pain in their early 50s and 60s and grandfathers with hacking coughs unable to walk very far by the time they were 60. The result of dire poverty, very difficult jobs and growing up before a health system.