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?

thin, sorry.

I should imagine in a time when the poor were half dead and skin and bones having a bit of weight implied money? Or rather being shapely. The small waist thing is always popular as it represents an unpregnant woman against childbearing hips and child feeding boobs.

Thins attractive now because it’s hard work.

No junk food! If I didn’t have access to takeaways, pizza, chocolate bars whenever I want I don’t think I’d be fat either 🤦🏻‍♀️

Housework was much more labour intensive. . Many houses had open fires to cook on, lugging in fuel, lighting and cleaning fires, laundry took all day, physically scrubbing the clothes, wringing the, out with a mangle, heating a heavy iron on the stove to then press the clothes. Sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, beating rugs and carpets. Bearing and breastfeeding multiple children by doing all the above, not to mention working 6 days a week in mills for a lot of women. No affordable public transport, so walking and carrying everything. Hands always busy sewing, repairing clothes. Poverty and ill health were rife. Many couldn’t afford doctors or food, men were often given the best /more food. So glad I’m not a Victorian!

Dead before menopause?

@JesusInTheCabbageVan

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.

@LunaNorth

My great granny was a Victorian and she was properly stout.

Yes, a lot of older working class women in old photos do look pretty well-upholstered, in spite of housework being so labour-intensive.

[quote ArabellaStrange]Anyone considering wearing a corset in the style of a Victorian women, please read this link first:
www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/11/16/how-corsets-deformed-the-skeletons-of-victorian-women/amp/[/quote]
And for balance, here is one of many articles available debunking corsetry myths.

Sorry, meant to say the majority of the female population had to do the above, I’m assuming the upper class women only represented a tiny minority and would still be affected by many of the above, although probably less housework!

Even thirty years ago people weren’t obses like they are now, less processed foods, food was more expensive so less available and more walking/manual labour.

I imagine they ate smaller portions and didn't snack

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

‘Corsets made almost anyone look thin.’

Y, not just the corset but the dress as a whole. If your skirt is massive enough it’s not hard for your waist to look tiny by comparison.

Exactly, the whole point of the crinoline was to make the waist look tiny by comparison, but it’s illusion. And @ladycarlotta is right about the sizes of real surviving garments being varied, and about quite restrictive gendered ideas about it not being good for genteel young girls to eat much, and not to eat much meat or ‘exciting’ food. Remember in What Katy Did At School, the Head doesn’t think it’s good for the girls to eat meat every day and feeds them puddings instead?

Eating copious amounts was not considered feminine. There was no transportation aside from a carriage that presumably had to be walked to and from.

Their diets were unlike anything we would recognise. Aside from bread there were little/no refined carbs in general meals - no rice, no pasta etc maybe a little pastry? So apart from pudding which again I imagine would be few and far between in day to day life everything they ate was home cooked and organic.

I also imagine they took a daily constitutional and did some level of charitable endeavour.

@JesusInTheCabbageVan brilliant! I had to call the horses round as I was late to an engagement (I forgot I was working and was 4 hrs late and robbed blind by a taxi driver for the priviledge) lunch consisted of strange oblong things they say are potatoes but Im sure my cook doesnt grow them that way . Supper is of course pork sausages a good steadfast reprieve with some wine much needed after the drastic dash to my engagement.

Lack of processes food? this

@Claudia84

They were! Perhaps not clinically obese in modern day measurements but they were overweight.

If you look at the dresses women wore, then they were much smaller than the average woman today. Even Queen Victoria who was overweight in her old age (and who had 9 children) was very slim when young.

The average working class woman who worked 10-12 hours a day in a physically demanding role in a factory and often sacrificed her own food intake to give her children and husband more was most certainly not overweight.

May of the reasons already mentioned.

I'd also add for the social classes that had servants, strangely that also limited their easy access to food whenever they wanted, snacking never happened!

I had a lovely, very elderly great aunt who was raised in the aristocracy with servants and the whole Downton Abbey setup sort of thing. She explained to me that she had no freedom to eat what she wanted or when she wanted food! Her access to food was controlled by the rigid dining schedule and there was no chance the kitchen staff would rustle up impromptu dishes for her. When she did sit down to eat it was very unladylike to appear hungry, so she could never really go to town on her dinner either!

quite restrictive gendered ideas about it not being good for genteel young girls to eat much, and not to eat much meat or ‘exciting’ food. Remember in What Katy Did At School, the Head doesn’t think it’s good for the girls to eat meat every day and feeds them puddings instead?

I presume they thought too much protein would give the young ladies a certain appetite? Too much meat probably led to...masturbation. Maybe blancmange quelled the lust.

Tapeworms.

@TopTabby of course though by meal #10 it's pretty whiffy so the servants have it. As a treat.

Upper and middle class women weren’t inactive necessarily. Riding, cycling, country walks, tennis and even golf were increasingly popular past times for women across the century and into the Edwardian period. Gardening and croquet were obviously exactly a workout but still some exercise. They had dancing training too.

And there were lots of different body shapes just as there are now.

I bet they drank less wine than I do

Victorian women would swallow a tapeworm egg which would hatch inside. The tapeworm would ingest some of what they ate which kept them slim. Gross!

www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-horrifying-legacy-of-the-victorian-tapeworm-diet

Also they didn't spend much time with the dc did they so they probably had better sleep!