The olden days...

DCUKMod had summed up the situation very well, I think. I can remember my own childhood was pretty much as she describes. I would only add that in "the olden days" we didn't have anything like the processed food that is available today. Take-aways were unheard of for us, except for the local fish & chip shop which was handy for a late night supper after a visit to the cinema on a Friday or Saturday night (but only if we could afford it!). Even then, mum's home made chips cooked in the fat from last weekend's roast, and/or any 'drippings' that she collected & tipped into the chip pan ready for use next time, tasted much better than the chippy's chips. So - no take-aways, no McDonalds, no pizzas, no ready meals or tv dinners. Our food was all fresh, much of the veg seasonal only, grown by my father on his allotment garden, which many families maintained long after the war rationing ended. We had very little fruit, seldom sweets, chocolate or puddings - they were just not a standard part of how we ate. They were treats to be reserved for christmas or Easter. I can't remember portion size particularly, but I suspect we ate much less than is generally accepted nowadays.


edit: typo

I ate everything and anything I wanted when I was young, but I was so much more active than the kids today. Hopscotch, skipping and tag were the order of the day. Mum complained I was never in. Nowadays, gizmos and gadgets are the order of the day.

And there was none of this 'grazing' that we see today. The constant snacking, the absence of true hunger and the real biggy the almost daily consumption of carbonated sugary drinks. As children we had one small glass of pop with our sunday roast. None at all through the week. We got pocket money but not on a regular basis so sweets were a big treat maybe once a fortnight. For me it boils down to the sheer quantity of carbs in the western diet that have brought us to today's epidemic. There was no such thing as pester power when I was a child.

DCUKMod said:

VioletViolet - I think one of the big influencing factors in all of this is that, in "the olden days" day to day life involved much more activity - both in terms of manual labour (if not in terms of employment, the in gardening and the like), but also in household chores. There were no automatic washing machines, poorer hoovers, driving children to school was a real rarity, and most simple of all, most wives and mothers stayed at home, but had to shop every day for fresh ingredients because fridges were fewer and far between, and so on, and children payed outdoors with fairly basic toys, like skipping ropes or bats an balls, playing rounders or cricket. And, of course, competitive sport was played in schools.

The generation who lived through the last war really didn't have it easy, but in so many ways the foundation stones of their whole lifestyle was arguably much better than much of what we have today.

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I think the other massive change over the period has been the increased % within the carb fraction made up of highly refined, overly sweetened / chemicalised carbs alongside the growth of in availability and relative reduction in cost of ready meals / pop etc. No mass avaiability of microwaves / freezers etc when I was a kid

Something else to remember is that prior to the "fat is bad for you" scare, we had little or no unnecessary added sugar in our foods; this has mainly been added to improvee/restoire the taste that was removed along with those fats. I think we ate a much more balanced diet the as well as being more active, and as we ate more fats we would have had less need to keep on topping up with short acting fuel carby snacks to maintain our energy levels.

Robbity

Thinking back to my childhood diet in the 1950s it was carb heavy. Lots of potatoes, bread, and pastry. Meat or fish and 2 veg was the order of the day for the main meal. Veggies in season. Nothing frozen - no-one had fridges never mind freezers. Fats were butter, lard, and dripping. Home made cakes and buns (with icing of course!). Fruit was usually tinned and accompanied with cream, or Carnation. The difference to me is it was all freshly bought the same day, made from scratch apart from the fruit.

I actually remember the first fast food place in my home town (Blackpool). It was, I think, a Kentucky Fried Chicken place or similar, and that would have been in the 60s. Fish and chip shops everywhere of course, being Blackpool, but never brought home - eaten as a supper walking home after a night out. The fish was freshly caught, never processed frozen stuff, and the chips were made in-house in special machines that peeled the spuds then chipped them. The batter was made in-house, too. We had never heard of pizza, burgers or kebabs, nor indeed many of the other "foreign" foods.

Portion sizes were very definitely smaller, including in restaurants. 3 meals a day plus a biscuit at supper time. Absolutely no snacking or grazing, except a small bottle of milk provided at school.

As said previously, activity levels were far greater. There were no school runs in those days. We walked. We had PE lessons every day and played out all the time in the streets and fields. We cycled miles.

We did have carbonated pop - there were several local pop factories in the town that delivered once a week, also the fish man on Fridays and the veg man with a horse and cart.

Mmm, and a lot of people died without ever knowing they were diabetic or were killed in some awful industrial accident.
Yes food has changed but most of us are also living longer to develop problems.

I clearly remember body types being smaller when I was a child and maybe just 2 children in an entire school being overweight. I remember bread lasting no more than 3 days.

The info graphic below is telling:

For example, It used to be one bit of bread along with an egg for breakfast, we moved onto at least two bit of bread with fruit juice. Cakes used to be once a week, often, these days someone brings a cake into an office every day. These days there is much more sugar in most food, along with a great use of veg oils.

I expect the sugar results in people eating more of all food types, the veg oil may increase insulin resistance. Gaining body fat also increases insulin resistance. Once we have high insulin resistance, carbs do us even more harm.

In the old day's people did not have insulin resistance and did not develop insulin resistance so could cope with a much higher level of cards then I can these days.

We used to 'play out' all day when not at school. We didn't have a phone or games controller stuck to our hands. I saw a young child probably about 2 yrs old have a real tantrum this morning because her mother took a mobile off her! Another slightly older child (preschool age because she threatened to take him to nursery school if he didn't behave) 'created' until his mother gave him her phone to play on. This was in the Dr surgery at 9:30 this morning!
I'm not suggesting these young children should be out playing, but they are already familiar with technology and I wonder how much exercise they get?

VioletViolet said:

Well I've just brought back the 1970s into my life and been out for a walk Albeit a little one, but one day at a time and all that. Baby steps.

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Way to go! I'm up to an hour and a half every night now. It's been hard on the knees.........

Walking poles help a lot when starting out walking - they assist with balance on the irregular pavements and give confidence to stride out faster for longer.

I got diabetes in 1979 and remember playing outside and when i went to school doing sports and at playtime was running about playing game. When i got home from school it was tea and then meeting my mates to play football, not like today where playing football is done on a xbox. Most people would have at least two dinner a week or in my case when i came home for dinner it was veg with onion pudding and fish on a Friday at my grandmas. All ways fish on a Friday it did help that she was the best cook ever, i mean i never heard of Macdonalds till i was 17 but given the choice i would go to grandmas every time. The thing was she was the only grandparent i really new as my nanna died before i was born and mt two grandads both died before i was 4 but i saw my grandma every day. When she passed away i was devasted as i was only 7 but years later my father told me that it was only me who kept her going and when she seen me have a bad hypo she broke down in tears and vowed to keep on going as long as she could.I am 41 now and if there was one person that who had passed away i could have back it would be her.