Look at the size of those french fries. $1.39 for those fries back then vs the $4.59 fries we pay for today. At least the drinks got bigger..
I remember our Little League coach would take us to McDonald's after we won a game back in the late 1970s, and a regular order of fries was huge probably bigger than the current large order. I think meals back then were like $2.49 back in 1978 (central New Jersey). Of course White Castle square burgers were 10 cents each back then. There is a casual dining chain in Southern California called Claim Jumper that has the largest fries I ever saw. If you order a sandwich or burger they fill a huge dish with fries -- it must be like 4-5 pounds of fries.
The problem is not how "extensive" shrinkflation is on a single product, but how widespread it is across all consumer goods. It is on everything from toilet-paper to paper plates to cough drops to kitty litter to candy bars to pre-packaged cheese to...Well, anything you can imagine.
Wow! I was thinking quite recently actually that the "large serving" of fries my kid gets doesn't look so large. I mean if this is the large one, how many in the small one, two sticks of fries?