Do you ever hear about the old timers reminiscing over the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s and about how the acceptance of eating cheeseburgers and an order of fries at the local diner was OK? I hear about it quite a bit from the good old folks I know. Thing is, America is now fatter than ever from eating this, but back in the golden days, you could wallow down a burger and fries, a milkshake, and a soda and you’ll still be in good shape.

Of course, it wasn’t fast food necessarily, and the fast food chains that exist today didn’t stand in the ’40s, ’50s or ’60s. And the reason why people were OK with the eating of the burger, fries, milkshake, and sodas is because there was actually a thing called exercise back then. Or, if it wasn’t exercise, it was the invisibility of video games, or, as I am reluctant to say *gulp*, the computer. Everybody worked all the time and didn’t have the chances to waste away hours in front of TV screens. Imagine if video games and computers were around then. How fat would America be right now? I don’t know if I can pose that question in a regular sense so you can fathom the meaning of it, but if you think about it, politically correctness wasn’t as screwed up as it is now. Sure, you had your hippies and other people experimenting on the new horizons that nobody had heard of before, you had World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War occur between those three decades, but compare it to the newness of today. People then are now considered old fashioned.

(By the way, I’m writing this post while listening to the Stevie Wonder/Temptations/etc. collaborated song Uptight/Everything’s All Right. Y’know, just to spark some inspiration on my part for the good old days that I wasn’t around to see.)

But if you look at the technological advances of today and how they’ve prolonged the growth of video game consoles and computers, you forget to look at the advances of food. You got all this new food coming out over the past forty to sixty (40-60) years that you don’t pay it much heed when you give it thoughts. All this chocolate being branded into these new shapes (M&Ms or Easter Bunny Chocolates, anybody?). It’s great for marketing campaigns, and once people started looking more into food, they took enjoyment into it.

I don’t know what’s up with everything compared to ‘back then.’ The majority of women are smaller now compared to what they were in those times. I guess the cheeseburgers, fries, milkshakes, and sodas from those diners done some damage, at least. But, if you look at the skinny women today, many are anorexic or have unheard of eating disorders. Not to mention the widespread use of drugs plays an immense part on the continuing of American history.

Look, I’m not a historian (that’s for sure), but I’ve made my own judgments on America’s food for the past 40-60 years, and the significant difference is freaking me out, and will continue to.