After watching Frontier House [1], a “reality TV (Television)” show about three American families that have to live as if they were in 1883 Montana—all I have to say is that I was never under the impression that times were simpler and better in the past. I appreciate the conviences of modern life like, oh, hot-n-cold running water, electricity, central air and Coca-cola, not to mentions things like Band-aids and the Internet.
But I will say that the families, after spending five months living a frontier experience, looked much healthier. Granted, if they lived like that for five years (which is what it took to get the full claim to a homestead in the 19^th century) they wouldn't look nearly as good, but five months of hard [DELETED-labor-DELETED] exercise and healthy eating certainly did wonders.