Brain break: Match these ’70s health trends to their benefits
We have spent time with the music and slang of the ’70s. But that decade also gave us a wholesale reinvention of how Americans thought about their bodies. Before wellness became an industry, a generation started jogging, eating brown rice, and meditating. Some of it was ahead of its time. Some of it just sold vitamins.
Match each trend below to its primary benefit before scrolling to the answer.
Trend 1
Hint: Millions of Americans appeared on sidewalks in sneakers. Books about it became bestsellers. Doctors said it was good for your heart.
Answer
Jogging. Cardiovascular fitness. Jim Fixx‘s 1977 book transformed running into a mass movement. By decade’s end, 25 million Americans had taken it up.
Trend 2
Hint: The Beatles helped make it famous. You paid for a course, received a mantra, and sat quietly twice a day. By mid-decade, a million Americans swore it worked.
Answer
Transcendental Meditation. Stress reduction and lower blood pressure. The ’70s made it mainstream.
Trend 3
Hint: A Nobel Prize winner said you needed far more than doctors recommended. Everyone started taking large orange tablets daily.
Answer
Vitamin C supplements. Immune support. Linus Pauling published “Vitamin C and the Common Cold” in 1970, took 12,000 mg daily, and lived to 93.
Trend 4
Hint: This dance-based workout was filling community centers before the ’80s leg-warmer era even arrived. It had a founder, a franchise, and a beat you could move to.
Answer
Jazzercise. Cardio endurance. Judi Sheppard Missett founded Jazzercise in 1969, but the ’70s made it a phenomenon.
Trend 5
Hint: A surgeon in rural Africa noticed his patients rarely developed the digestive diseases common in the West. His theory pointed to one missing ingredient.
Answer
Dietary fiber. Digestive health. Denis Burkitt’s research linked dietary fiber to lower rates of colon cancer and heart disease.
Trend 6
Hint: Redwood decks acquired a new centerpiece. Neighbors gathered in warm, bubbling water and called it wellness.
Answer
Hot tubs. Muscle relaxation and circulation. Hydrotherapy improves blood flow and eases joint stiffness, benefits that predate the ’70s by millennia.
Trend 7
Hint: A new kind of grocery store appeared, with bins of dried lentils and walls of supplements. A famous Berkeley restaurant made the whole thing respectable.
Answer
Natural foods. Reduced additives and processed ingredients. Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in 1971. The health food movement expanded co-ops and farmers’ markets nationwide.
Trend 8
Hint: Electrodes on your fingertips. A screen showing your heart rate in real time. If you could see what stress was doing, you could learn to stop it.
Answer
Biofeedback. Stress and pain management. Biofeedback was among the first techniques to treat the mind and body as one system.
Trend 9
Hint: It had been around for decades, but the ’70s brought it into living rooms and morning television. Millions discovered they could not touch their toes and kept trying anyway.
Answer
Yoga. Flexibility and mind-body awareness. Yoga had been in the US for decades, but the ’70s made it widely accessible.
Trend 10
Hint: A small Oregon company saw an opportunity as millions took to the pavement. Its co-founder poured rubber into a waffle iron.
Answer
Running shoes. Injury prevention. Bill Bowerman’s waffle sole gave runners traction and cushioning. Purpose-built footwear was a genuinely new idea.
How did you do?
Ten for ten, and you were ahead of the curve. Six to nine, your wellness instincts are solid. Fewer than five? There is a jogging trail with your name on it.
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Related:
- Quiz: Can you guess the 1971 song from just one lyric?
- Can you guess the 1975 song from just one lyric?
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