Baby Boomers sicker and frailer than previous generations

Somehow my artistically presented salad and rock buns plus valdavi's fruit salad and cheesy potato pie probably wouldn't have set up a generation for healthy home cooked food. I learned a hell of a lot more watching and helping granny.

I never progressed much beyond fruit salad & cheesy potato pie. Me attempting a Victoria sponge would've left my domestic science teacher a nervous wreck!

MissAdventure

Baking a Victoria sponge never did much to teach me about cooking and nutrition.

I do remember my rock buns were aptly named. Presenting a salad beautifully was another highlight of cookery lessons at my grammar school in the 60s.

MissAdventure

Yes, the food and nutrition my grandson learnt st school was treated as a science subject.

At my sons' boys school cooking and sewing were called "Bachelor Survival" and they were all told that they would need these skills in life.

It also covered why someone may be less able to eat healthily and exercise, etc.

It'll be nice to think upcoming generations will understand those concepts.

Science and maths are involved in cookery.
Lessons in Chemistry!

Congratulations!
A scientist.
You must be very clever.

So- MissAdventure I’m a scientist and didn’t know it 🧑‍🔬 ?
Hurrah !

Yes, the food and nutrition my grandson learnt st school was treated as a science subject.

There's a heavy influence on Science in today's GCSE Food and Nutrition course. A lot of it looks at healthy eating and the relationship between diet, nutrition and health. It's not for the want of educating people, it's the choices people make for various reasons.

Baking a Victoria sponge never did much to teach me about cooking and nutrition.

It's a difficult one! 3 iif my grandparents were dead before 65, one from sepsis at 31 following a dental operation (no antibiotics), one from kidney and heart disease and one from heart failure, dying in her sleep at 61. She was obese. But probably all would have been saved today. Most of the men in my family for generations going back died of strokes and heart disease before 62, probably industrial as they worked in the steel industry. TB, another early killer could be cured today.
Women died of cancer and child birth, would probably have been saved today. It's really hard I think to compare previous generations.
Yes, our own mums and dads, a war generation lived to their nineties, and ate healthy diets due to better knowledge, medical care and walking and dancing everywhere. They seemed to be the peak, and I have tried to follow their example; I try to recall the portions my mother ate and copy her, though I must admit with less success!
Currently on a cruise, we are surrounded by obese people only a few years older or the same age as ourselves who are using mobility scooters, wheelchairs or are unable to walk without sticks. The quantity of food they eat and the amount of alcohol consumed is astonishing. I am assured by countless newspaper articles and overweight people themselves that their eating habits are not the issue, nor can they lose weight by eating less.
And also that of course people relax on holiday. The evidence of our own eyes does seem to tell a different story. This is not a two week problem.
Nowadays we are all told that you can be obese and healthy, again this doesn't seem to be born out here.
People in our village who exercise, eat well and have good medical care are slim and active. If they die it is from cancer at a later age. So just my observations really, of 2 completely different populations.
I do think that since schools stopped teaching cookery and nutrition there is less knowledge and understanding of healthy eating habits. People seem to lack understanding of portion control and what they need to eat.
That's another debate.

I sat with a friend in the Cardiology waiting area of Papworth Hospital a year or so ago. We were stunned by the size of most of the staff who were coming in and out of the unit - uniforms straining. We all know that hospital staff are overworked, and probably need to quickly eat snacks etc. but this was a heart unit - none of the advice handed to patients had been taken up it seems.

Iam64 my friends are the same but I don't think we are typical and I think we tend to be friends with people who are like us. Unfortunately govt stats show the level of the problem we have in the UK.
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/update-to-the-obesity-profile-on-fingertips/obesity-profile-short-statistical-commentary-may-2024

I agree about overweight nurses. When I signed up with a new GP surgery after my house move I was called in for an introductory health check. After all the usual tests I was given a talk about lifestyle. I’m a size 14/16, could do with losing half a stone but not really overweight, my main hobby is gardening/allotment and I walk my dog. I also used to teach food and nutrition!

Being advised to follow a Mediterranean diet by a nurse who could barely fit in her chair and must have been in the morbidly obese category bemused rather than angered me. Do they just assume that all elderly patients have no idea how to look after themselves?

I hosted 30 friends on Sunday. We are all over 70, with several over 75. No one is overweight. With about 4 exceptions, we enjoy a glass or two of wine. Food is important, there are some excellent cooks . We all enjoy walking and some still run.
Four men in this friendship group have died from cancer in recent years. None of them were smokers or big drinkers, all followed the lifestyle we are encouraged to keep us healthy.

I spent 2 weeks in hospital earlier this year. Nearly every nurse and health care worker was seriously overweight. Nearly every visitor including the children was overweight and brought in loads of biscuits, sweets, cakes, high sugar drinks etc for their relatives.
DD is an anesthetist, she says overweight patients are the norm despite them presenting extra risks for every procedure she does as many are done by "feel" and that's much more difficult when faced with thick layers of fat. She's also dealing with co morbidities often unrelated to the condition being treated, caused by smoking, alcohol, poor diet and a lack of exercise.
We are living longer because we can treat more diseases with drugs and surgery not because we are healthier.

Helterskelter I totally agree I was at the hospital recently for routine tests and I couldn’t believe the amount of truly obese nurses who were working there Nearly all I saw were really really heavily overweight. It must be food, because they walk miles in a day

My uncle came from an east end family of 8 children. His father worked as a Covent Garden porter so brought unwanted fruit and vegetables home. My uncle said that is what kept them healthy in poverty. They were lucky. The majority were not. He and his siblings lived until their 80s and his mother even older. They grew up pre NHS in the early 20th century.
Over the last 5 years I have attended hosp appts regularly and am amazed at the number of very overweight nurses and the enormous waiting room chairs. Does no one mention this at reviews to overweight staff? If Baby Boomers spread from age 58 to 76 then some of these staff are. But sadly a lot are much younger. Are there incentives to staff in the NHS? There must be a drain on staff numbers due to ill health. And not a good example to patients who need to lose weight.

I guess also we were the first generation after the war where the females had children but also went to work so that was stressful,too. Juggling jobs and little ones. As to fat kids, I often collect grandchildren from school and I can’t say I have seen any from their very large school. Not one. Maybe that is just that school but I doubt it. My grandchildren and great grandchildren are too skinny if anything and so are their friends. Tall ,though!

Transport and diet the certainly changed since WW11. Only transport I had as a child was a bus and certainly not for every journey I undertook. Mile and a half walk to primary from age 5. To secondary school 2 and a half mile walk. Going out to eg cinema ut was a good 3/4 hour walk. All clubs and activities required walking to and fro. There were only school lunches, no taking food with you other than something for playtime which wasvusualky a butter and jam roll. In last year at secondary a tuck shop was created but this only sold nuts and crisps.
At home afrer school it was tea time and that could be bread and butter and a banana or some cold neat wuth tomato, certainky not a dinner menu, we'd had that at school.
You only bought what you needed, not shopping trolly loads full, and there wasn't the massive amount of processed foods available or sweetstuff. A biscuit to me was a rich tea or digestive spread with butter.
Certainky did not go about snacking like the young do nowadays. I bet portion sizes were a lot smaller too.

I remember going to Disneyland and was distracted by the fattest people that I'd ever seen .
When I ate in cafes and restaurants I was shocked at the portion sizes and the huge customers .
It would have been in the early eighties .
My Canadian relatives said that American meat was full of steroids and that was exacerbating the weight problem .
I don't know if it was and is true .

Now I see overweight people all the time tucking into fast food .
I'm uncomfortable with my own weight , but I do try to eat properly and exercise . I think that my mother was slimmer and fitter than I am at the same age though I recall her complaining about being tired .
But her mother was fatter and less fit -I think that I'm more like her .
She was the only grandparent that I knew so I can't make an accurate comparison .
I certainly notice amongst my friends that they are either gym bunnies who are obsessed with dieting or really fat and into a lot of what the hell eating .

I would argue that this theory is hard to prove as those born before WW2 did not “bother” the doctor if they could help it and their families remembered when one had to pay for a doctor’s services. Doctors and hospital were to be avoided.

Who knows what ailments and disabilities they put up with without treatment? Conditions which would now be treated and recorded? Anything minor, which we might consider important, would be completely ignored.

MissAdventure

Hatfield Jacques was hefty, as was Meatloaf.
I never considered them to be lightweights.

That’s my point, though. They were outliers because of their body size. Nowadays, they wouldn’t be, because we see people of that stature every time we go out.

Today I saw a hugely overweight woman with an equally overweight boy of about 10yo. I felt so sorry for him, because it was obvious where his future lay. It didn’t look hopeful for him.

I passed the local high school today, shocked at how many children are obese-
Back in the 70s, you would only see maybe one or two obese kids in each year, they were the kids that no one wanted to pair up with in school sports.
We would all play down the rec, well council have bought the rec & built houses- in fact all our school playing fields are all housing estates now 😩