[quote=CA renter]
Contrary to what many seem to think, I remember American families eating more poorly in the 70s than they do today. Back then, we ate bologna and cheese sandwiches with mayo on Wonder white bread. We washed that down with a Hawaian Punch, and finished off with some M&Ms.
Though poor diets are very common in low-income areas, they’ve always been like this — I don’t think there have been any significant diet changes in that demographic.
These days, among the middle and upper-class families, many parents try to have produce with every meal, and rarely give their kids soda or the “juice products” that are mostly sugar water. I actually think we have a healthier diet today in this demographic.
I think our “obesity problem” is due to the change in lifestyle, more than a poor diet. Like Allan and I were discussing earlier, kids played outside **all the time** riding bikes, playing sports, swimming, etc. We didn’t have computers or cable TV to suck up our lives. We were allowed to **live** life instead of watch someone else’s life on TV. As a general rule, it seems most of my friends were allowed to watch a maximum of one hour per day, many of us were restricted to less.
As many people who have kids know, if we don’t sign our kids up for “organized” activities, kids don’t get nearly the same level of physical activity these days.
BTW, all of this applies to us adults, too. How many of us watch TV or use computers more than our parents ever did? (raises hand)[/quote]
I’ll raise my hand too. I have no objection with the fact that our activity level is very different than the 70s. However, I have a suspicion that our portion size today is much larger than what it used to be back then. Bad food in moderation, I think is still better than, huge portion of food that’s slightly better.
One other factor is, there tends to be a lot more dual income family today than it used to be in the 70s/80s. When both parents work, many times, fast food/eating out is the only option. Home cooked meal will, most of the time, be better for you than fast food/eating out.
