It is no secret that everything is bigger nowadays.
Whether it concerns houses, TVs or cars – compared to decades ago, things have been replaced.
And that includes operating sizes and waist.
In 2024, 43 percent of Americans were considered obese compared to only 13 percent in the 1960s.
Experts have blamed for an increased intake of ultra -processed foods and meals with more calories and warned obesity can lead to a series of health problems, including heart conditions, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, liver disease, sleep apnea and certain cancers.
And now the Nutritionist Autumn Bates, established in California, has revealed what she believes that the Obesity epidemic drives, in which four reasons are detailed why people were slimmer over the past decades, despite the fact that they have less or no access to fitness monitors such as Apple Watches and Fitbits.
She says she decided to investigate this phenomenon after she recently viewed a YouTube shortly asked why we were so thin in the 1960s?
The nutritionist said: “[This is a] Honest question because we had an obesity in America in the 1960s of around 13 percent.
‘To put that in perspective from 2025, we have an obesity rate that approaches 43 percent and this is all a kind of game because it is not the way people were known in the 60s for their healthy food choices.
“So why did we have such lower body fat percentages in the world in the world?”
Although it is easy to look at the past with pink glasses, scientists say that it is a cold difficult fact that we were much leaner in the past than today. Above are sunbathing in deck seats in Virginia Beach in the sixties
The first floating factor behind the increase in obesity is the decrease in home -made, fresh meals. These used to be the rule; Not the exception.
Traditionally they knew ‘a kind of protein of really high quality, some fruit, some bread, some vegetables and then probably milk’.
She explains that the same nutritious formula that is applied to lunches for children for school, so children got more balanced diet compared to today.
Looking at her research at what people ate in the sixties, Mrs. Bates says that some of the popular items roasted chicken, meat bread, beef stew, steak and potatoes.
Little was reported of fast food, which has seen an increase in the serving sizes – where calorie ramps reached nearly 2,000 for a portion of popular hamburgers and fries.
Of personal interactions with her family, she said in one Youtube -video: ‘My father said that they would almost always have pot roast and my mother has a very specific, not good, memory of Lima [or butter] Beans. ‘
Mrs Bates says that the benefits of home that are prepared at home will include a lower sugar intake, extra proteins and an increased amount of vegetables.
An earlier study by Johns Hopkins University showed that people who often cook their meals at home, usually consume less carbohydrates, less sugar and less fat compared to those who do not cook that often.
Subsequently, Mrs Bates says another reason why today’s society is thicker than ever because of the explosion of ultra -processed foods.
Ultra -processed foods, or UPFS, is an umbrella term that is used to treat everything with a long ingredient list or made with artificial additives such as colors, sweeteners and preservatives that extend the shelf life.
Ready meals, ice and ketchup are some of the most popular examples of products falling under the UPF term, now synonymous with food that offers little nutritional value.
They are different from processed food, which have been tinkered to let them last longer or to improve their taste, such as salted meat, cheese and fresh bread.
Explaining why UPFs are bad, she says: ‘Ultra processed is the next level of processing that the saturation really decreases and makes you so much less satisfied with your food and therefore [you] Must eat even more.
“These are foods that have ingredients that you do not recognize in the first place and usually a long list of ingredients that you could not just get your supermarket and recreate at home.”
Mrs Bates says that it is estimated that 70 percent of Americans today consists of UPFS and ‘some studies have shown that these ultra -processed foods can let us eat around 800 calories more a day because they are so much less satisfactory’.
The California -based nutritionist Autumn Bates (shown above) reveals that America had an obesity of around 13 percent in the 1960s, but today that number has more than tripled, with now ballooning at 43 percent
The third thing that contributed to a slimmer society in the sixties, says Mrs Bates is that people were ‘much more active’
Mrs Bates advises avoiding the fat masts of these foods and exchanges them for healthier alternatives – packaged snacks with added ingredients can be exchanged for fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds.
The third thing that contributed to a slimmer society in the 1960s, says Mrs Bates is that people ‘much more were active’.
She continues: ‘A large part of the workforce then had more physically demanding jobs. They also had much less structured activity, which means that they were not really successful.
“My father will always say that he was super ashamed when he was younger because his father was a health navigation at the time and would go for runs and his friends would laugh at him and ask him for what he ran because people had more active jobs.
“They had a full day where they were more active than a full day in front of a computer screen and then also living work traffic.”
Mrs Bates notes with the rise of technology, people have become more home -bound and glued on their screens, so they get less physical activity.
She adds: ‘My mother said that if you had to stay inside, there was a punishment when she was a child. Children back in the 60s really had nothing inside that they would entertain so much, so they had to go outside and be active and play. ‘
For people who have computer -based jobs, Mrs Bates proposes to get a hiking agency, so that you can walk on a treadmill while you type and trim.
Moreover, she recommends structured exercises per week for three to four days, such as strength training.
Finally, Mrs Bates points out a lack of sleep as another problem that the American obesity epidemic drives.
Nowadays the average American adult gets about 7 hours and 10 minutes of sleep per night and successful modern individuals such as Twitter-MEDE founder Jack Dorsey and President Donald Trump have claimed that 4 hours is the optimum amount of sleep.
This compares with the sixties, when studies show that the average was closer to 8.5 hours.
In commentary on this shift in sleep patterns, Mrs. Bates says: ‘Less sleep is considerably connected to obesity and weight gain.
‘Low sleep causes increased hunger hormones, so you will feel a lot hungry the next day.
“It also increases our preferences for sweet food and it increases our preferences for larger portion sizes.”
The nutritionist blames technology for hindering people’s ability to sleep, with more distractions at night in the form of things such as laptops, TVs and phones.
She adds: ‘Plus people were more active all day, which meant that they were more tired and actually wanted to go to sleep.
‘We have to beds again for ourselves, because there are so many different temptations to stay late, or it is when binge is looking at a Netflix show or just scrolling on your phone.
“We actually have to determine time limits for when we go to sleep.”
#skinny #sixties #Nutritionist #reveals #slimming #secrets