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

You are basing your ideas of what people looked like on what you see on a screen?

They were film stars, plenty of people looked like shit then too.

Some of these comments are hilarious
Yes tattoos were around then, I remember my uncle and cousins had them. It just wasn't so mainstream as it is now.
Also contact lenses
Plastic surgery too!
Oh and braces, but the railway track ones were only just coming in. Most kids had a plate with a wire on that would be adjusted.

I watched reruns of the 1990s programme about EasyJet - Come fly with me.

What got me was the variety - all the females looked so natural and individual whereas today it all feels a bit cloned, like a uniform of clothing, hair and contouring. The teens on the show looked younger and fresher. Yes, you still got people dressing badly but it felt quite refreshing to see teen girls being just that - without so much pressure to conform.

I was a kid in the 80s in a deprived area and most of our Mams looked rough as fuck tbh- drank heavily, smoked like chimneys and looked drown trodden. Look at Shirley Valentine who was representative of that era and she was like 43? Rita Sue and Bob too also was a fair representation of my memory too.
There we’re no Olivia Newton Johns on my estate, that’s for sure

When I started living with my first husband in 1974 I’d get 4oz of Mince or 4 sausages or 2 small chops for our dinner. Our Saturday night takeaway was one bag of chips and 2 buttered rolls (chip butties 😊).

Our diets were pretty poor by today’s standards but we ate much less. We also smoked and weren’t averse to the odd recreational drug but we didn’t have a car and often walked from Camden to Wood Green (for example) if we’d been out late. Nobody needed a Gym, everyday living was generally more strenuous than now.

I don’t remember many fat people around and clothes sizes were much smaller. I have a pair of Pepe jeans that I bought in the 70’s, Size 16 and they were too big for me, I’m a current Size 14 and I can’t get them above my thighs 😂

Far fewer people suffered with Obesity in the decades before 2000. I remember in the 90s (as a kid) thinking that Obesity was only really a problem in America whereas now >60% of people are overweight and about 25% are obese (I have a BMI over 30, which I would have never expected in the early 00s).

Free NHS braces were offered more readily until the mid-90s too so that may have had an impact on some individuals' appearances.

Apart from that though people definitely did suffer with (often undiagnosed and untreated) mental health conditions that significantly affected their lives and I'm not sure a normal 30 something in the 80s/90 necessarily looked better than a 30-something now.

As for feeling better, speaking for myself, absolutely not. It's far easier now for me to find affordable healthy food in sufficient variety, to excercise and generally take care of myself. The Internet gives me endless information for one thing so my knowledge of how to stay well is far greater. Medical screening is better, so I'm less likely to succumb to the cancers that led to the early death of my mum and grandma.
Yes, the modern world contains all sorts of things that are detrimental to health that may not have been atound in previous decades, but it also has huge advantages in terms of choices and knowledge, for those who choose to be healthy. Just because fast food exists and everyone has a car, no one forces us to eat it and stop walking.

I think mental health issues have been going a while, only they used to give electric shock treatment then?
Maybe mental health has become more prominent recently but the population of the planet is now much bigger than back then, most likely the cause of mental health issues.

This is what the average British family looked like in 1974, courtesy of this BBC fly on the wall documentary. The mum was only in her 40s iirc.

In the 80s women in their 30s looked like they were in their 50s as hair dye was shite and smoking ruined their skin.

A lot of my mum's (born in the 50s) friends looked far better in their 50s than 30s with better hair and skincare existing and being more accessible.

She's a celebrity babe. People were slimmer yes, but they also had much worse teeth and the poorer folk were often nutrient deficient and much shorter than now.

And the mentally I'll existed they just had to be stoical or died or ended up in an institution.

There were also fat people (see Churchill) etc.

Yes most people don't look like internationally famous, gorgeous movie stars

One thing I will say for the 80s, the welfare benefit system was more generous. The idea that people would ever need to resort to charity to eat would not have occurred to us. Food banks didn't exist, they weren't required. Having worked nearly three decades in roles concerned with alleviating poverty, I can honestly say, the numbers of totally destitute people are higher now than then, which will obviously have significant negative health impact.

I don't think hairdressers were as skilled back then. You rarely came out with the style you'd asked for, and often looked worse than when you went in.

Teenage girls definitely looked more individual back then. Today there seems to be a generic straight hair, fake tanned look. Back then some girls in school had short hair, some had long, some had natural waves, some had flicks or afro perms. Some had ruddy complexions, some were pale, no one had highlights or wore much make up.

The only good looking girls were the ones fortunate to have been born with good features and bone structure and with good skin. Out of the 150 or so girls in school I could have probably counted those on my 2 hands. Other girls were deemed 'nice looking' which basically meant they had pleasant faces or maybe a couple of good features eg nice hair and eyes, and most were ordinary or plain.

I’ve just seen my fit 60 year old neighbour cycling down the street. I remember DH saying when his granny was 60 she was tiny old white haired old lady.

We have some pictures of his parents at some work do in the 1970s and DH is always going on about how people had more fun then. Thing is, they weren’t very old and pissed. Just like we were in our early 20s, they all look 30s though. His family were WC and worked hard and on Saturday nights they got very drunk. He thinks this represents them all being happier as this is what he remembers of them.
Lots of them have died relatively young with various health conditions.

This thread reminded me of the Twitter account 80saging - 80s footballers in their 20s and 30s who look like scrawny 50 year olds!

Yeah sorry you're completely wrong, you're seeing people who were massively wealthy and tarted up for television, that doesn't remotely indicate what average people looked like.

My mother in her mid-40s looked like a woman of 60 today. She was fairly slim and took care of her appearance but she smoked, tanned, and got a short haircut the moment she turned 40 because that's just what women did.

Acne treatments were awful then, so if you had it, your skin was fucked.
Hair was awful-blow drying yes, but I remember whenever you went to the hairdressers you were tonged to an inch if your life. If you conditioned you were above the curve. Perms. Seriously bad perms. I have fine straight hair. Every hairdresser I went to in the 70s and early 80s said “have you considered a perm to give it some body?”
Women after 45ish were condemned to “mature fashions” My mum was in her 40s in the 70s, honestly she looks older than my 63 years.
Look at pictures of ordinary people, not pop stars or film actors, not everyone was ONJ.

My grandparents generation was awash with people who “suffered with their nerves”. So the MH point is bollocks for a start. Maybe your grandparents just talk nonsense OP?

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

Winston Churchill was obese and suffered greatly with depression. He was quite well-known so I'm surprised your grandparents never heard of him... Or is it that he doesn't fit their rose-tinted memories so they've chosen to leave him out?

I don't think the people you see in films etc were that typical- I was a teen in the 70sand there were still good looking people and ones who were not. The big difference is I don't remember a trend of huge thick eyebrows or false eyelashes or plastered on make up- so a good looking but fresh faced girl usually kept that look

was looking at some of our old school photos circa 1968-77: it was an eye opener. There were a few overweight folk but most looked incredibly slim. Some of the children’s clothing looked ragged and dirty - clothing was relatively expensive and a lot of folk didn’t have washing machines.

Where did you live? I'm sure some people didn't have washing machines and went to a launderette, but the vast majority of people had washing machines in 1977.

A few people were obese or mentally ill but in the latter cases either you were put away or just labelled 'mad' or if it was PMT/S it was 'women's problems'.

A school friend of mine had parents who were obese, I'm guessing size 20 upwards, they both died fairly young, probably in their 50s, maybe 60s, I think both from heart attacks. That was one of the reasons at 40-something she got a gastric band fitted and went from a size 18 or 20 to a size 10. She told me she didn't want to end up dead like her parents.

Hair was a lot different then especially in the 80s. Highlights were common but were more bleached and perms were very common. There seemed to be more hairdressers around, probably due to the amount of perms/highlights or short layered hair with flicks.

Even teenage boys/young adult men had perms and highlights.