Were people healthier in 1936?

[Scarlett]

I have nobody to ask! I was discussing this with my friend. I think that people especially children were healthier back then- no TV, computer games, no processed food etc. What do you think?

[naomi24]

My late aunt used to buy pigs heads up until she died a few years ago. She'd sit the head on the draining board, shave the whiskers off with a razor, and boil the head to make brawn.

[SeaJayPea]

They may have been more content with their lot, but healthier? I think not. No antibiotics meant that all the diseases others have mentioned were rife. If you caught TB you were in hospital for a year or more, assuming you survived it. Measles was a major killer, as was scarlet fever. Even in my childhood in the 1950s, children would die of whooping cough.

I can sort of see where you're coming from from the point of view of no TV etc. Kids would be playing about in the street, taking all the exercise they needed. The fat kid was very much the exception then. Exercise and a lack of food ensured that.

[Prudie]

I remember the first time I saw pigs trotters in a saucepan at my nans, I really thought she'd killed our dog.

[naomi24]

Think of all the suet and lard and dripping they used - and yet they weren't overweight - I suppose because they worked hard and walked everywhere.

[FredPuli43]

It's because we got healthier since then that we now think we're unhealthy! Our life expectancy was less; we didn't live long enough to be killed by,for example, chronic heart disease, or many cancers, such as prostate cancer and, if we did get them, our survival rate was less. People died from 'miner's lung' and asbestosis too. There were TB hospitals, isolated because the disease was both common and being easily transmitted and many people dying from pneumonia.

If it is suggested that our lifestyle or food made us healthier, then remember that rickets is a disease of malnutrition and was common then and so rare now that a child who suffered from it was misdiagnosed as being a victim of violence by its parents. And that people now say that processed food is somehow significantly less nourishing than food then is absurd.

[hc4361]

Good article here about the extreme poverty.

http://www.dailymail....th-feed-children.html

Local newspapers ran charities to provide children with shoes. There were still a lot of barefoot kids in the 30s.

Death in childbirth was a lot higher than now.

[Sqad]

Before we pat ourselves on the back, the communicable diseases mainly due to infection, have been replaced by non-communicable diseases or the diseases of affluence.

Nye Bevin thought that having a NHS would encourage a healthier society.

Has it? I doubt it.

The diseases of affluence are increasing in severity and occurrence...... obesity leading to coronary artery disease, strokes, type2 diabetes ( more common and affecting the younger groups) live and kidney failure due to drugs and alcoholism on the increase and of course mental health disorders and suicides which are on the increase particularly in women.

Yes...we have dealt with the diseases of poverty, but we have awakened a giant....the diseases of affluence.

Are we healthier than 1936?......You judge..........I am doubtful.

[sandyRoe]

Paradoxically, when food was rationed during WW2, there was an improvement in health.

[Scylax]

Life was considerably harder in the 30s and many kids just didn't survive the poverty and deprivation. Deficiency diseases were commonplace, no antibiotics and crude surgery contributed to the misery.
Scarlett, for a definitive answer to your question can I suggest that you read 'The Dark Valley' by Piers Brendon, published by Jonathan Cape, 2000. Its subtitle is 'A Panorama of the 1930s'.

[emmie]

what is as worrying, is that many diseases thought eradicated are making a comeback, largely it seems to people's ignorance and suspicion, i.e the case
of having three vaccinations in one. One women on a programme the other day said that she hadn't wanted to vaccinate her child for fear of autism, sadly the child caught measles and died.

[joko]

consumption, arthritis, asthma etc... due to poorer work conditions and no health an safety
the food may have contained less additives but it probably contained other unsavoury things that wouldnt get past our strict guidelines nowadays

[slaney]

Some children may indeed have had a healthier diet, and more exercise, but were not as likely as now to live to adulthood.
Don't forget these were the days when the average life expectancy at birth was 62 years (80 now), where 420 women /100,000 died in childbirth compared with 7/100,000 now, and infant mortality was 62/1000 versus 4/1000.
We may indeed be facing an explosion in the diseases of affluence, but I have little doubt that today we are generally healthier.

[ummmm]

My Nans sister died of TB at 23. Her two brothers died in their 40's from TB related illnesses.

[hc4361]

I struggle to understand how dieters are told to avoid carbs - bread and potatoes.
During the lean years of the 30s and 40s, bread and potatoes were often the main part of the diet, the bread lathered with dripping, lard or bacon fat.
Milk was full fat and a healthy meal for a child was a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk.

Bread was often eaten with dinner, to bulk it out, and the bread itself was often highly processed, bleached flour with additives, even then.

So, why weren't the people obese back then?

[Mosaic]

Simply because they didn't have cars - walked or got the bus - walked to school, sttod all day at work, and had to do manual labour to keep house / self clean. Fancy a bath - OK, take down tin bath in yard - lug into kitchen - boil pans of water....
That kind of unrelenting activity, and using energy to keep warm in draughty houses, kept the fat down.
Nip out and fetch some coal in R Kid, the fire's gone down....

[jake-the-peg]

Let's not forget Polio either now almost irradicated.

Howeverr look at average height by year of birth.

Not found UK data quickly but here's some European figures

http://hypertextbook....SimasCeckauskas.shtml

A child born in Ireland in the 50s grew up to be a full 3cm smaller than one born in the 80's.

That's generally a pretty good indicator that malnutrition was still an issue then.

I'd be pretty confident that the answer to your question is no - better healthcare, cleaner air and nutrition has more than compensated for exercise issues.

Now if you were to ask whether people were healthier 30 years ago - I think you might get the answer that you seem to be looking for

[jno]

well, that tallies with my experience, jake, jno jnr's three inches taller than his father. And yet (a) parents grew up on a good, healthy (though massively unexciting) postwar diet; (b) jno jnr, though well fed while young, spent the usual adolescent/uni years eating junk food. I've never quite understood this. We weren't malnourished.

[joko]

perhaps your question should have been- were our diets healthier back then...

they were certainly 'purer' but also consisted of a lot of crap meat, scrag ends etc, weak broth, stodge etc

nowadays,we spend a fortune on labour savingdevices ... only to spendafurther fortune down the gym tomakeup for our sedentiarylifestyles...