The shocking transformation of the UK household diet since 1980 😲🍔 BBC

#BBC #WhatAreWeFeedingOurKids #BBCiPlayer

[jaimesanders]

When I visited the UK in the 1970s, almost no one was visibly overweight; I was shocked in 2019 that the Brits were looking like we Americans.

[FreeSpirit]

I don't know if this will help anyone, I'll post it anyway. When I had 4 small children & myself and my husband were working a lot, I found a way to eat healthier. At night, after the kiddos were in bed, I made the dinner for the next day. When I got home, all I had to do was put it in the oven. I had chopped veggies for a salad the night before. The kiddos set the dinner table. BOOM. Healthy dinner, no processed food or fast food.

[angelaphinn]

It's not just a problem of ultra-processed food. As a child growing up in the 1970s, it was really frowned upon to eat in between meals. You were expected to eat enough at breakfast to satisfy you until lunchtime and eat enough at lunchtime to satisfy you until dinnertime, and then we had a bedtime drink of hot chocolate, Ovaltine or Horlicks and two plain biscuits. A single packet of biscuits would last almost a week and crisps and sweets were given once a week as a special treat (until I got older and was given weekly pocket money). That all changed in the 1980s when we started to be told we would go into 'starvation mode' if we didn't snack and huge multi-bag snacks started appearing in our supermarkets as well as a lot more convenience foods. I followed the trend along with many others and now I'm obese, but I've decided that the three meals a day, no snacking and not eating after 6pm (unless I'm going out to dinner) is a good model for me to follow from now on - as well as portion-control.

[DisneyIsHardcore]

1. Fewer single-income households = no longer having one person able to spend so much time at home managing food and home-cooking meals
2. Longer work hours = people are hungry and tired when they get home and just can't face spending more time cooking properly rather than eating something more processed but convenient and quicker

[keomafernandes]

Anyone who says with a straight face that ultraprocessed foods don't cause obesity is either stupid or malicious.

[helencaleb]

And this is also why the planet is drowning in plastic. Look at all the packaging in processed food! (And yes I know fresh fruit and veg is wrapped in plastic but at least the supermarkets are slowly changing and more fruit and veg is sold loose and they’re supplying paper bags etc.)

[sadiemcnabb]

My sister in law eats a 90% processed food diet. Then she told me she couldn't get the covid vaccine because she's allergic to sodium chloride. Girl you eat that by the bucket.

[Maerahn]

Another thing not mentioned here is that the size of serving plates have more than doubled. A typical 'dinner plate' you buy now is ENORMOUS compared to the dinner plates you could buy in the seventies, and so is a soup/cereal bowl. And it's basic psychology that people are going to fill whatever plate they use... switching to a side plate and small dessert bowl for your meals will help you lose weight without even trying, because you can't put as much food on it, but your brain will still see it as a full plate and feel satisfied.

[caca]

One thing differentiates people in 2021 from people in the 70: TIME. In the 70's, people had time to cook, one family usually could live off 1 source of revenue, which leaves the other adult free to shop and cook. Nowadays, how many families can live with just 1 person working? if our purchasing power didn't fall off so dramatically, we would't rely so much on processed and convenience foods.

[debfryer]

I was born in 1954. The only time we ate food prepared by others was a weekly fish and chips run. We never ate in restaurants as a family but very occasionally one or two children would eat out with one parent. We did eat some kind of processed food once a week like steak and kidney pies with homemade chips or pork pies and salad. We had few canned items and the worst foods were cakes and biscuits and sweets.

[detectiverick]

When I started exercising, I noticed that I was getting fitter but not losing weight. Then I started eating better, cut out almost all sugar and stuff like that and now ive lost a lot of weight, mainly around my hips, and im feeling way better

[shayk]

Japan has fairly low obesity rates because their "unhealthy" processed food items aren't nearly as unhealthy compared to what you'd find in a Western convenience store.

[horsenuts]

When I grew up in the 1970s/1980s in a rural town, there was simply no junk food (apart from breakfast cereals). There were no takeaways (and you had to travel 15 miles to get fish and chips). I think I had my first pizza in about 1972 (probably at the first Pizza Express), but that was in London, and I didn't have another until about 1980.

Slowly over the 1980s, fast food started to arrive (pizza etc), and after that, what used to be fast food started to become takeaway food. And after that, takeaway food would even be delivered. Takeaways make their money by serving low-cost, but high-margin carohydrates (pizza is just a form of bread that makes takeaways rich).

Roll forward nearly 40 years and people's understanding of what is 'food' has changed. People think it is perfectly normal to buy a stack of frozen pizza (and have no concept that pizza was virtually unknown prior to 1980s in many towns in the UK).

It's rather depressing when I see my 20-year-old nephew ballooning in weight at an age when I, and all my friends, were rake-thin.

[murielshore]

I grew up in the 50ties and still eat meals cooked every day with fresh produce. I am totally shocked at the amount of processed foods are consumed now. I can honestly say I do not buy processed foods at all because having tasted them I don't find them as tasty as meals I cook.

[laurenh]

We need more allotments, especially for the kids in cities. My allotment costs £9 a year, plus money for seeds, but you get so much fruit and veg once you learn how to grow and rotate. Good exercise as well!

[viamedia]

Say what you want about vegans but when I turned vegan, that immediately barred me from eating the majority of ultra-processed foods available on the market and forced me to buy fresh ingredients and home-cook meals to be absolutely sure what's in there. Not saying it's impossible to eat healthy without turning vegan but it definitely changes your mindset in the right direction.

[jpaqon]

It's no coincidence that auto-immune disorders have greatly increased in frequency alongside this change in diet.

[NickSouckovBaulot]

It’s astonishing to see those numbers! Over the years I saw a drastic improvement in my clients’ health and weight just by opting for a home-cooked food. It’s shocking to hear from them they’ve realized they saved money too, so, convenience is not convenient anymore.

[bramsrockhopper]

You only have to look at the way almost everything we buy - including vegetables - is packaged, mostly in plastic. Every damn thing is in plastic. Hardly a truly healthy product to be seen. Intensive farming, pesticides, additives, sugar, processing, fats, fatty meats…

Our health is all about our food. You are - literally - what you eat.

Government needs to force a reduction in plastic use by food chains, and to promote healthy *cheap* natural food. Sort it out. You can’t leave it up to ‘advice’. Food producers and sellers will never do anything that they think will affect their profits.

Get veg out of plastic for a start, and make it cheap. Increase the prices of processed crap, tax foods that are unhealthy if necessary, even limit them. Promote food that is good for you, not just what makes people rich.

Just my opinion

[catatonicbug]

In 1980, many families had a stay-at-home mom who was able to cook with ingredients. Now, families can't make ends meet unless both parents work, and kids are expected to be involved in multiple extra-curricular activities. No one has time to eat, let alone cook un-processed meals these days.