British women (and American women moreso) really have been getting beefier over the past few generations.
[T]he average modern woman would seem like a giant to her great-great-grandmother, because in the past 80 years all measurements of the female body have increased dramatically.Yet it’s nothing to do with genetics – simply a result of the way we live.
Marilyn Monroe was not the “curvy” woman feminists love to hold up as a fat apologist icon. She was thinner and daintier than today’s modern woman in every conceivable way.
So how have diet and lifestyle conspired to have such a rapid effect on evolution?
1920s
AVERAGE STATISTICS: 31-20-32
Despite widespread poverty, the Twenties’ diet was in some ways healthy. Convenience food did not exist and meals, which involved much peeling and chopping of vegetables, were higher in carbohydrates.
A typical breakfast consisted of porridge or bread and butter. Lunch – the main meal of the day – might have been meat pie with cabbage and potatoes, followed by apple pie and custard. Tea would have been lighter – perhaps a pork pie or scrambled eggs – with a snack of bread and cheese at bedtime.
In the Twenties, people burned up their calories with physical activity from dawn to dusk. In streets largely free of traffic, children skipped and played hopscotch and tag. Sports were a highly-valued part of the school curriculum, with compulsory PE for all.
Almost everybody walked or cycled to work, and for the many women who worked in the industrial areas of the North, there was a daily grind of physical labour at the factory.
The housewife did not need a personal trainer to keep the surplus pounds at bay. In a world before vacuum cleaners and washing machines, housework kept her trim. There was coal to be fetched, grates to be blacked, floors to be scrubbed, carpets to be beaten – as well as the Monday wash with washboard and mangle.
Moving onto the next generation:
1940s
AVERAGE STATISTICS: 33-21-33
[…] Again, it was their highly energetic lifestyle that kept Forties women slim. There was no petrol for cars, and people cycled or walked for miles every day. Girls thought little of walking ten miles home after a Saturday night dance.
With their men off fighting, fashion changed. The curvy feminine look to cheer returning heroes became the order of the day, with fitted suits and belted flowery dresses to show off the waist, and the Flapper’s flattening bodice giving way to the circle-stitched bra.
And Lena’s getting laaaaarrger!!
1960s
AVERAGE STATISTICS: 34-24-35
[…] Our lifestyles became less energetic too. Housewives cleaned their homes at the push of a button as washing machines and vacuum cleaners become the norm, while children fell victim to the Left-wing educationists’ decree that competitive sport was ‘divisive’ and state schools saw their playing fields sold off for housing. Before much longer, experts would be talking of the unimaginable – rising rates of obesity in childhood.
The first steps were made on the road towards the classic modern English pear shape, as, for the first time, the bottom of the hourglass figure became bigger than the top.
We’re gonna need a bigger buffet.
1980s
AVERAGE STATISTICS: 35-24-37
By the time the Eighties came along, British woman was well on the way to an irretrievable pear-shape, with her hips measuring two inches more than her bust.
Snacking, eating at one’s desk, in front of the TV and even on public transport became increasingly common, and the habit of three meals a day was jettisoned. The new-style snacks were high in fats and sugars, and even apparently ‘healthy’ foods, such as breakfast cereals and yoghurts, are high in ‘hidden’ calories.
Physical outdoor games for children started to look very uncool in comparison to a video or computer game, and exercise experts reported that Eighties children were dangerously unfit compared to their grandparents.
Nuke the jabba from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
2001
By the year 2000, the pearshape has become even more marked, with the average waistsize having ballooned four inches in 20 years.
Feminist concern trolls wonder why men are “dropping out” of the marriage market. Well, you don’t need a degree in human physiology to spot a blubbery, boner-killing trend.
[crypto-donation-box]
