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  #1   ^
Old Sat, Oct-17-20, 09:42
GRB5111's Avatar
GRB5111 GRB5111 is offline
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Plan: Very LC, Higher Protein
Stats: 227/186/185 Male 6' 0"
BF:
Progress: 98%
Location: Herndon, VA
Default What the General Public is Exposed to: It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the '80s

No wonder we have mass confusion over healthy lifestyles. This video from last year provides reasons why people are heavier today than in the 1980s based on research from 2015, and it's hard to completely refute some of these reasons because they all have a small element of truth. However, my gripe is that this is a typical hit and run expose providing a bunch of negative reasons and offering nothing in the way of correcting or combating the issue. The likely response from those who aren't skeptical and curious would be to throw in the towel, as the message is there's no way to achieve health and a healthy weight in today's world. Yeah, fat is even glamorous! I say it's irresponsible journalism, but there is no end to these types of "news" reports:

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/i...4/skinnier-80s/
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  #2   ^
Old Sat, Oct-17-20, 12:22
teaser's Avatar
teaser teaser is offline
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Posts: 15,075
 
Plan: mostly milkfat
Stats: 190/152.4/154 Male 67inches
BF:
Progress: 104%
Location: Ontario
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I think it's largely diet and portion size.

By that I don't mean that people should "eat less, move more." More like, eat food that you enjoy but are satisfied by moderate amounts of, and that doesn't leave you nodding off on the couch all afternoon.

There are certain foods, like potato chips, chocolate bars, pizza, that when I ate them--how much I ate basically depended on how much I had brought into the house. I don't think our bodies are horribly good at figuring out how much energy we should be taking in from these kinds of foods. Even with some lower carb foods, like peanuts--if I buy two pounds of peanuts--that's without the shell--I might finish them that same day, that's a binge food for me. If I buy a 50 gram packet--that's all I'll eat of them.

"We're not eating more, but we're gaining weight"--I wonder how well we're measuring this, really. Home cooked food goes bad. Doritos aren't forever--but I never had them last long enough to be stale enough that I wouldn't eat them. The answer is that we're not measuring this well.
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  #3   ^
Old Sun, Oct-18-20, 06:50
BawdyWench's Avatar
BawdyWench BawdyWench is offline
Posts: 8,789
 
Plan: Carnivore
Stats: 212/179/160 Female 5'6"
BF:
Progress: 63%
Location: Rural Maine
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I do think there's something to the potentially negative consequences of plastics and chemicals. Virtually everything we touch all day long -- from our toothbrush to our phones to computer keyboards to to the coffee maker to cooking utensils to food storage containers to the steering wheel and other parts of our cars we touch, etc. -- are plastic or some sort of chemical conglomeration. Try to get through the day without touching something plastic. Add to that all the chemicals we're now ingesting in cosmetics, food additives, etc.

Young girls are beginning to develop breasts and having periods earlier and earlier, some as early as 6 or younger, due to the estrogen-mimicking plastics out there.

Portion size is definitely a factor also. I remember the rare occasions when my family (mother, father, older sister, and me) had take-out pizza for dinner. A large pizza fed all of us. These days, my husband and I can polish off a large pizza without even trying. And, I'd venture to say, a "large" pizza then was smaller than than a "large" pizza today.

I look at the casserole dishes my mother used, and there were always leftovers. Now those dishes look so small.

It's not one thing. It's many things working against us now.

Oh, and can I say that I really don't like the euphamism of "curvy" that is used for women today? To me, "curvy" means an hourglass figure, with larger breasts and hips and a smaller waist. To others these days, "curvy" is a nicer way of saying someone is carrying a lot of extra fat. Even the term "obese" has changed definitions. To me, people are at a good weight, slightly overweight, obese (like 275 pounds for a 5'6" woman), or morbidly obese (like 500+ pounds for a 5'6" woman). It seems like today the ranges for normal and overweight have gotten much smaller, and the ranges for obese and morbidly obese are much larger.
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  #4   ^
Old Sun, Oct-18-20, 08:14
Ms Arielle's Avatar
Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is offline
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Posts: 19,169
 
Plan: atkins, carnivore 2023
Stats: 200/211/163 Female 5'8"
BF:
Progress: -30%
Location: Massachusetts
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I'm careful about plastics around my boys. No foods reheated or heated in plastic, ceramic plates only.

No plastic sports bottles since learning of leakage into the water.
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  #5   ^
Old Sun, Oct-18-20, 15:26
Kristine's Avatar
Kristine Kristine is offline
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Posts: 25,553
 
Plan: Primal/P:E
Stats: 171/146/150 Female 5'7"
BF:
Progress: 119%
Location: Southern Ontario, Canada
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GRB5111
I say it's irresponsible journalism, but there is no end to these types of "news" reports
"News" in quotes is appropriate; I consider it "pointless garbage content." They're out to steal your time and attention for a pittance of ad revenue.

...but as for what has changed since the 80s, besides what we talk about a lot here - that high-carb low-fat diet and "just eat less and move more" baloney: The biggest difference I see is how it became almost mandatory to eat and be surrounded by food (most of it crap) ALL THE TIME.

I partially blame the dieticians/clinicians who pushed "grazing" as if you're going to die if you're hungry and have to wait until you finish what you're doing to eat. The epitome of this was a time I was in a Walmart line and was appalled to hear a young mom behind me crack open a bag of whatever-crap-food and start feeding her toddler. Toddler's older sibling asked, "why is he getting Goldfish (or whatever crap it was)?" and mom answered, "because he's hungry." But he wasn't! He wasn't even being fussy! But way to go, (a) committing theft, and (b) teaching this kid to just eat all the damn time for no reason. (I've seen people just start eating in the middle of the store quite a lot, and honestly, if I owned a grocery store, I'd be calling the police on your shoplifting butt. You pay for it first!)

I remember when it was forbidden and just plain rude to eat on public transit or in school. Now? Sure, just whip out that tuna sub on the bus or in the middle of a lecture. For many, it's almost a point of pride: "I'm soooo busy and hard-working, I can't possibly set time aside to sit at a table and eat properly."

...and remember when gas stations just sold... gas?! There's a gas station near us that I actually thought was shut down/derelict because it's just the pumps and a hut. When did EVERY gas station turn into a mini grocery store and restaurant?!

We've normalized this constant eating, especially the hyper-pallatable crap. I don't blame those gas stations, because if the guy across the street is doing it, you want to do more and better to compete for those impulse spending dollars.

No wonder so many of us need support to stay LC. Swimming upstream is hard.

(/rant)

Last edited by Kristine : Sun, Oct-18-20 at 15:36.
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  #6   ^
Old Sun, Oct-18-20, 17:38
BawdyWench's Avatar
BawdyWench BawdyWench is offline
Posts: 8,789
 
Plan: Carnivore
Stats: 212/179/160 Female 5'6"
BF:
Progress: 63%
Location: Rural Maine
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Rant accepted and agreed with.

My husband used to travel on business every week. Whenever we took a vacation that required a plane trip, at every stop he would immediately seek out the closest place to grab a bite to eat. "Always get something to eat, because you never know when you'll get another chance." Seriously? You'll die if you don't eat every two hours?

For most of my 27 years at my job (retired now), I worked from home. On those few days I went into the office, I never bothered to pack a lunch. Why bother? I could certainly make it through 8 or 10 hours without eating. But then I saw others running to the vending machines every couple hours, going out for lunch, always complaining of hunger.

And yet here I am, overweight. Or in the vernacular of the day, obese.
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  #7   ^
Old Sun, Oct-18-20, 19:12
GRB5111's Avatar
GRB5111 GRB5111 is offline
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Posts: 4,036
 
Plan: Very LC, Higher Protein
Stats: 227/186/185 Male 6' 0"
BF:
Progress: 98%
Location: Herndon, VA
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/rant is on point and very well targeted. Agree 100%. The "news" video/ article conveniently (inadvertently?) left out most of these as reasons people aren't as skinny as the 80s.
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  #8   ^
Old Mon, Oct-19-20, 06:00
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WereBear WereBear is offline
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Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/125/150 Female 67
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Progress: 136%
Location: USA
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I came here to complain about this article

It was a Food Pyramid with a triangular base. One side was the Fear of Fat, another was the Processed Food companies looking for profits, and the third was Advertising to Children, creating generations growing up being told sugary breakfast cereals, candy bars, and fast food were all the answer to hunger, boredom, or low mood.

This was created, all on purpose, and the science perpetuated it. Because, as we all know, the more carbs you eat, the more you eat carbs.
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  #9   ^
Old Mon, Oct-19-20, 06:46
Ms Arielle's Avatar
Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is offline
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Posts: 19,169
 
Plan: atkins, carnivore 2023
Stats: 200/211/163 Female 5'8"
BF:
Progress: -30%
Location: Massachusetts
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Son has been taking writing classes on how to spin the truth. Well, truth isnt part of this type if writing. Its all spin. How to manipulate quotes and rake it out of context to support a position . I hope my teen is learning that while he is writing bs, so is the rest of the world. Maybe that is the point of the class. IDK.

Four hours spent quoting and spinning a paper from Fast Food Nation. RETORIC is the style . Cant help but think this is the new style that is pervasive. And persuasive. But not necessarily truthful.

Last edited by Ms Arielle : Mon, Oct-19-20 at 17:36.
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  #10   ^
Old Mon, Oct-19-20, 14:04
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Merpig Merpig is offline
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Posts: 7,582
 
Plan: EF/Fung IDM/keto
Stats: 375/225.4/175 Female 66.5 inches
BF:
Progress: 75%
Location: NE Florida
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I avoid videos if at all possible so don't know what this one said, but we sure ate a lot when I was a kid. We always had snacks after school, usually cookies or potato chips which we bought from the door-to-door "Charlie's Chips" man. Or donuts from the door-to-door Dugan Donuts salesman. We always had sugared soda in the house which we bought by the case at a local bottling plant. We had dessert pretty much every night with dinner as my parents both were big sweet eaters. We'd go out for ice cream cones on weekends pretty often. We were probably the antithesis of what everyone claims about the 50's and 60's eating patterns. And yet my sisters and I were all skinny stringbeans.
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  #11   ^
Old Mon, Oct-19-20, 17:38
Ms Arielle's Avatar
Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is offline
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Posts: 19,169
 
Plan: atkins, carnivore 2023
Stats: 200/211/163 Female 5'8"
BF:
Progress: -30%
Location: Massachusetts
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Your family was leading the way. Trend setters. Lol
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  #12   ^
Old Tue, Oct-20-20, 06:34
BawdyWench's Avatar
BawdyWench BawdyWench is offline
Posts: 8,789
 
Plan: Carnivore
Stats: 212/179/160 Female 5'6"
BF:
Progress: 63%
Location: Rural Maine
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Merpig
I avoid videos if at all possible so don't know what this one said, but we sure ate a lot when I was a kid. We always had snacks after school, usually cookies or potato chips which we bought from the door-to-door "Charlie's Chips" man. Or donuts from the door-to-door Dugan Donuts salesman. We always had sugared soda in the house which we bought by the case at a local bottling plant. We had dessert pretty much every night with dinner as my parents both were big sweet eaters. We'd go out for ice cream cones on weekends pretty often. We were probably the antithesis of what everyone claims about the 50's and 60's eating patterns. And yet my sisters and I were all skinny stringbeans.

Your family was the exact opposite of mine. We never had chips or soda in the house, except for every other Friday when my folks had friends over to play cards. The next day, if there was any left over, we could have it, but usually most of it was gone. If there were snacks in the house, we had free access to them, but snacks were rare. My mother baked, but maybe once a month. I really think working at Dunkin' Donuts as my first job was my downfall.
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  #13   ^
Old Tue, Oct-20-20, 11:31
Calianna's Avatar
Calianna Calianna is offline
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Posts: 1,812
 
Plan: Atkins-ish (hypoglycemia)
Stats: 000/000/000 Female 63
BF:
Progress: 50%
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We always had snacks around too (from the late 50's through about 1970), mainly because my mother (who had excellent self control [Read: she didn't have excessive insulin issues, causing her to become ravenous]) liked certain snacks.

There was always a big cookie jar with plenty of cookies. There were always crackers (mostly saltines, and graham crackers, but in later years, also other types such as triscuits) available too.

Mom baked a cake at least once a week, so we usually had dessert after dinner. If we ran out of cake, and she didn't get another one made, ice cream was available for dessert. At one point in my teens, I remember very excitedly telling someone we'd had strawberry shortcake (my favorite) for dinner the night before. That person pointed out to me that was dessert, and asked what we'd had for dinner. I'm sure we had some kind of meat, veg, and potato, which was very typical of our meals, and I'm sure I ate it (because: no dessert until you've eaten your dinner) but I couldn't remember what it was, and didn't care about anything other than the strawberry shortcake.

Mom always had a bag or two of potato chips in the cabinet - she'd get out a small handful of them to eat with her lunch. I don't recall how many I ate, but I know it was far more than she ate, and of course I still wanted more, but was too embarrassed to ask for more. I'm sure I sneaked some chips in between meals.

Mom would have jelly or jam on bread at every meal - just a little schmear of it on a piece of bread. At least she still exercised great control over how much junk she consumed until the last few years of her life, when the dementia/alzheimers was more in control of her actions, at which time she'd really glob the jelly/jam on the bread as thickly as possible.

I don't know if friends during the 60's had more or less snacks and sweets around or not - I certainly felt like they did, because I knew people who lived in town, or near a little candy store, and they talked about buying such things as Moon Pies, Twinkies, candy bars, and chips from the corner store on their way home from school or the park, or at the concessions stand at the swimming pool, and there was always ice cream available in the school cafeteria, which many of them bought every single day (not me though - I only had enough money to buy lunch, which normally already included something for dessert). But for all I know, like Bawdy they might have very rarely ever had snacks available at home, and might not have had dessert after dinner either, so it's entirely possible that they were eating a lot less junk and snacks than I was.
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  #14   ^
Old Tue, Oct-20-20, 11:55
Calianna's Avatar
Calianna Calianna is offline
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Posts: 1,812
 
Plan: Atkins-ish (hypoglycemia)
Stats: 000/000/000 Female 63
BF:
Progress: 50%
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GRB5111
No wonder we have mass confusion over healthy lifestyles. This video from last year provides reasons why people are heavier today than in the 1980s based on research from 2015, and it's hard to completely refute some of these reasons because they all have a small element of truth. However, my gripe is that this is a typical hit and run expose providing a bunch of negative reasons and offering nothing in the way of correcting or combating the issue. The likely response from those who aren't skeptical and curious would be to throw in the towel, as the message is there's no way to achieve health and a healthy weight in today's world. Yeah, fat is even glamorous! I say it's irresponsible journalism, but there is no end to these types of "news" reports:

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/i...4/skinnier-80s/



I should also mention that during the 80's, after initially gaining a LOT of weight, I was about the same weight as I am now. I gained the majority of what I haven't lost yet during the very late 70's and early 80's. I continued to gain at a shocking rate in the 90's. Was it because I was more sedentary, and had more snacks available? No, not really. I was running after two kids all day long, and yes, I snacked, but really not much more than I did in high school. It was attempting to eat a low fat, high carb diet that did it. Of course you can only fight the need for essential fatty acids for so long, so there were of course times when I ate excess fats too - but it didn't help that those fats were always accompanied by carbs, usually hearthealthywholegrains, or the supposedly healthy "complex carbs".
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  #15   ^
Old Wed, Oct-21-20, 05:35
BawdyWench's Avatar
BawdyWench BawdyWench is offline
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Plan: Carnivore
Stats: 212/179/160 Female 5'6"
BF:
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Location: Rural Maine
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I remember in my senior year of high school a bunch of us went to the local McDonald's. I was so embarrassed because I'd never been to one before and didn't even know what they sold. I ended up just getting the exact same thing as the person ahead of me in line.
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