A couple of weeks ago I posted a list of some early fad diets. Apparently you all liked it. So here's the sequel. We'll call it Fad Diets: The Middle Years.
1903 Fletcherizing. Named for Horace Fletcher, the San Francisco art dealer turned nutritionist. As the story goes, Fletcher was denied health insurance for being overweight and gained coverage after losing the pounds by chewing his food thoroughly. Which doesn't sound all that weird. He also advised people not to eat if they were angry or sad, and to know exactly what was in all the foods they were eating. It sounds good, except for the reason why we REALLY remember Fletcher: In order to Fletcherize, you have to chew each bite of food 100 times per minute. And then spit out whatever you don't automatically swallow. Fletcher claimed it was a digestive aid. And by digestive aid, I mean that Fletcher believed that if you chewed your food your poop wouldn't stink. I found an article once that said he sent samples around the country to individuals who didn't believe him, although I can't seem to locate it now.
BONUS fact: John Harvey Kellogg, of Kellogg's Corn Flakes fame was a huge fan of Fletcher and wrote a little song for him called "Chew Chew Chew". Lovely.
1907 Calorie Counting: This is the year that Lulu Hunt Peters published her book, "Diet and Health, with Key to the Calories." Peters wrote a newspaper medical advice column and believed that we would permanently refer to all foods by their calorie content. Perhaps this whole mess we're in could have been prevented if we could just say to ourselves, "I could have 300 calories of pie, but I will only have 150." Humans being the evasive, pleasure-seeking creatures that we are choose to avoid the guilt of going over Peters' 1200 calorie budget by avoiding calories entirely. And by inventing "guilt-free" 100 calorie packs.
1925 The Cigarette Diet: Yeah. Think back to a time before thousands died from lung cancer. Back to a time where doctors appeared in cigarette ads. Lucky cigarettes had the successful advertising campaign, "Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet." Tragic. Scores of men and women hoping to someday avoid a double chin very likely smoked themselves into an early grave.
1928 The Inuit Meat and Fat Diet: Apparently 1928 was the first time it was observed that traditional Inuits eat a diet of mostly fat and protein and for some reason stay normal weight. This doesn't exactly translate to the rest of us who live far from permafrost. And those of us who are not willing to eat raw seal brains.
1930 The Hay Diet: Thankfully no one had to eat hay. This is based on the doctor William Hay who contracted nephritis and experienced an improvement in health after modest weight loss. Hay advocated 3 meals per day only with certain meals being based on alkaline foods like meat and milk and other meals being based on acid foods like starches and fruits. He believed our digestive systems couldn't handle the confusion of having to digest more than one type of food at a time.
1930 The Hollywood Diet (aka The Grapefruit Diet): I remember a friend following this diet close to 10 years ago, so it's still getting quite a bit of play. No one knows who wrote it, but it states that if you eat half a grapefruit before every meal, you'll lose a bunch of weight by decreasing your calorie intake up to 800 calories per day. The belief is that grapefruit has a magical ingredient that will help with weight loss. The truth is that it's low in calories, high in fiber, and kind of a pain to eat. You regain the weight as soon as you stop the diet. My friend said it best, "I'm so damn sick of grapefruit."
1930 Slimming Soap: Lose weight quick without a diet. La Mar brand (and one other I found online, appropriately called "Fat-O-No" claim to wash away the fat. People didn't learn in the 1930's that if vinegar didn't wash away the fat, soap wouldn't either. People now still haven't learned this, as cellulite eliminating creams are still being hawked to no end on night time informercials.
1930 Dr. Stoll's Diet Aid: Finally the snake oil sellers get in on the party. This is the very first diet drink, folks. Sold in beauty parlors it contained milk chocolate, wheat, bran and starch.
I'm seriously getting tired, here. Why all these fad diets in 1930??? I always thought the Great Depression was a time when no one had food. Why were all these people still trying to diet? They were on nature's weight loss plan. Oh well, will press on later.
Sources: ADA guide to Fad Diets, ABC News, "The Diet of the Century"
Just my guess, but take a look at the fashion of the 1920s. The ideal woman had a flat chest and no hips. The film industry also started having a bigger influence on the public, and films have never been as glamorous as they were in the 1930s. Those things probably had a big effect on creating a market for fad diets.
Posted by: Sheila Steinberg | 03/21/2010 at 11:47 PM