Why should you eat as if they were the 80s

Reaganomics. MTV energy costumes and shoulder pads. The 1980s were loud, proud – and surprisingly healthy at the dinner table.

This is according to Jodi Velazquez, a prize-winning author, co-awaiting television and mother on a mission whose new book “Know the enemy: preventing weight gain, diabetes and disease” makes the opportunity to revive vintage food.

The post sat down with Velazquez to find out more about what the growth of a girl with diabetes taught, where today’s food culture went bad and how to feed your family like it is 1985.

Pricks fingers and food fighting

When Velazquez’s firstborn was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of only 19 months, she and her husband left the hospital with a bag full of medical supplies – and without any data what the future was carrying.

What followed was a course of a collision in survival. Velazquez was suddenly in task 24/7, stirring her baby’s finger every two hours to control blood sugar levels.

“This is where I really got my education because I was able to see what every food did to her, and what exercise and lack of exercise did to her,” she said.

At a time when her daughter turned 10, Velazquez had recorded nearly 30,000 fingers and administered 8,700 shots with insulin – all while trying to protect her baby from a nutritional culture built on sugar, temptation and processed junk.

But it was not always the case.

Overlapping and sitting

In her new book, Velazquez underlines some factors she thinks have contributed to the growing waist line of America.

Flash again in 40 years ago: people ate less, and when they did, they were usually local spots that served fresh and balanced foods.

“The scary thing is that if you were born after 1990, you were born in a world saturated with fast food and excess parts.”

Velazquez

“In the 1970s and 80s, we didn’t eat fast food every day or every week,” she said. “Our diets were more stable.”

Rapid progress to date, and research shows that many Americans no longer regularly ignite their home stoves. Our concept of “dining experience” has also been moved from family restaurants sitting in fast, cheap, ultra -processed foods.

Just look at the numbers. Verazquez notes that there are now more than 25,000 fast food chains in the US, a stunning increase of 1,000% since 1970.

McDonald’s alone exploded from 1,000 restaurants in 1968 to more than 14,000 today. Starbucks, meanwhile, has added more than 10,000 new stores since 1982, she writes.

But it’s not just the number of fast food pages that has changed-is what is in the menu.

Take soda, for example: in the 1950s, a typical soft drink was 6.5 ounces and 85 calories. By 2014, it withdrew to 20 ounces and 250 calories – almost triple the size, and triple sugar, Velazquez points out.

Why flatulence? Blame the consumer demand and fierce competition between fast food chains.

“Everyone wants to have the new thing, the most delicious thing, the crazy thing, the biggest thing and the people fall for it,” Velazquez said. “I think it’s marketing.”

Today’s Fast-Fast Fast also means that our eating habits are extremely unstable compared to the simplest diets of the past.

“If you are eating a six -inch hamburger with French fries in a fast food place one day and the next day you have spaghetti and at home, this is a very different change in fat, sugar and salt,” Velazquez explained.

For diabetics, this means disordered levels of blood sugar. For the rest of us, it leads to peaks and valleys to our energy levels.

Parents, Velazquez said, fight even more these days to follow what is going to their children’s bodies. Consider classroom rewards, birthday treatments and post-school sweets during games or daily care-just some sugar temptations that accumulate throughout the day.

“If you are a parent and your child does not have any issues like allergies or diabetes, there may be no need to tell you,” she said. “So that means parents may not know that their children are taking all these calories outside the home.”

Worse still, the concept of three square meals a day is becoming a thing of the past.

“We have the availability of food everywhere now,” Velazquez said. “I think a lot of people are grazing all day, getting packaged and processed foods here and there.”

But Velazquez points out that time between meals is essential for our bodies.

“Breakfast, lunch and dinner gives your pancreas time to take a break. It gives your insulin time to work,” Velazquez said. “You can have two or three hours in the middle of the meal, and I think it’s a lost concept for many people.”

Despite the consumption of lower quality foods in larger portions more often, we are moving less than ever. Studies show a significant decline in physical activity in recent decades, driven by factors such as increased desk jobs, comfort of automotive and modern technology.

Together, these factors have sparked a nationwide crisis, with nearly 260 million Americans expected to be overweight or overweight by 2050. This puts them at increased risk for a laundry list of serious chronic health conditions, including heart disease and stroke.

“The scary thing is that if you were born after 1990, you were born in a fast -saturated world and excessive parts,” Velazquez said.

“There is now an attack on young people taking diabetes, and those people have nothing to get back,” she added. “They don’t have those basic, good nutritional habits.”

Looking back for a healthier future

The growth of a diabetic child in the 21st century was not easy for Velazquez. She required test and wrong, diligent pursuit, extensive research and even some talks with her daughter.

But the paid effort: Today, Marlo is a healthy 26-year-old, thriving.

The lessons that Velazquez learned as she managed her daughter’s diabetes reorganized her entire family’s approach to food. Now, she is going through them knowledge of others.

How to eat like the 80s in 2025

Returning to the basics of “vintage food” is the essential foundation for making consistent, practical changes in your daily diet, explained Velazquez.

“Eating your family as is the year 1980 means avoiding those high sugar and unhealthy fat foods that are there, being active, consistent in your diet and just eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, with probably a very small snack in the middle,” she said.

Many of these changes begin immediately at home.

“When I go out, it seems to me that I will overdo it because the parts are bigger,” Velazquez said. “When I cook myself, I have more energy and feel better. I eat well and do not eat too high sugar and high fat foods. I can control how much salt goes to my foods.”

“There is no need to be strange, like meals in the hospital, but there is also no need to sprinkle, dive and beat,” she continued. “I think we have crossed the line here.”

To help families remember the essential principles of vintage food, Velazquez created a simple acronym: Follow ABCTS.

• Answer: Avoid unhealthy, high -fat and high sugar foods.
• B: Be active and avoid being sitting, especially after meal.
• C: Consistency in your food choices.
• T: Time.

It also has a clear message to parents: “Always lead with example. If you are excessive, your children will do the same.”

In her book, Velazquez emphasizes the value of child movement, teaching them how food affects their bodies and inviting them to the kitchen to learn those lessons in the first hand.

She also encourages parents to rethink how they talk about weight with their children.

“Small delicate memories are great, how to tell them here and there to try to keep your weight in a good range because it’s healthier for your body, not because of how you want to see,” she said.