The fact that I used to walk everywhere within a 3 mile radius of my home made me very unusual in 2025.
intercst
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I was busy in the â70s, but as income(s) climbed, my job became less physical, ate
betterâ, the pounds rose.. Today. Mounjaro is getting me back down, even in retirement.. Changing times⌠If it tasted good, spit it out!
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Looking back at photos from the 1970s, the difference in average body weight really stands out. Daily habits were probably a big part of itâmore walking, smaller portions, and far fewer ultra-processed foods everywhere. Modern lifestyles changed a lot of those patterns. Itâs interesting how economic trends, food production, and culture all ended up shaping health in the long run.
One point, quit smoking - Get fat.
This is true
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Another point, âprotect your childrenâ by endlessly keeping them away from the streets (where I basically grew up) and dangerous adventures (brother and I at ages 9 and 12 bicycled all over Los Angeles region, including through âbad neighborhoodsâ like Watts and Wilmington, and going surfing at dawn alone and un-lifeguarded).
All of that used to be somewhat normal.
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DH, a 50-year smoker finally quit smoking last year after 5 nodules were detected in his lungs (fortunately benign scarring). He has put on some weight but considering that he has already lost 50% of his lung capacity to COPD I donât mind.
Wendy
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The metabolic hijacking is worse than what he said. But it is not within his story, any sweetness triggers more eating. People drank a lot less soda at that time.
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That fit for sure, add a vasectomy in the mix, better wages, less physical work, more computers, and it adds up, much harder to take it off, but GLP1âs are a big help⌠The skinny kid body image, no matter the reality is also in the mix⌠Easy on, tough to removeâŚ
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As much as I endorse exercise as a tool for weight management, itâs quite hard to establish that a drop in the average Total Daily Energy Expenditures of the average individual comparing nowadays to back then accounts for the degree of weight gain since. Itâs food intake.
Mind you, for all the implications of the svelte appearance of Americans in the 1970s, there mustâve been a sudden and dramatic increase over a very short period. I first set foot on US soil beginning of January 1980 (husbandâs post doc BTA sabbatical year) There were plenty of fat Americans waddling around the mean streets of NYC.
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And New Yorkers walk a lot more than the average American.
intercst
My point exactly.
Of course, one of the other things I noticed was that whilst walking everywhere, folk also seemed to be stuffing their pie hole with some comestible or other. Iâd never in my life seen so many outlets selling high Calorie, highly portable food either.
Within the first few days of my parentsâ first visit to see us, dad opined that heâd never seen so many fat folk either. Seemed to be due to the one meal a day âŚâŚ lasting from sun up to sundown. He thought it was a good jokeâŚ.but it was true. âSnackingâ was/is seen as as a normal eating pattern as opposed to a criticism of sloppy dietary habits (as it still was at the time in England, for the most part)
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Yep, my parents and grandparents were shocked by how fat Americans were in the 1960s. The family never saw anything like it in Ireland.
They were equally shocked by the lack of ethics.
I dont want to comment on every single item in the video but itâs another one of those âgrain of saltâ videos. About that smoking thing⌠Huh? How can people who stopped smoking in 1974 cause todayâs âUnder 40âsâ to get fat? See, that little bit of tid , to me, sounded like one of those gratuitous unchallenged âfactsâ people use everywhere to sound like they know what theyâre talking about but itâs completely irrelevant or never happened anyway.(e.g. 9/11Truthers and the melting point of steel or that âB-52â that ran into the empire state building in 1946)
For the record: I only smoked for about or 9 years and didnât gain any weight when I quit, so I have no axe to grind.
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I hear ya, I smoked 9 years. I did get fat when I quit, but I am wider body. My exercise routines put on both muscle and fat fast.
True that!! A bit like the âknowledgeâ about HFCS and weight gain compared to regular sugar.
I donât see this âcauseâ mentioned:
We as a society, got rich.
If you go to any developing nation, and especially the poorest developing nation, the majority of fat people are the âwealthyâ.
In Mexico n Central America, having enough âwealthâ that your kids are fat by local standards is often a status symbol.
Fat boys are affectionately nicknamed âGordoâ ie fatty.
Itâs a term of endearment.
We, as a society, began to have enough disposable income to buy snacks n sugar drinks n excess food for everyone in the family.
Food became much more readily available.
AND âfast foodâ, and âindustrial food stuffsâ.
But.
We had the $$ available to buy it.
We had the $$ to buy cars, and to NOT have to walk. To pay for at home entertainment TVs n such. Sitting.
We became rich enough to get fat.
ralph
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Now Iâm in reminiscensce mode. I recall the first âAmerican-style burger barââŚ.a Wimpy barâŚ.opening up in my home town in the mid 1960s. (FWIW, I suspect that even back in those days of allegedly slim line Americans, those burgers wouldâve been pretty Wimpy by comparison with the USian âheftiesâ)
Anyway, although it wasnât effectively a take out joint, I suspect the business model was based upon all day eatingâŚ..whether you needed it or not. That didnât seem to comport with my hometown way of life as walk past during the day and it was almost always empty. Except for traditional âmealtimesâ. Darn near went broke within a few months of opening as it simply wasnât big enough to accommodate enough people to make enough from regular dining hours to subsidize the overheads of the empty hours. Take out wasnât really a thing back then except for the chippie
Hereâs something collateral to this thread. Heâs âveddy Englishâ so you might need subtitles. He doesnât mention the epidemic of thinness in the 1960âs and 70âs but he makes a general point about how older generationâs âwistful thinkingâ is like that âfable agreed uponâ that Napoleon spoke of.
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That isnât entirely true. Fattening calories are cheap calories. The obesity epidemic of the Pima indians is an indicator of this. Or at least how unhealthy a modern cheap diet can be. To be thin you need to be somewhat wealthy, oddly enough. Maybe this is only true in a âwealthyâ country like the US, where we have abundant, cheap, crappy food.
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And in Germany and the UK the obesity rate has gone up to 25% with 60-65% being obese or overweight. In Mexico the obesity rate is some 40%, so the problem is not localized.
DB2
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