There was a time, not so very long ago, when Weight Watchers did not exist.
The Atkins Diet had not been invented or the Scarsdale Diet or the South Beach Diet – let alone the Grapefruit Diet.
Yoga was something weirdo’s did in India.
Jane Fonda hadn’t come out with her exercise videos and no one belonged to a fancy, expensive gym.
Jenny Craig was still a plump, little known Genieve Guidroz, living in a tiny town on the outskirts of New Orleans.
How things have changed! Where did it all go so terribly wrong?
I remember vividly taking my 80-year old English grandmother to McDonald’s for her birthday.
She wanted a surprise and all the family thought this a grand idea.
One step inside the madness of a fast-food emporium totally bewildered her. She asked me if we had landed on Mars and immediately wanted to go straight home and have a “normal meal”.
She told me a story about England during World War II, when no one was fat! And all the food was “rationed”. No one could get any meat and cows were extinct. Who could risk milking a cow with bombs raining down on your head?
“You never saw a fat person on the streets of London, everyone was skinny as a beanpole. It became a real pride thing… people didn’t want to be seen getting fat as it would mean they have a secret supply of luxury fat foods!
People joked that maybe the Martians had come and stolen all the fat people for weird experiments!”
And this fact from her memory bank was best of all:
During this famous period of history, England saw disease and death rates plummet. Everyone was getting healthier than ever with far less food!
How could this be? People were forced to walk everywhere or ride a bike as rationing of fuel was introduced so as to supply the troops at battle.