re: How common was obesity in the past?

Portions at restaurants, especially fast food ones, have also gotten larger. In the 80's when McDonald's introduced the value meals, the fries and drink were a standard size equivalent to the small size of today. They only had 2 sizes in fries - small and large. The small came in the white paper holder, the large in the red cardboard holder. I think it was around 92 when they introduced the large and extra large size value meals. I seem to recall to get the Dream Team plastic cups during the 92 Olympics, you had to order the large extra value meal.