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1850
In England, William Banting consulted Dr. William Harvey for weight loss who recommended he cut most sugar and starch from his diet since foods containing those substances tend to create body fat. He lost 50 pounds and wrote the first diet book, “Letter on Corpulence Addressed to the Public” in 1862.
1898
Horace Fletcher loses 42 pounds by advocating that we need to chew food about 32 to 80 times before being swallowed and it should be in liquid form. He later became known as “The Great Masticator”.
1918
Dr. Lulu Hunt writes the first best selling diet book, “Diet and Health with a Key to the Calorie”. She promoted calorie counting over her entire life.
1919
The Continental Scale Company produces the first bathroom scale called the “Health O Meter”.
1929
A cigarette advertisement tells women to “reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet”. Another slogan says: “Light a Lucky and you’ll never miss sweets that make you fat”.
1930
The “grapefruit diet” also known as “The Hollywood Diet” is promoted which involves eating only 585 calories a day for 18 days with boiled eggs, green vegetables and Melba toast.
1936
Self-proclaimed diet guru Victor Lindlahr reaches thousands via the radio to produce his regular broadcasts entitled “reducing party”. He wrote the book You Are What You Eat, one of the earliest texts of the health food movement in the United States, which sold over half a million copies and introduced the phrase still used today.
1942
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company published standard weight tables for “ideal weight”. The charts used weight, height, frame size, and gender but only used data from life insurance policyholders.
1948
Amphetamines were first prescribed for some obese patients but later research determined that these were dangerous. Amphetamine –like drugs are still used today in a limited fashion.
1958
Saccharin, the first manufactured artificial sweetener is produced and becomes a popular sugar substitute. It is still used today after years of research that absolved critical reports of its cancer connection.
1961
Weight Watchers was born as a result of Jean Nidetch and several friends who met in her apartment to offer each other support about dieting.
1967
Twiggy, 5’7” and weighing about 92 pounds becomes a supermodel and icon for the slender female.
1972
Dr. Atkins introduced his first “Diet Revolution”, a high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate diet.
Richard Simmons opens Ruffage and the Anatomy Asylum, a Beverly Hills restaurant and exercise studio. He quickly becomes known as a fitness and diet guru.
1978
Dr. Herman Tarnover introduces the “Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet”, another version of the high protein, low-carb diet.
1979
The Pritikin Diet answers the trend of the high protein, low – carb diets with a high fiber, very low fat diet. The system was originally designed for heart patients but became popular for those who followed the newer trend of the low –fat diet approach.
1981
The Beverly Hills Diet is introduced – it recommends eating nothing but fruit for the first 10 days.
1982
Aspartame is introduced as another alternative sugar substitute. It was marketed as NutraSweet and is still used today in many products.
Liposuction is performed in the U.S. for the first time and now becomes a popular cosmetic procedure for the obese.
1983
Jenny Craig is formed which sells their own line of diet foods and offers diet counseling. Nutrisystem soon followed.
1988
Oprah Winfrey loses 67 pounds on the liquid diet Optifast.
1994
The FDA mandates that food labels must include detailed information about calories, fat, and fiber. We must thank Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters for this.
1995
“The Zone Diet” is introduced by Dr. Barry Sears. He promotes eating lots of fruits and vegetables and protein, while cutting back on breads and pastas.
1996
It is reported that 40% of nine and ten-year-olds are dieting and trying to lose weight.
2000
Experts are stating that there is now a global epidemic of obesity and that for the first time in history, this number of overweight people equals the number of underfed and undernourished.
2002
Dr. Atkins introduces his second diet book, the “New Diet Revolution” to a new generation of dieters. The Low-carb diet is back after multitudes of diet books promoting low fat diets.
2013
It appears we may have come full circle – we are now promoting cutting sugars and counting calories (again). We have progressed from low carbohydrate, low fat, and low carbohydrate diets again along with some pretty scary schemes, e.g. the tapeworm diet. Many weight loss books, gimmicks and pills have come and gone over and over again and many still exist, but with no real breakthroughs. I doubt they will not end at least in the near future – what do you think?
2023
For the last 10 years, we as a culture have waged a new diet war – Keto diet, paleo diets are the latest “experiments,” trending to the low carb side with higher fat – right back where we started. According to Bittman and Katz, “everything we learned in the late 20th century, the range for fat is considerably broader.” There are claims for good outcomes with diets that have 10% or less of calories from fat (like in Okinawa); those would be the low fat-diets. There are the Mediterranean diets that get well over 40% of their calories from fat and seem to produce the same great health outcomes.” (Mark Bittman and David L. Katz, M.D. How to Eat: All Your Food and Diet Questions Answered.)
Source:
James Trager(1995) The Food Chronology: A Food Lover’s Compendium of Events and Anecdotes, From Prehistory to the Present.
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