Dress Focus

One of the comments made was how small the brides of previous generations must have been.

Go to any museum or display of clothing from the past and it is striking just how small people seem to have been in the past.

But why would this be?

After all no previous generation probably had the healthy-eating message pushed down the throat as happens today.

There have probably never been more opportunities to get exercise so why are we all so big nowadays?

Did our parents and grandparents really eat so much less? After all they lived in a time when the traditional fried breakfast was in its pomp.

It was also a period in which most families would come together to eat and the Sunday roast was a normal part of the weekly pattern of life.

Did people really exercise so much more in the past – after all the gym and fitness classes are a fairly recent part of our lives?

Of course, part of the answer almost certainly lies with the way that we conduct our daily routine.

At the start and end of the school day we now have vast lines of parked cars as mum and dad deliver their offspring to the school gates and pick them up in afternoon.

Those of us who were children a generation or more ago would, for the most part, have walked to and from school and, when we got home, especially in the summer, we would have gone outside to play in the street or in the park.

In a time before teaching became just a job instead of a vocation, there would also be proper games and sport in school and even after school had finished for the day and sometimes on a Saturday morning.

In contrast, the modern child is more likely to be found in front of a television screen, games machine or computer monitor.

Tea may not be a huge cooked offering but is more likely to be some kind of ready meal packed to the gunwales with fat, salt and calories.

Then there is the difference in the lives that adults lead.

A generation and more ago, people were more likely to be employed in physical work.

Working the land, digging coal or some other hard physical activity may not be hugely attractive but it didn't half burn the calories.

In contrast to this, sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen as so many of us do these days may be mentally demanding and tiring but is not conducive to health and fitness.

The conclusion is probably that bigger sizes, compared with our forefathers, surely has more to do with the way that the world has changed than any conscious decision to be less healthy.

As for the consequences, these include higher levels of obesity with the resultant increase in diabetes and greater strain on our hearts and other organs.

Perhaps most chilling of all, some experts are predicting that average life expectancy for the generation that are children now may actually fall.

Further proof as if it was needed that so-called progress can come at a cost.