Why weren't Victorian upper class women fat?

[waltzingparrot]

They sat around drinking tea, playing the piano, embroidering, reading. Just the odd amble round a park, occasional dance.

How did they stay slim with their tiny waists?

Corsets? I don't suppose you could eat much with one on!

The galloping consumption kept them trim.

Umm, have you seen the size of Queen Victoria's underpants? She wasn't exactly skinny.

Lack of processes food?

Many were! Think of Queen Victoria in her later years.

You do know why it’s called the Victorian age? 🤣

Staying slim:

• corsets
• possibly portion size etiquette, I expect it was smaller than today
• deliberate portion size management, they also had a pressure to stay slim
• far less processed foods! Of course they had cake, but they didn’t have sugar and fat added everywhere - I don’t think Victorian bread recipes had the sugar that McD put in their buns!

If you’re basing your view on photographs of Victorian women, consider also that perhaps the least slim women were also the ones most likely to hide from cameras, just as perhaps today?

Smaller portions and corsets

There was pressure to be slim. Corsets were for creating a tiny waist but not eating helps too.

Probably easier not to over eat when you had to cook everything yourself on a crappy coal powered range though.

Completely different diet, less fat, sugar and processed food.

Some probably were a bit fat but there would have been less general obesity I guess.

I agree with others on lack of processed foods and portion sizes on the average size of women which I’m sure was slimmer than today. Though there were fat women.

Grinding poverty for the lower classes

Corsets and societal pressure for the upper classes - there was a lot of fainting remember, they were likely half starved

Also, you say the odd amble around the park… but every single journey you might jump in a car for, they’d have to walk if the carriage wasn’t brought round! I will admit I’ve driven a 10 minute walk to the shop - because I think I’m too busy not to. I’d imagined Victorian women - even upper class! - had a higher step count than you think!

An amble round the park could easily hit 10,000 steps. With my WFH desk job, some days I’ve not even hit 1,000.

But mostly I reckon portion size and far less yummy processed crap.

I used to wear corsets in my daft young goth days; you literally can't eat while wearing them, you have to choose between eating or breathing.

They could probably only eat tiny meals or they'd puke.

Not sure if this is true but I remember hearing that if you were rich in Victorian times you could buy a 'sanitised tapeworm' to keep you slim.
Blergh.

Many probably were.

Queen Victoria herself was rather...umm, large!

Far less carbs. They ate plenty of fat but it was healthy fats like lard and butter and they didn’t mix carbs and fat together at every single meal like we do now which is one of the biggest root causes of obesity.

sat around drinking tea, playing the piano, embroidering, reading

I do all of that, why am I not slim?????

If you got too chonky your wealthy and aristocratic husband could have you confined to an asylum so he'd be free to perambulate about St Johns Wood with his fancy piece, Florrie de Vere.

They were fat but also short. This meant that when their corsets were done up tight they became tall and thin. Basic science.

Victorian MN food diary:

Breakfast: three kidneys cooked in butter
Lunch: half a turtle with a massive salad
Dinner: Not sure yet. Bought a peacock to roast, but DH forgot to put it in the pantry and it's really warm where we are. Should I risk it?

Spent 20 mins shouting at servants and fitbit thought I'd walked 2 miles.

All the reasons mentioned above, plus more energy expended keeping warm. I used to live in a Midlands Victorian house in the sixties before my parents installed central heating and it was freezing. I remember ice used to form on the inside of the bathroom windows.

Sugar consumption here’s a pic of how it’s increased over the last century. Also no processed food, at all.

@Mysterian

They were fat but also short. This meant that when their corsets were done up tight they became tall and thin. Basic science.

This.

Corsets. Difficult to eat large portions with your stomach constricted.
Many women were fat. I’ve seen some of Queen Victoria’s clothes. She was very short & extremely fat.
Women were socially expected to pick / nibble at their food
Less variety of food. Food eaten only in season. In winter it was bread, potatoes etc, limited vegetables to brighten up a plate.
Sugar was affordable for the upper classes but still expensive. It wasn’t just added to everything.
Food adulteration. Bread in particular was a prime target for this, bakers frequently added all sorts of rubbish to the flour to make it go further. Plaster of paris, chalk, alum… some additives were relatively benign & would merely result in constipation & malnutrition if you relied on bread for most of your calories. Some were much worse.