Everyday Systems

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 2:48 pm**

So I often through out my life wondered why I never had my Mom's body. I would see old pictures of her and her BFF (who's still her BFF at age 62:), and my Dad or with us when we were little. She was always a little taller then me and my sister, but thin. She had a flat stomach and long skinny legs. My Dad always jokes "he married her cause she had nice legs".

It dawned on me one day that her BFF was also thin, my Dad was thin, My 3 Uncles and 2 aunts were thin, even my grandparents were thin. Nobody was overweight, nobody. I brought that up to her and she said when they were growing up there was no fat people. There certainly were no fat children, but there was no junk food, no video games and if you didn't eat what grandma made for dinner you went hungry.

She said once a month my grandparents would go out for dinner. My Mom and her 3 brothers would get 1 bag of chips for the four of them to share and each a pop, and that was they're once a month treat. Other then that there was no junk food, there was no snacking, and if you went to a McDonalds all they had where plan hamburgers and a small fry, (think Happy Meal). It just reconfirms to me how wildly out of control our society's eating habits have gotten, especially for our children, and how No S makes a lot of sense.

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 3:10 pm**

If Alex Bogusky's Nine Inch Diet can be believed, there was only one size of fries available at McDonald's until 1972, what is now the small. There was no supersizing before 1993. I remember when they introduced supersizing. I would get supersized portions at McDonald's, because "it's the best value".

When supersizing got phased out in the 2000s, some chains (Wendy's and Burger King, I'm looking at YOU) got rid of the name, but not the huge portion sizes.

Portions were smaller in the past, people ate out less, and they didn't snack all the time. Of course they were thinner than we are.

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 3:41 pm**

I think of my dad when I need inspiration. He never snacks (unless he absolutely has to - he is a type 1 diabetic so sometimes it is medically necessary), he always eats his meals at the same sort of time every day, if it's a special occasion, he'll have a treat and savour it but, once he's done, he's done. He's always been a healthy weight and never really thinks much about food. Basically, he does No S, naturally and without thinking about it and always has. When he does have to eat something to regulate his blood sugar, he hates it - he genuinely does not enjoy snacking, he feels it ruins his next meal but, sometimes, he just has to.

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 4:19 pm**

I think people of previous generations just didn't spend their every waking moment (starting from when parents stick a sippie cup and a handful of goldfish crackers in a kid's hand every time they leave the house) thinking about what can I eat next????

Look at old yearbooks, old newsreels, even clips from ballgames, etc. from the past. To be obese was so very rare, and I hate to even type this but we all know it is true, very heavy people were so uncommon that they were put on display in circuses and fairs - as horrible as that sounds today.

It starts young and it doesn't stop. How many mothers do you know that hand their child a drink or a snack every time they utter a sound?

I know many.

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 4:25 pm**

M's sick of dieting wrote:So I often through out my life wondered why I never had my Mom's body. I would see old pictures of her and her BFF (who's still her BFF at age 62:), and my Dad or with us when we were little. She was always a little taller then me and my sister, but thin. She had a flat stomach and long skinny legs. My Dad always jokes "he married her cause she had nice legs".

It dawned on me one day that her BFF was also thin, my Dad was thin, My 3 Uncles and 2 aunts were thin, even my grandparents were thin. Nobody was overweight, nobody. I brought that up to her and she said when they were growing up there was no fat people. There certainly were no fat children, but there was no junk food, no video games and if you didn't eat what grandma made for dinner you went hungry.

She said once a month my grandparents would go out for dinner. My Mom and her 3 brothers would get 1 bag of chips for the four of them to share and each a pop, and that was they're once a month treat. Other then that there was no junk food, there was no snacking, and if you went to a McDonalds all they had where plan hamburgers and a small fry, (think Happy Meal). It just reconfirms to me how wildly out of control our society's eating habits have gotten, especially for our children, and how No S makes a lot of sense.

I'm also 62 and while I do remember some overweight people from my childhood, I don't remember anyone who was obese or massively obese. I have a picture of my grandparents, their siblings, and my parents on the occasion of my grandparent's 50th anniversary in 1957. The only person who is even slightly overweight is my grandmother, who had been confined to a wheelchair for about 40 years at that time.

I remember being in high school and a bunch of us would get together late Saturday morning and go to Burger Chef for lunch. We'd get a Big Chef (similar to, but better than, a McDonald's Big Mac), fries and a Coke. It was, as you mention, more similar to a Happy Meal than anything else currently on the menu. It was something that happened once a week only.

Cookbook author Pam Anderson wrote this in her book The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight and Eating Great:

Not long ago my husband and I were in Knoxville, Tennessee, helping celebrate his father's eighty-seventh birthday. As a gift, one of my brothers-in-law, who's a whiz with computers, had digitized all the old Anderson family slides.

During the birthday dinner, the Anderson siblings, eager to see the family pictures that had been hidden in those ancient carousel trays for twenty-five years , prevailed upon Charley to present his gift now. He walked to a table nearby and started the show.

At first I watched from a distance. These weren't my family pictures, and all the inside jokes were lost on me. But suddenly I noticed something. I got up, left the table, and went for a closer look. The pictures were vintage 1950s and '60s in the town and outlying farms of Yankton, South Dakota. Women smiled as they served up baked beans and corn on the cob from a farmhouse picnic table. Couples posed in front of bulky, finned automobiles. Six women laughed as they drank coffee and gossiped around a kitchen table. The shots were grainy, the fashion and hairstyles wonderfully outdated, but what struck me was how slim these average, hardworking Midwesterners were. I'm sure they must have lived ordinary lives out there on the prairie, but as the images kept pulsing on the monitor, my only though was, "These people looked good!"

I returned to the table and immediately recognized the next generation of family pictures in the making. The Andersons -- along with in-laws and adult grandchildren -- were drinking coffee and chatting about upcoming weddings, the merits of the next set of presidential candidates, and the latest ADD meds. My God, I thought. what a contrast. We may have become worldlier, but most of us around that table were at least ten to fifty pounds heavier than those South Dakotans. We were Exhibit A for the recent CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) report declaring two-thirds of Americans overweight or obese.

What's happened to us in my short lifetime? I was one of those two-thirds -- overweight, teetering on the brink of obesity.

Look at the people in this video from 1966 about the school lunch program. No one is overweight! There is one boy who is heavier than most in the film, but still not heavy by today's standards. Wherever I go today, I see people who are much heavier than anyone I remember seeing as a child.

Unfortunately, it's not only our eating habits, but also much of the food we eat. It's also not only the snack food, but meals available in fast and chain restaurants as well as a lot that is "cooked" at home. It's calorie-rich and nutrient-poor. I remember reading about a study that showed that many obese people were actually malnourished.

This has happened in less than 50 years. It's happening even faster in other countries as Western food and eating habits become popular around the world. It's happened in less than 20 years in China. A country that was slim and healthy in 1980 had massive (pun intended) weight and health problems by 2000.

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 4:41 pm**

Wow, amazing to watch that video. Almost every child seemed to be at a normal weight, not terribly thin, not overweight. Much like I remember it growing up. More kids were "skinny" if anything - but naturally not due to eating disorders or anything. (I was born in 1949.) I don't remember once weighing myself in high school or having any friends who cared about what they weighed. We got weighed in gym, I suppose, but I don't remember it being an issue.

Amazing how far we have come, and sad.

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 4:53 pm**

You know that is something that startling to me as well, I don't view my Mother as old. It really wasn't that long ago. It scary that in such a short time our eating habits did a nose dive, that so quickly we lost track of what normal means.

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:25 pm**

The other thing you don't see in those old photos are the uberbuff, no body fat women. Most women were slim but not thin by supermodel standards.

I think we, and I'm talking mainly to women, have such a distorted image of what a mature, adult woman's body should look like. The media shows us images of women who are size 0 and 2 and no body fat. And yet as we look around us we see many women who are significantly larger than what good health dictates.

I would dare say that most men could tell you what a healthy, mature woman should look like.

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:00 pm**

M's sick of dieting wrote:You know that is something that startling to me as well, I don't view my Mother as old. It really wasn't that long ago. It scary that in such a short time our eating habits did a nose dive, that so quickly we lost track of what normal means.

Believe me, 62 isn't old. You'll be there before you know it.

I was.

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:46 pm**

GREAT post! Thanks!!

PS: wosnes - well said re. 62 not being old! Good for you!! You are absolutely correct!!

Posted: **Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:04 am**

Speaking of distorted body images, I helped out the other day at a local blood drive. There is a chart with restrictions for people to check when they come in, height and weight restrictions, do you have a cold, are you taking meds.... A woman cannot give blood if she weighs less than 110 pounds. Almost every woman who showed up would laugh and say, yeah, I wish I weighed less than 110 pounds. Do they not realize how unhealthy that would be??? I would bet none of these women were short enough to be healthy at 110 or less!

Posted: **Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:58 am**

Thanks for that video Wosnes, your right no one is over weight. Even the majority of the teachers are thin. Last year I would go pick up my son from school and if I got there early the kids would still be having recess. It used to shock me how many kids were overweight, especially the girls. Now being a girl who started her first diet when she was 10, I felt so bad for them. Looking back I really wasn't that overweight, but I wasn't as thin as my friends, that's my poor body image. But I see all these kids with weight problem and it's something they'll always struggle with. It makes me sad.

Posted: **Thu Jun 23, 2011 11:38 am**

Blithe Morning wrote:The other thing you don't see in those old photos are the uberbuff, no body fat women. Most women were slim but not thin by supermodel standards.

I think we, and I'm talking mainly to women, have such a distorted image of what a mature, adult woman's body should look like. The media shows us images of women who are size 0 and 2 and no body fat. And yet as we look around us we see many women who are significantly larger than what good health dictates.

I would dare say that most men could tell you what a healthy, mature woman should look like.

Think Marilyn Monroe. I've read that she was about a size 14. Think Sophia Loren, who said "Everything you see here I owe to spaghetti," and wasn't complaining about her appearance. Quite the opposite, in fact. Look at almost any actress before the 90s and they look like normal women. After that they become distorted (not to mention unrealistic) images of what a woman should be.

Posted: **Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:18 pm**

yes, but Marilyn Monroes size 14 is our size 6. The average has risen so drastically, not to mention vanity sizing.

Posted: **Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:42 pm**

Marianna wrote:yes, but Marilyn Monroes size 14 is our size 6. The average has risen so drastically, not to mention vanity sizing.

I've read that before and believed it. I also remember my Mom at the same time and she wore about a size 14. Believe me, it was nothing like a 6 is now. It was bigger.

Posted: **Thu Jun 23, 2011 3:57 pm**

wosnes wrote:
Marianna wrote:yes, but Marilyn Monroes size 14 is our size 6. The average has risen so drastically, not to mention vanity sizing.
I've read that before and believed it. I also remember my Mom at the same time and she wore about a size 14. Believe me, it was nothing like a 6 is now. It was bigger.

Here's an interesting article on the Marilyn Monroe size question:
http://jezebel.com/5299793/for-the-last ... lyn-monroe

It includes her purported measurements:

But if people demand numbers? They're certainly out there. According to measurements from Marilyn Monroe's dressmaker:
Height: 5 feet, 5Â½ inches
Weight: 118-140 pounds
Bust: 35-37 inches
Waist: 22-23 inches
Hips: 35-36 inches
Bra size: 36D

As you can see, she had incredibly extreme hourglass figure (aka very tiny waist). Which will through off sizing even more than usual. Most of her clothing was probably custom made anyhow, but it's highly unlikely she'd be able to wear much of anything straight off the rack without alterations today.

If I had to guess what she'd do if she were shopping today, I'd say she would buy stuff around a size 8 (based on the bust/hips), but then take it in at the waist.

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 1:01 am**

Strawberry Roan wrote:I think people of previous generations just didn't spend their every waking moment (starting from when parents stick a sippie cup and a handful of goldfish crackers in a kid's hand every time they leave the house) thinking about what can I eat next????

It starts young and it doesn't stop. How many mothers do you know that hand their child a drink or a snack every time they utter a sound?

I know many.

OMG, this drives me crazy.

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:17 am**

leafy_greens, you're back! or maybe I've just missed your other recent posts.

Okay, I'm going to be slightly contrarian. I remember Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith show. I know she wasn't considered sexy (ha!) but I don't remember anyone thinking she was unacceptably fat.

My grandmother was quite overweight, hospitalized and fed little enough to have her drop a lot of weight. My mother said she cried when she first saw her mom on her release. She was so thin, and my mother thought she looked terrible. BTW, my grandmother never gained the weight back.

You need to look at Marilyn Monroe in several films. I think she was probably her heaviest in Some Like it Hot. But the fact that she had an hourglass figure doesn't mean she was heavy most of the time. I wanted to think she was pretty big, but in most of her films, she was still pretty slim. Just voluptuous.

Here is a link to snopes.com on this:http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/mmdress.asp

I do accept that children were thinner.

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:35 am**

What drives me crazy watching parents/kids is the extent to which parents don't feed their children real food. My nephew (who is 2) loves cheese but my sister-in-law won't just give him a piece of cheese, she insists on giving him special childrens' cheese - string cheese, cheese sticks, etc. WHY? Why not just cut him a piece of cheese?

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 12:05 pm**

I remember reading that the Marilyn Monroe size 14 dress was a French size 14 which is like an American size 6/8, and besides her waist was like a 23. Not exactly "curvy."

LOL @ "special children's cheese." Parents pacify their kids with food because food = love. My mom said she did it to me when I was a newborn because I was her first and when I cried she didn't know what to do other than feed me.

oolala53 wrote:leafy_greens, you're back! or maybe I've just missed your other recent posts.

No I haven't been here.. I fell off the wagon.

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 12:32 pm**

leafy_greens wrote:Parents pacify their kids with food because food = love. My mom said she did it to me when I was a newborn because I was her first and when I cried she didn't know what to do other than feed me.

That's what I was thinking. People do it with their dogs too, which is why so many of them are obese.

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:29 pm**

Actually, a waist of 23 is part of being curvy because it's the difference between the waist, hips, and breasts/shoulder girdle that contributes to that effect. I also think voluptuous connotes a sense of softness, though that could be changing. I haven't looked at a Playboy centerfold in years, but they used to look like they had a layer of "softness" on them-none of this muscular look that's so common now.

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:48 pm**

oolala53 wrote:Actually, a waist of 23 is part of being curvy because it's the difference between the waist, hips, and breasts/shoulder girdle that contributes to that effect. I also think voluptuous connotes a sense of softness, though that could be changing. I haven't looked at a Playboy centerfold in years, but they used to look like they had a layer of "softness" on them-none of this muscular look that's so common now.

True but lets be real - when people defend "curviness" they're usually defending obesity. Not the same thing.

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 3:24 pm**

Yes, but I think that most others see that as wishful thinking on the part of those who expropriated the word. Or maybe just a modern usage. When I was growing up, the word curvy meant hourglass, or at least busty and a comparatively small waist, so some pretty big women could be curvy, but not the classic obese shape with a waist close in ratio to hips. Or perhaps the word has evolved? l

Anyway, the media images are all part of the problem. Personally, I don't believe shame is what should drive a person's efforts to slim down and we've heard of the negative effect many people report by getting caught up on the scale number or the attachment to a certain shape. I think I've mentioned that in a weak moment, I broke down and paid for a workout program that is supposed to help women achieve the most pleasing proportions based on research. I rarely go look at their forum because women there struggle with bingeing after food denial and are fretting over an inch in the wrong place. I find myself thinking, don't you have something better to do?

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 4:53 pm**

There is nothing inherently wrong with obesity. It carries with it greater risks, but so do many things, and it's not like it is a conscious choice, unlike many other things.

I am willing to defend obesity any day of the week. I also advocate people love the body that they are in, and if talking it up as "curvy" helps you, please do so.

I am not thrilled that it is so easy for people to mindlessly overeat. Or even sometimes knowingly overeat.

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 6:52 pm**

Clarica wrote:There is nothing inherently wrong with obesity. It carries with it greater risks, but so do many things, and it's not like it is a conscious choice, unlike many other things.

I am willing to defend obesity any day of the week. I also advocate people love the body that they are in, and if talking it up as "curvy" helps you, please do so.

I am not thrilled that it is so easy for people to mindlessly overeat. Or even sometimes knowingly overeat.

The only thing potentially 'wrong' with obesity is that the links to health problems put pressure on health services (or private health insurance) as they have to pay for treating these arguably preventable occurances of these health problems. I don't think many people wake up in the morning and think 'oh hey, I'd really like to be obese' but we do choose what we eat and how we live. We can also choose to be comfortable with our bodies and aim for a body shape/weight that is realistic for us rather than how we 'think' we should look.

Unfortunately our food and health choices are influenced by a LOT of things - advertising, fast food availability, cultural expectations, how your parents eat. Given the current tendencies for 'fast' food to be unhealthy, for portions to be ridiculously large, and the focus on snack foods it seems that it's getting more difficult to make good choices.

Posted: **Fri Jun 24, 2011 11:51 pm**

I remember at school in the 60s; no one ever brought food to school. At recess we played and at lunch time we went home to eat.

Now the kids eat fruit rollups, candy bars, snack bars etc. instead of playing at recess. The teachers graze while working because they keep a small bar fridge near their desk for their snacks. The janitors have a hard time throwing all the garbage out each week. It's so much.

Posted: **Sat Jun 25, 2011 12:59 am**

milliem wrote:
The only thing potentially 'wrong' with obesity is that the links to health problems put pressure on health services (or private health insurance) as they have to pay for treating these arguably preventable occurances of these health problems. I don't think many people wake up in the morning and think 'oh hey, I'd really like to be obese' but we do choose what we eat and how we live. We can also choose to be comfortable with our bodies and aim for a body shape/weight that is realistic for us rather than how we 'think' we should look.

Unfortunately our food and health choices are influenced by a LOT of things - advertising, fast food availability, cultural expectations, how your parents eat. Given the current tendencies for 'fast' food to be unhealthy, for portions to be ridiculously large, and the focus on snack foods it seems that it's getting more difficult to make good choices.

I have to admit, I don't care one way or another about obesity. These risks are real, and these costs are real, but the same is true for smoking and drinking, but because these have a much smaller visible impact on a person's appearance, contempt for that behavior is rarely transferred to contempt for the person in the same negative way as it is for the fatty. And that's a bit of a hot button for me, because that contempt can cause so much damage.

Posted: **Sat Jun 25, 2011 11:46 am**

sheepish wrote:What drives me crazy watching parents/kids is the extent to which parents don't feed their children real food. My nephew (who is 2) loves cheese but my sister-in-law won't just give him a piece of cheese, she insists on giving him special childrens' cheese - string cheese, cheese sticks, etc. WHY? Why not just cut him a piece of cheese?

Marketing. We go for packaging. If she ever sat down and figured out that she's paying more for that pre-packaged cheese than one will pay for filet mignon, I wonder how she'd react?

I also do notice a serious reluctance to pick up a knife in the kitchen, which strikes me as amazingly ironic. It's not like you can't find some lessons on knife skills on the Food Network or in any reasonable Google search.

It was one of the first things I made sure my son knew when I was teaching him to cook.

Posted: **Sat Jun 25, 2011 11:47 am**

Clarica wrote:I have to admit, I don't care one way or another about obesity. These risks are real, and these costs are real, but the same is true for smoking and drinking, but because these have a much smaller visible impact on a person's appearance, contempt for that behavior is rarely transferred to contempt for the person in the same negative way as it is for the fatty. And that's a bit of a hot button for me, because that contempt can cause so much damage.

Thank you. Yes. This.

Posted: **Sat Jun 25, 2011 12:47 pm**

Clarica wrote:
I have to admit, I don't care one way or another about obesity. These risks are real, and these costs are real, but the same is true for smoking and drinking, but because these have a much smaller visible impact on a person's appearance, contempt for that behavior is rarely transferred to contempt for the person in the same negative way as it is for the fatty. And that's a bit of a hot button for me, because that contempt can cause so much damage.

Ah yes, there is a real difference between acknowledging a health risk or problem and feeling/showing contempt for someone because of it.

Posted: **Sat Jun 25, 2011 3:07 pm**

Let's remember, too, that obesity is only a risk. It is not a guarantee of ill health. But I think people often vilify heavy people for aesthetic reasons as well, as if the obese have no right to hurt our eyes with their presence.

Speaking of knives, I may have said on another thread that when I lived in Iran back in the late "70's, I marveled at the fact that families who ran sandwich shops and needed hot dogs cut up would recruit their children, some as young as 6, to do it. They were good at it, and no horseplay!

Posted: **Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:36 pm**

Obesity is a risk, but not as strong one as, say, smoking (which is also villified now, although much less so than being fat). And I think that making "fat" and "unhealthy" synonymous is not just an excuse to be cruel to heavy people, but it leaves people with the impression that the only reason to think about what you eat and how much you move is for weight loss, as if thin sedentary people were automatically healthy.

Posted: **Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:57 pm**

True that.

Posted: **Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:51 pm**

Thalia wrote:Obesity is a risk, but not as strong one as, say, smoking (which is also villified now, although much less so than being fat). And I think that making "fat" and "unhealthy" synonymous is not just an excuse to be cruel to heavy people, but it leaves people with the impression that the only reason to think about what you eat and how much you move is for weight loss, as if thin sedentary people were automatically healthy.

A friend of mine is thin as a rake, and is possibly the most unhealthy person I know... he avoids vegetables like the plague and lives off meat, pastry, sweets and other assorted fatty, high calorie foods.

There are people here with all sorts of weights from those within a 'normal' range who want to eat more healthily to those who want to lose a serious amount of weight. That's one of the things I love about NoS, it makes sense for anyone not just 'fat' people. It's why I resist calling it a 'diet' as that gives the impression that it's just for losing weight, not (as it really is) a damn sensible way for anyone to eat - forever.

My previous point about the risks associated with obesity was that it's one thing to be supportive and non-judgemental, but there's no point beating around the bush just because obesity is a particularly sensitive issue. Let's just say that one of the things that attracted me to NoS was Reinhard's no-nonsense approach.... 'it's not the carrots, its the carrot cake... its YOU eating too damn much carrot cake'. Please don't take my highlighting of the risks as some kind of negative-looking-down-my-nose judgement of fat people (it's pretty hard to look down your nose at yourself...) I'm a very pragmatic person, and a scientist at heart and the risks are what they are. That being said it's up to each person as an individual to weigh up (no pun intended!) what they are comfortable with and how they define 'healthy'.

Posted: **Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:32 pm**

There are people here with all sorts of weights from those within a 'normal' range who want to eat more healthily to those who want to lose a serious amount of weight. That's one of the things I love about NoS, it makes sense for anyone not just 'fat' people. It's why I resist calling it a 'diet' as that gives the impression that it's just for losing weight, not (as it really is) a damn sensible way for anyone to eat - forever.

hear hear!!!!

Everyday Systems

Something my Mom told me.

Something my Mom told me.

Re: Something my Mom told me.