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{{Mediawiki:Medical History}}
Admin moved page When did Americans begin to get obsessed with weight loss? to When did Americans begin to get obsessed with weight loss
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Between the late 19th and early 20th century weight shifted form an issue under the umbrella of health, to one under the umbrella of beauty. Diet shifted from meaning the “foods one ate” to a restrictive regimen aimed at reduction. In the late 19th century, discussions about food and diet were centered on health. For example, when the Los Angeles Board of Health Commissioners referenced the possible spread of Asiatic cholera, they offered a plethora of hygienic recommendations to stifle the spread of this disease—including hygienic food and drink recommendations.
If articles referenced weight-loss or gain, they elicited health concerns, not aesthetic ones. In 1872, Sylvester Graham, the inventor of the graham cracker, suggested gluttony diminished health, and adversely affected health.<ref name="Sylvester Graham, M.D."> [Sylvester Graham, M.D., Lectures on the Science of Human Life, (Battle Creek: The Office of the Health Reformer, 1872), p. 25.].</ref> While health authorities generally advocated against gluttony or corpulence, they did so to protect their followers from the discomforts associated with indigestion and constipation. They urged a healthy diet—they did not push an aesthetic idea related to dietetic restriction. In the 20th century, however, this would change, particularly with Lulu Hunt Peters’ arrival to Los Angeles.
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Lulu Hunt Peters was born in Milford, Maine , and acquired her medical degree from the University of California in 1909. Peters became the chairperson of the Public Health Committee of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs, Los Angeles District before writing Diet and Health and Key to the Calories. Weighing approximately 200-220 pounds at her heaviest, Peters lost 70 pounds by following her strict caloric guidelines, and then went on to be the columnist for “Diet and Health” which was published in The Los Angeles Times.
Peters’ book sold approximately two million copies, and remained in continuous publication for over twenty years.<ref name=> "Chin JouCounting Calories,">[http://www.chemheritageChemheritage.org/discover/magazine/articles/29-1-counting-calories.aspx].</ref> Ads for her book appeared everywhere, from the Chicago Daily Tribune to Vogue. Her book is also credited with being the first modern American diet book, and spurring a generation of calorie counting and fad dieting.
===Patriotism and the Hollywood Diet===
Diet and Health, published in 1918, imbibed a patriotic language in the midst of World War I. According to Peters, “in war time it is a crime to hoard food, and fines and imprisonment have followed the exposé of such practices. Yet there are hundreds of individuals all over America who are hoarding food, and that one of the most precious of all foods! They have vast amounts of this valuable commodity stored away in their own anatomy.<ref name="Lulu Hunt Peters"> [http://ia600200.us.archive.org/6/items/dietandhealth15069gut/15069-h/15069-h.htm#Chapter9|Lulu Hunt Peters Diet Recommendations].</ref> Peters announced that it was unpatriotic to be overweight.
Peters suggested forming the “Watch Your Weight Anti-Kaiser Class,” a program eerily reminiscent of weight-watchers meetings, except that those who failed to lose weight each week were fined—with the proceeds given as a donation to the Red Cross. While patriotism may have been in the background, the point of Diet and Health was clear—fatness resulted from overeating and under-exercising. While Peters acknowledged that genetics played a role in physique, she believed the decision to be fat was left, ultimately, to the individual. In Diet and Health and her later column in the Los Angeles Times, Peters urged her readers to reduce intake and food to numbers of calories, essentially mathematizing diet, and popularizing the concept of calorie-counting.
Hollywood is still often credited with providing negative examples of health and beauty. And while there have been recent examples of fashion designers and film directors moving towards more healthy, positive body images, the Lulu Hunt Peters’ work has not been undone. Her work in linking beauty to thinness was so successful that it remains.<ref name="Carl Malmberg"> [Carl Malmberg, Diet and Die, (New York: Hilman-Curl, Inc., 1935), p. 18].</ref>
===References===
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