Since the 1950’s, women’s bodies have ballooned in size. Back in the 1950’s the woman’s average waist size was 27 inches, where as today it is 34 inches. With the average dress size for a woman being a 12, and today it is a size 16.
Of course we cannot ignore the fact that rationing was still happening until the year 1954 in the UK due to World War 2, but this aside, there are still many other vital reasons why women have gotten much bigger waists on average today in such a short space of time in evolutionary terms.
Less Chance to Graze
Not every household in the 50’s owned a fridge. This meant women during this time were not able to over stock up on unhealthy cakes and snacks that perished quickly. Meals would have been prepared from scratch, with fresh ingredients bought daily.
Filling Healthier Meals Were Standard in the 50’s
In the 50’s, meals were protein and vegetable rich. Carbohydrates and grains were consumed far less than today. In comparison, it is common for women today to fill up the majority of the day on carbohydrate rich foods such as sandwiches and pasta.
Protein is vital not only because it helps to rebuild damage in your body and manufacture hormones, but it can also be very beneficial to those looking to lose weight as it fills you up for longer than a carbohydrate rich meal.
Treats Were Home Baked
No additives were used in the 1950’s where treats were concerned, and they were also all home baked. Also, treats really were ‘treats’ back then, and only consumed occasionally.
This is mostly due to the price of food being much more expensive in the 1950’s than today, where you can buy for instance 3 chocolate bars for just one pound. This was unheard of 70 years ago, as were the countless bakery shops that are available to us today, which give us these access to these unhealthy treats and bakes any time we want.
More Stress + Less Exercise = Bigger Waistline
More than two thirds of women today have demanding and stressful lifestyles – such as often keeping down a full time job, getting home and playing chef, mum to on average 2 children, whilst also meeting her husbands needs and maybe her own if she is lucky!
Whereas only one-third of women in the 1950’s had to juggle work with a family.
What this translates too is more women today are leading stressful lifestyles, and this in turn will increase the amount of the hormone cortisol produced.
This stress hormone is really only needed in genuine fight or flight situations – like when a bear might be attacking you. And when this happens our body will override the feeling of fullness to ensure we eat enough food to sustain us during a real life threatening situation that we may need heaps of energy to run from.
Don’t Eat Your Stress Away
So a situation we need to run from is rarely the case behind stress hormones being produced today. But women are still finding they are getting stressed none the less due to our over demanding lifestyles, couple this over eating through trying to cope with the stress with a complete reduction in exercise when compared to women in the 50’s – is it any wonder our waistlines are expanding?
But to have better overall health, it is vital we address this often vicious circle we busy women find ourselves in of eating more to cope with more stress. As this will only end up in your weight increasing, and your overall health taking a dive.
Do you eat to cope with stress? We would love to hear your thoughts on this topic below, and how applying a 1950’s diet may help you turn your health and waistline size around for the better.