Current vs Yesteryear Food Habits

Q. I’ve been thinking lately that it seems as if, based on old videos and photos, teens and young adults were so much slimmer in the 1970’s–both in American and Britain. I’ve read that they actually ate more calories back then.

I was a very slender teen in the 70’s myself, and I can say that it’s not that we exercised more. I did not, and we watched a lot of TV, although as a child we definitely played outside most of the time.

The only significant differences that I observe between now and then…that we ate family dinners every night, seven nights a week. We always had a meat, a starch, a veg, and sometimes, dessert. Fast food or restaurants were an occasional treat. We were only allowed to drink whole milk with all of our meals also. We didn’t eat nearly as much processed food. Most of the food we ate was made “from scratch.” Most of us didn’t own microwaves. If we could get our hands on the occasional junk food like potato chips and soda, we pigged out, believe me. But most homes didn’t have junk food on a regular basis.

Most of us have cold cereal for breakfast, a school lunch with dessert or a ham or bologna sandwich, Twinkies, fruit, and milk for lunch, an after school snack like cookies and milk, and a meat/starch/veg/bread/dessert dinner with milk.

I’m wondering what you see as the primary reason(s) for heavier teens and young adults now?
A.  When I tune into this, the first thing I hear is “Not all calories are created equally.”  I then see what looks like a cartoon, and one person eats two bananas and goes about their day.  The second person eats a handful of cookies, and does the same thing.  I watch both of them as time fast forwards, and the first remains the same, but the cookie eater starts to get a little thicker and a bit of a belly as time progresses.  Same caloric intake, different reaction to the body.

Food habits today are much different than they were in past generations.  Not all, but many people, eat fast food (full of sodium, preservatives and other chemicals) much more frequently than in previous times.   A ‘regular’ size of soda keeps increasing, and even the portions of meals are growing to “super” and “king” size.  People are slowly being conditioned to eat more and more.

Lots of food companies are tailoring to “pre-made” dinners in the store.  It takes time, and is even more costly to cook fresh, and food companies know this.  They make things in mass, cheaper due to the ingredients, and therefore, lesser in quality.

I then get that food is not as simple as calories in and calories out because many other things are effected by the type of calories we consume.  For example, many store bought foods contain high amounts of sugar (or even worse, high fructose corn syrup that is very inflammatory to the body).  I also see the more sugars we eat, the more desensitized we get, and the amount of sugar continues to increase as people’s taste change.  The sugars (even artificial sugars) look to trigger an insulin response, and prolonged spikes up and down can create situations where the body has a hard time regulating insulin on its’ own and causes other issues like diabetes.

There are also other preservatives / chemicals / toxins  added to prolong shelf life, add flavors and even make food addictive (so you crave more).  The toxins, if not excreted, can build up and cause a whole other set of issues from cancers, disease or autoimmune problems because your body doesn’t know what to do with them and reacts any way it can.  Other side effects can be increased fat pockets because I see fat is a natural defense to toxins by surrounding the toxin to keep it from flowing radically throughout the body (also why you may feel bad when you lose weight because the toxins get released).

I see the thyroid and liver being sensitive to processed food too, and when the function of either one starts to be less efficient it can interfere with digestion and even metabolism (which most times translates to weight concerns).

I get the best thing you can do is go to the store and walk the perimeter.  As an experiment, focus on the fruits, vegetables, fresh baked items (read labels), meat and dairy (organic or almond milk based) and see how you feel.  It may cost slightly more, but you may feel so much better that it is worth it.

And that is all I have for this reading.  Thank you.  Love and light-

[I do know that sometimes eating healthy can be more expensive.  I would like to have fun in the comments and share ideas of ways to save money, or ideas for less expensive, yet healthy foods.  Growing your own garden can save lots of money on fresh food.  Also, with my family things like pinto and black beans can be a good, less expensive supplement.  Please share your healthy ideas too. :-)]

Reference and courtesy : http://psychicfocus.blogspot.in/2017/05/current-food-habits-versus-those-of.html