to consider my grandma’s theory on why we’re all fatter?

[bagelbreath]

My grandma swears up and down that although food and movement are obviously big factors to the massive weight gain of the country, heating is also very important.

While she lived in a cold house, wore stockings and dresses year round, and spent a lot of time outside, we all sit toasty in our well heated and insulated houses. Her theory is that it took lots of energy to stay warm then vs now.

Is it crazy? I kind of think it makes sense

No, there's no silver lining to not being able to heat your home this winter

We're fatter because of all the processed food and our over reliance on wheat. We're stressed and don't have time to make 3 decent meals a day.

Sadly this was just another lie your Ed told you

Eating little and often is also appalling for weight gain.

Fat is stored when insulin is detected in the blood, which happens after eating anything with sugar (or carbohydrates which break down into sugar).

In my parents and grandparents generation, people would have 2 or 3 large meals across the day. The current trend of grazing, having maybe 6 - 8 small meals across the day, doubles or even triples the amount of time the body is being instructed to store fat. And with people generally moving less this means increased weight gain.

Lots of factors - no cars, fewer treats, no gadgets - vacuum cleaners, washing machines, tumble dryers, etc. so everything was done manually. Fewer fridges/freezers so people walked to the shops every other day and only brought back what they could carry, food relatively bland so not as enticing as todays food, only one person in a household worked usually so less money for treats, agree with the heat one, but also kids would be out ALL the time. At weekends and holidays we’d be out of the house running or cycling over roads and fields, and we’d only materialise for lunch and dinner (and we didn’t bring water bottles or anything with us!). My kids do much less of that so they move less apart from organised activities. Food was much less available - we were relatively affluent but I don’t remember us going out for many meals. We’d very occasionally get fish and chips as a takeaway but there was no pizza, Chinese or Indian takeaway. You considered it a treat if you got potatoes, peas and a Findus Crispy Pancake!

But treats 30 years ago was just that. Coke was for Christmas and birthdays or maybe the weekend if you had a pop man.. If you got some from Granny all good. Now it’s part of fast food and meal deal, sold in every shop and petrol station.
Same with crisps and sweets.

Nothing was open on Sundays, half day closing or after 6pm in most lcds except big cities.
We have treat food much more cheaply and readily available especially fast processed food which is 24/7

when i moved into my first home it was freezing & I put on weight as I didn't do much else except sit on the sofa watching tv & comfort eating.

I think it's the shift from manual labour & less walking.

We did have quite a lot of sugar though. Home-made jam, stewed apple, cakes, sweets like butterscotch etc. I think one difference was that we ate at mealtimes and not in between. It was common for people to become stout in middle-age but not obese. I live in rural France and see the same shaped people now and many of the same eating habits too, sit down meals and no grazing.
Not sure why people think food was awful though. Home made pies and cakes, fresh fruit and vegetables from the garden, fresh eggs, lots of butter and cream. It isn't necessarily how we cook now, but there was lots to enjoy, especially at weekends when my mother wasn't at work.

This is definitely a factor. I didn't learn to drive until I was 40 so had no choice but to walk most places and was always trim/thin. Middle age spread may have happened anyway by mid 40s but now I have the option to drive plus more home-working have definitely had an impact!

I believe it has a small impact
It truly is all the food and snacking people do.
I remember growing up there were no overweight kids in school.
We never had snacks. Just our 3 meals a day.
There weren't any fast food places around so we seldom had it. We might go to a diner or a pizza place for a meal a few times a year.
I don't remember anyone sitting around much in the family. TV was only on after dinner.

Now people think they're going to starve if they don't constantly have food or snacks.

@BarmyArmy22 and got a cleaner too, so I'm not burning any calories on housekeeping either. Lifestyle changes are definitely a massive factor.

Yep 100%

Plus, as soon as it turns cold you'll see countless threads from Mumsnetters asking what their favouite 'Winter comfort foods' are.

Also the narrative that everyone was slim back in the day is weird. Now there were probably not morbidly obese people but plenty of middle aged adults had some timber.

Same here, drinking ice cold water so your body uses calories to warm it to body temperature as well.

How does your gran account for the rise of obesity in countries like Brazil where it’s much hotter than here. I’ll tell you how I do - processed food, fizzy drinks, sugar….

Sugar is the biggest culprit for the increase in obesity. Read this article, it’s long but informative: www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

As it states:

“Look at a graph of postwar obesity rates and it becomes clear that something changed after 1980. In the US, the line rises very gradually until, in the early 1980s, it takes off like an aeroplane. Just 12% of Americans were obese in 1950, 15% in 1980, 35% by 2000. In the UK, the line is flat for decades until the mid-1980s, at which point it also turns towards the sky. Only 6% of Britons were obese in 1980. In the next 20 years that figure more than trebled. Today, two thirds of Britons are either obese or overweight, making this the fattest country in the EU. Type 2 diabetes, closely related to obesity, has risen in tandem in both countries.
**
**
At best, we can conclude that the official guidelines did not achieve their objective; at worst, they led to a decades-long health catastrophe. Naturally, then, a search for culprits has ensued. Scientists are conventionally apolitical figures, but these days, nutrition researchers write editorials and books that resemble liberal activist tracts, fizzing with righteous denunciations of “big sugar” and fast food. Nobody could have predicted, it is said, how the food manufacturers would respond to the injunction against fat – selling us low-fat yoghurts bulked up with sugar, and cakes infused with liver-corroding transfats.”

i believe it’s one of the reasons.

i love watching videos about food shopping in the past, never struck me that people ate healthier , the majority was canned food and very little fresh fruits and veg , there weren’t that much back then!

I think temperature does play a part. The theory for me is that being told “put your jacket on on you’ll catch a cold” is true. The energy your body uses to keep warm could be saved by putting a jacket on, then your body uses that energy to fight off the cold.

As in fight of any colds/bugs going around

In the past before supermarkets, women (and it was almost 100% women) used to shop daily, going to the baker's, fishmonger, butcher, greengrocer, to get the ingredients for the meal. That was a lot of exercise, carrying heavy bags.

Men sometimes worked in mining and shipbuilding, both of which have now disappeared.

The shops sold only basic ingredients, so no processed food, no crisps, and the fruit and veg were mainly local, so no exotic produce such as kiwis, pomegranates, pineapples. These were for rich folk who had heated greenhouses.

Washing clothes took a lot of effort before modern washing machines were invented, and there were no tumble dryers so clothes had to be hung out to dry, sometimes multiple times a day if it rained.
No dishwashers, so standing at the sink washing up was the norm.

Fewer people had sedentary office jobs, and women who worked were either in shops where they were on their feet most of the day, or in factories where they were constantly moving, assembling parts.

Children walked to and from school, up to four times a day if they came home for lunch.

Being colder may have played a small part, but life in general was far more energetic. No-one went to a gym, but they didn't need to.

too many snacks
too little physical work
portions too large

If this had any real basis to it then you could argue we would put on weight in winter because like animals we hold on and store fats for winter.
god is your granny still thinking about fat and weight at her age.
also there was plenty of Bonny people back then.much heftier stick than now actually.

I imagine it is one very small factor, probably negligible. I don't think it's likely to be one of the major contributors. There are bigger factors IMO like:

• Sedentary jobs
• Household chores less physically demanding due to technology
• Obtaining goods and services is done in your smartphone whilst sat on your backside, rather than having to walk into town to shop or go to the bank etc
• Cars are almost universally accessible so less walking
• Children have less freedom to play outside
• Food is more abundant for most people
• Food is more heavily processed and contains more sugar
• Fewer people smoke, which suppresses the appetite
• Technology has provided more sedentary pastimes so people are more likely to watch TV, surf the internet than go for a walk or play a sport.

not too much research on this but being colder is estimated to burn around 100-150 calories per day by metabolising brown fat. Not not a huge amount.

older generation ate less and moved more. If my grandfather wanted to visit the gp it was a 6 mile walk each way!

People barely move these days. In the days of yore, they probably moved more in the cold to keep warm, but now just sit under their oodies eating snacks.

In terms of exercising, I find I can push my body harder in cold weather because I don’t overheat and feel tired as quickly. I went out on my bike (in shorts) earlier and I felt cold, so I immediately started pedalling as hard uphill as I could to warm myself. I move much slower on a hot day. So I reckon I probably do burn more calories working out in cold conditions.

People were far more active in the past, as well.

My Nanna didn't have any mod cons. Her day started at 5am with chopping wood for the fire. Then she would walk the children to school (no car). Later she would walk to the shops for daily supplies (no fridge at home, so needed to shop daily). Later she walked back to school to collect the kids. Other daily tasks consisted of washing clothes and bedding by hand (no washing machine, although she did have a mangle), sweeping floors (no hoover), cooking everything from scratch. If she needed shopping of any kind, she had to walk to town and trawl the shops (no internet). She ate like a horse and never got larger than a size 8. No wonder!