Food is cheaper today to the point where it’s easier to eat out.
The Food Pyramid, and the whole “Fat is Evil” campaign.
Because I was in my 20s.
People moved a lot more back in the 80’s, outside the gym. No hours on social media or online shopping. I think that makes a big difference.
Yeah, I remember how all those great jobs were available during the Carter years.
Cocaine?
I'm not sure if this is common to all here, but it was easier for me because I was still in my freakin' 20s.
“A study finds that people today who eat and exercise the same amount as people 20 years ago are still fatter.”
Really? The EXACT same caloric intake and the EXACT same caloric expenditure?
I doubt that.
People in general are less active today outside of the gym. While basic walking and moving around doesn’t burn that many calories/hour compared to serious exercise, it does burn some and those little bits can add up. Also, the less time you’re out and about the more time for idle hands to snack while watching TV etc. Those little extra bites often don’t get marked down when people track their calories.
It’s an anti-meat article. It’s blaming the hormones and antibiotics in the meat supply. Oh......and maybe artificial sweeteners and prescription drugs.
I am also one that believes set meal and snack times as well as sleep can help regulate metabolism and hormones related to hunger. I think these have changed dramatically with access to the internet , more 24-7 TV, and the decline of the family meal.
Folks rationalize away why so many fat people today
Look how they live the balance of their lives
Go to their homes
I bet most keep a poor home....piggies
I see forty year old super fat folks riding the cart around walmart.....just fat
No discipline
Let’s just talk lower income white america and I’ve been a member at times in my life btw...No money
Obese
Illegitimacy rampant
On disability as soon as possible
Scripts for pain meds and adderal and benzos they can sell mostly and consume
Food stamps and other gimmes
It’s a lifestyle
Often feral wiggery kids or maybe Uber red neck or a hybrid of both
Women are fatter than men but men are fatter too just maybe half as common
It’s so bad now that 90% of black women over 30 appear obese
And poorer white women are close behind
Go to an upscale area
See a lot of obese women?
A few chubby soccer moms maybe
Kids in the 60s I could go a month not seeing a sumo slant eyed fat person like I see now daily
Go to a hospital or docs office and see how many have those double seats now
By my own experience, the prevalence of food availability, increase in convenience, wide availability of high-calorie foods, habit of snacking, food portions - have all increased greatly over the last 30 years.
What nonsense.
People were thinner in the 50s and were thinner in Southern Europe until recently and they “STILL ATE CARBS” you Keto fetishists.
Old Economy Steve ate at McDonald’s almost every day, and he still somehow had a 32-inch waist.
Uh, hate to break it to the snowflakes but ...
High fructose corn syrup. Nutrisweet. Sterile wheat. A plethora of additives that preserve foods so they will stay on the shelf longer but won’t. digest easily. The food is less nutritious than it was. It doesn’t satisfy so people eat more.
The total meat consumption statistic is off. In the early 1900s, most meat was locally produced. Their statistic comes from meat shipped. That skews the statistics.
“The data from the early 1900s, which is what McGovern and others used, are known to be especially poor. Among other things, these data accounted only for the meat, dairy, and other fresh foods shipped across state lines in those early years, so anything produced and eaten locally, such as meat from a cow or eggs from chickens, would not have been included.
And since farmers made up more than a quarter of all workers during these years, local foods must have amounted to quite a lot....
...The English novelist Anthony Trollope reported, during a trip to the United States in 1861, that Americans ate twice as much beef as did Englishmen. Charles Dickens, when he visited, wrote that “no breakfast was breakfast” without a T-bone steak. Apparently, starting a day on puffed wheat and low-fat milk—our “Breakfast of Champions!”—would not have been considered adequate even for a servant.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/how-americans-used-to-eat/371895/
As a Gen Xer myself, they do have a point.
Tuition adjusting for inflation was vastly cheaper in the 70s than it is now.
Houses as measured by % of average wages were also significantly cheaper than they are now.
We also had not imported an absolute flood of cheap labor via illegals for blue collar workers or massive abuse of H1b and other such work visa programs for white collar workers. Of course this has depressed wages just as the Cheap Labor Express crowd intended.
There hadn’t been much outsourcing so there were lots of pretty well paying blue collar jobs in factories.
The stock market grew an average of 20% per year from 1980 until 2000. Anybody investing then got a bonanza.
I don’t say any of this to demonize Baby Boomers or blame them for everything.......but damn, y’all got a better deal than those who followed in many ways. When Millenials complain they’ve got it tougher......it’s true. They do. Yes, technology is much better today but economic conditions for younger people especially aren’t better. They’re worse.
In the 80’s, corporate restaurants started offering enormous portions of food. Huge portions loaded with sugar and salt. Often times one would be served enough for three or four. Other chains followed suit, and now we eat like hogs. Mom didn’t feed us that way growing up. There weren’t as many fat people. I remember one or two tubbies as kids in school. It was the exception. Now they want to normalize obesity rather than reverse it. Another thing that didn’t help was the high carb government “food pyramid” that came into vogue back then.