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When I'm in New Mexico, I see adult overweight/mild obesity, but it's in the Hispanic population, and to some extent, in the Native American population. The "Anglos" around me are in good shape, at all ages.
BEcause it has a lot to do with socioeconomics. Wealthier people have the time and resources to exercise on purpose and have access to healthier food options. You've heard of food deserts, right?
But I KNOW we didn't have the "fitness culture" back then. My parents were kinda weird; in the 1970's we were called "health nuts". While other kids were bringing Wonder Bread sandwiches & Twinkies to school in their lunch box, I had Tofu & Seaweed. Nobody knew what a Vegan was but thats what we were. "No animal products" didn't just mean "no meat"; it meant no dairy either.
And NOBODY went "to the gym" ... A "Gym" meant either the place we went as little girls for gymnastics or a place with free weights & a boxing ring where men went.
Even in 1982 when I was 13 years old, I was out running my daily 3 mile run, people used to ask me if I was "okay" because they thought I was running "away from" something! And once, a police officer stopped me & made me get in the back of his car so he could drive me home out of "concern".
I noticed in the OP's article that while there were heavy-set women; the "heavy" "sat" on them in a pear vs apple way.
I never paid much attention to the "hormones in the food!" controversy but now I'm starting to wonder if maybe there is something to it.
We didn't snack constantly. We ate "three square meals a day."
Not to get on my soapbox, and if this is going too OT, please let me know, but today, if Little Johnny doesn't get a snack every 90 minutes, his mother frets that he's going to fall over in hypoglycemic shock.
At school my kids still get snack time in FIFTH grade. In the high schools there are vending machines. We got snack in kindergarten because we were still considered to be just transitioning from babyhood. Literally, only babies and preschoolers were considered to need to eat more than three squares and maybe a snack after school, and that snack might be grapes. After kindergarten nobody felt a great big child age six or over needed a snack during school. If she whined about hunger, well, let that be a lesson: eat more breakfast tomorrow. If she whined of hunger between lunch and leaving school, everybody would have just stared at her in incomprehension and think there was something wrong with her. Seriously??? As for drinks, well, we all knew where the water fountain was.
Today, the kids have breakfast, a "snack" complete with giant sugary drink "box" or pouch, a giant lunch, a giant after-school snack, a visit to the park with another snack because they kids are about to be "so active!!!" for practically 50 minutes, dinner, dessert and then a snack before bed.
And so do grown-ups. We just "have to" have snacks at mid-morning, mid-afternoon, while making dinner, after dinner...out shopping...out anywhere, in anywhere, eat eat eat.
When it's not a snack, it's a meal far, far larger than any I ever remember from the 70s. Giant plates of everything. Giant servings. People think "a serving" of pasta is a huge plate. "A serving" of ice cream is a big bowl, not half a cup (measurement-wise). "A few cookies" isn't two small cookies, or three. It's four or five. Or more.
We just eat too much, period. Look at a size small drink today v. in yesteryear. Small used to be maybe 8 oz.? Maybe 6? Remember when Coke in a bottle from the machine was 8 oz.? Remember how small hamburgers used to be? How small a small fry was?
We eat too much, and we're bigger, and we wonder why we're bigger.
Rant over and I'm no less guilty than the next person and yes, I for sure have to watch it.
I know; it seems contradictory, doesn't it? Some of the obesity now seems to be in kids who are inactive, and eat or drink a lot of sweets and carbs/chips/snacks. My mom didn't allow us to have soft drinks/pop, nor Twinkies, though she loved white bread, and thought anyone who fed their kids whole wheat bread was a "health food nut" (this included her own sister).
When I'm in New Mexico, I see adult overweight/mild obesity, but it's in the Hispanic population, and to some extent, in the Native American population. The "Anglos" around me are in good shape, at all ages. In California, I don't see obesity (except for occasionally, among the 60+ cohort), but then...I don't shop at WalMart. Where are all the obese people? According to the maps I've seen, they're concentrated in the Mid-West, the Appalachian states and their border regions, and the south, though numbers have increased in the West and NE, as well, but not as much. Going by my observations, I'd guess that in the West, the increase in obesity has been among low-income families. This isn't a scientific survey, just my own casual observations.
I've lived here since I was 4. I must admit that the few times I've been able to travel it's been somewhat of an "obesity culture shock".
Even though you do "see it" here, it's NOT like when I traveled to Texas. When we went to Texas my twins were only 12 & THEY noticed it. I had not said one word; they brought it up to me. I didn't even really know what to say (Well, girls; were not in Colorado any more)!
I have not been to SoCal since 2001 (darn it!) but I don't remember noticing it there.
Maybe some of it has to do with my perception? Not so much where I'm "at" geographically but more of where I'm "at" mentally. Now I'm a middle aged woman (oh dear) who's struggling with feeling beautiful vs feeling fat & old so maybe I'm noticing it more.
We didn't snack constantly. We ate "three square meals a day."
Not to get on my soapbox, and if this is going too OT, please let me know, but today, if Little Johnny doesn't get a snack every 90 minutes, his mother frets that he's going to fall over in hypoglycemic shock.
At school my kids still get snack time in FIFTH grade. In the high schools there are vending machines. We got snack in kindergarten because we were still considered to be just transitioning from babyhood. Literally, only babies and preschoolers were considered to need to eat more than three squares and maybe a snack after school, and that snack might be grapes. After kindergarten nobody felt a great big child age six or over needed a snack during school. If she whined about hunger, well, let that be a lesson: eat more breakfast tomorrow. If she whined of hunger between lunch and leaving school, everybody would have just stared at her in incomprehension and think there was something wrong with her. Seriously??? As for drinks, well, we all knew where the water fountain was.
Today, the kids have breakfast, a "snack" complete with giant sugary drink "box" or pouch, a giant lunch, a giant after-school snack, a visit to the park with another snack because they kids are about to be "so active!!!" for practically 50 minutes, dinner, dessert and then a snack before bed.
And so do grown-ups. We just "have to" have snacks at mid-morning, mid-afternoon, while making dinner, after dinner...out shopping...out anywhere, in anywhere, eat eat eat.
When it's not a snack, it's a meal far, far larger than any I ever remember from the 70s. Giant plates of everything. Giant servings. People think "a serving" of pasta is a huge plate. "A serving" of ice cream is a big bowl, not half a cup (measurement-wise). "A few cookies" isn't two small cookies, or three. It's four or five. Or more.
We just eat too much, period. Look at a size small drink today v. in yesteryear. Small used to be maybe 8 oz.? Maybe 6? Remember when Coke in a bottle from the machine was 8 oz.? Remember how small hamburgers used to be? How small a small fry was?
We eat too much, and we're bigger, and we wonder why we're bigger.
Rant over and I'm no less guilty than the next person and yes, I for sure have to watch it.
Yes, yes, yes, I agree with all of this! I am older than the above poster, now in my 60s. In school we got lunch only, and it was a balanced meal. No snacks, recess with lots of activity every day. Then in junior and senior high, phys ed classes. My female phys ed teachers were retired military and we did calisthenics, sprints, field laps and sports EVERY DAY!! As was mentioned previously, only a couple "fat kids" in the entire school and by today's standards they weren't even that fat.
Anyway, I do see a whole lotta overweight people, way more than I did back in the 60s or 70s. I think obesity really took hold in the 80s with all the oversized jumbo portions of processed foods, and dropping physical activity from schools. Got worse in the 90s and beyond with computers, video games etc.
Having said that, I do live in a city where the women take good care of themselves - go to the gym, are fit and toned and dress well. Some of the men do too. I have many friends who look shockingly young for their ages.
Location: Stuck on the East Coast, hoping to head West
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to the OP (if still around, this thread is old). Yes, I think people looked older in the 70's. I looked up the ages of Jean Stapleton and Carroll O'Connor from All in the Family. Can you believe that Archie started out in his late 40s?! He looks so old to me. And Edith is only early 50's.
I think we all look younger now b/c of makeup (which has come a long, long way) and skincare products, hair color is far better and more natural looking, and clothes are more flattering.
I will say this, though, you can always tell how old people are, no matter how young they might look, by looking in their eyes and at their neck. Older eyes just look more knowing, or soulful or something and, well, they haven't yet come up with botox for necks so there's that.
Most of the comments here are about clothing and hair. If you look past the hairstyles and fashions, they don't look any older than contemporary women their age.
The women in those pictures look to be attending a Tupperware party or something along those lines. I guesstimate that the year of the pictures is 1965, based on a magazine cover seen in one of the pictures. I honestly don't think any of the women is under the age of 50. Maybe some are late 40s at the youngest. Who knows. However, considering it's the 1960s, the clothes (and the quality of the pictures) don't look THAT dated. They look more like pictures from the 1980s.
BEcause it has a lot to do with socioeconomics. Wealthier people have the time and resources to exercise on purpose and have access to healthier food options. You've heard of food deserts, right?
Yes, I was going to say something about it being related to poverty. So is that where a lot of the increase in obesity in the last couple of generations is coming from? More reliance by certain segments of the population on fast food, cheap snacks, and sugary drinks? I don't know if the explanation could be so simple, but I sure don't see obesity among the middle class and up--not in the West and Southwest, anyway. Maybe among kids, but I don't see that many kids. That would help account for the big jump in the rate of obesity, though.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 09-15-2016 at 11:52 PM..
I've lived here since I was 4. I must admit that the few times I've been able to travel it's been somewhat of an "obesity culture shock".
Even though you do "see it" here, it's NOT like when I traveled to Texas. When we went to Texas my twins were only 12 & THEY noticed it. I had not said one word; they brought it up to me. I didn't even really know what to say (Well, girls; were not in Colorado any more)!
I have not been to SoCal since 2001 (darn it!) but I don't remember noticing it there.
Maybe some of it has to do with my perception? Not so much where I'm "at" geographically but more of where I'm "at" mentally. Now I'm a middle aged woman (oh dear) who's struggling with feeling beautiful vs feeling fat & old so maybe I'm noticing it more.
I'm well aware that CO has the least obesity, and people are very active there. I also like how friendly people are! People say hello when passing on the sidewalk. And the scenery is gorgeous! RE: obesity, most of the West Coast is next in line behind CO, as far as lower levels of obesity goes. Walking around college towns in CA, and the Bay Area, I don't see it.
BEcause it has a lot to do with socioeconomics. Wealthier people have the time and resources to exercise on purpose and have access to healthier food options. You've heard of food deserts, right?
There were times during my extended, part-time college years, when I was so poor, I had to cash-in the pennies I found underneath cushions. But I always found plenty of time to do my daily workouts and eat nothing but basic, nutritious food. In fact, a high percentage of my income went for good food that I fixed myself at home.
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People say hello when passing on the sidewalk. And the scenery is gorgeous! RE: obesity, most of the West Coast is next in line behind CO, as far as lower levels of obesity goes. Walking around college towns in CA, and the Bay Area, I don't see it.
