Modern means thin: why and how women have been trying to lose weight for centuries
'17.09.2021'
Source: Lenta.ru report
Calorie counting, avoiding certain "harmful" foods and eating by the hour have become an integral part of the fashion cult of a healthy lifestyle, says "Lenta.ru".
The modern starving person is convinced that being healthy means constantly restraining oneself in food, and only a thin person can count on beauty and longevity. Despite the fact that science has long proven the ineffectiveness of restrictive nutrition for weight loss and its dubious health effects, it is almost impossible to find someone who has not tried a particular diet at least once. While the victims of the industry believe that diets were really invented to prolong life and preserve beauty, skeptics argue that it is just someone's highly lucrative business based on human self-doubt. Where did the diets come from and why they are still in trend, explained a clinical psychologist, candidate of sciences, author of the first book on intuitive nutrition in Russia, head of the Intueat center, president of the ASORPP association Svetlana Bronnikova.
"Physical pleasure can spoil the human soul"
For centuries, humanity has been starving. One of the four biblical horsemen of the Apocalypse Glad sits on a black stallion and carries a scale for weighing bread. The first "dietary" experience was religious, cleansing and closer to God. Nuns, holy people, and repentant sinners starved to be forgiven. It was believed that bodily pleasure (this applied to hearty tasty food, and sexual pleasures, and beautiful comfortable clothes) can "spoil" the human soul. In the XNUMXth century, it was believed that gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins of mankind, causes weight loss, and not vice versa: it provokes indigestion, and a person loses weight.
For the first time, the ancient Romans and Greeks began to restrict food for health reasons. This was the stage of relative satiety and abundance. Moderation and balance were elevated to the rank of one of the main moral virtues, and gluttony was seen as a moral decline, a sign that food was consumed not for saturation, but only for pleasure - fullness was evidence of moral decay.
Already in ancient Greece, obesity was understood as a disease, and more of a mental nature. Nevertheless, the founder of modern medicine, Hippocrates, wrote that "in all diseases, people with fat around the abdomen recover the best." At the same time, the standard of beauty among the Romans and Greeks was, by modern standards, very plump people. Even in Latin and ancient Greek, the word "fat" was associated with abundance and fertility, and "thin" - with poverty and weakness.
It is thanks to the ancient Greeks that special forms of nutrition are today called diet. The very concept of "diet" comes from the ancient Greek word diaita.
Hippocrates used this term to describe the patient's lifestyle: his eating habits, physical activity, hygiene and sexual practices. One of the treatments was moderation in food and abstaining from certain foods in the name of health.
Another source of dietary culture dates back to the time of Columbus. Colonization by the Spaniards of America meant the need to survive in completely unfamiliar conditions, including resistance to new infections and dangers. The Spaniards believed that if they ate exclusively European, "correct" food, then the harsh living conditions of both Americas would spare them. In addition, they were convinced that such food helps them maintain physical differences with the native people of the country, and if they start eating "bad" local food, they will turn into those who are colonized - into savages.
"To be modern means to be thin"
These ideas leaked to America, where the culture of thinness was born in the XNUMXth century. Initially, slenderness was a sign of high birth. The fashion for corsets, widespread among women of aristocratic families, was supposed to emphasize a thin waist - and thus the difference between the aristocracy and the dense and broad-boned Irish and African women, commoners who performed black work. The corset squeezed internal organs, broke ribs, led to constant fainting, but confirmed the high social status of its owner, therefore it was mandatory.
The first true dietary guru in history was William Bunting, the funeral master of the British royal family. Having retired, he could live without denying himself anything, but obesity prevented him. Bunting visited many doctors, but doctors at the time did not see a big problem in gaining weight with age and assured him that it was a natural process. However, this ran counter to what a successful white man was supposed to look like. Finally Bunting found a doctor who agreed to put him on an experimental diet.
On the subject: Seven reasons why fast weight loss is dangerous to health
In 1864, Bunting publishes A Letter to the Public on Obesity, the first dietary bestseller in history, with a circulation of over 100 copies. The Bunting diet was a kind of alcoholic keto diet. It consisted of meat and fat, combined with a lot of alcohol (to cope with the constipation inevitable with such a diet). Because the Bunting Diet involved constant weighing, the popularity of his book fueled a massive scale frenzy. In those days, there were no scales suitable for home use, and to find out their weight, people had to climb huge platforms for weighing grain, which were displayed for money at fairs.
In 1910, Coco Chanel's "little black dress" appears, which completely negates the fashion for a waist narrowed with a corset. The era is changing: jazz on the stage, cigarettes instead of pipes and cigars, sexual freedom and, above all, youth. The image of a mature, corpulent woman is no longer relevant. Koko sews the dress to look "like a girl": the waist drops lower and the hem becomes shorter, revealing the legs. A corset will not help to fit into such a dress - now women need not an external, but an "internal corset" - physical exhaustion. And although today women of that era had a completely ordinary body, then great efforts had to be made to achieve such a figure.
Koko sincerely wanted to free women from the corset prison, but unwittingly contributed to the creation of a new one - dietary one.
The second decade of the XNUMXth century brings women in America a huge number of rights and freedoms, and the main one is the right to vote in elections, obtained with the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. But the dietary culture during this period is gaining momentum as never before: corsets almost disappear from the market, they are replaced by products for the "inner corset" - floor scales, laxative pills and fat-burning soap, which supposedly "washes away excess fat." The restrictive diet market is also actively developing.
The new era was supposed to bring women liberation from the suffocating corset and the tyranny of men, but along with a free style of clothing and a more active life, a new restriction came into their usual way - to stay slim at all costs. According to renowned feminist writer Naomi Wolfe, this was no coincidence. Periods in history when women have conquered significant freedoms - the right to vote, the right to wear trousers, the right to work outside the home, reproductive rights - have always coincided with tightening beauty standards. It was during these periods that women were required to become much slimmer than before, and the pressure on them increased.
“Diet is the most powerful political sedative in the history of the women's movement. The population of quiet madmen is a controlled population, "wrote Naomi Wolfe in The Beauty Myth.
The diet market is gaining momentum: women want to be modern, which means thin. There are more and more new ways to reduce weight, each time increasing the sales of a particular product.
"Don't reach for candy - take a cigarette!"
Lucky Strike pioneered the cigarette diet under the slogan "Don't reach for candy - take a cigarette!" In the 1920s, women became the target audience for tobacco advertisements: they were taught that smoking could help control weight. It is noteworthy that today 40-50 percent of women smoke for dietary reasons.
Already in the next decade, the first liquid diet appears to enter the industrial level. Beauty salons began selling Dr. Stoll's Diet, a powder meal replacement. The mixture consisted of a teaspoon of milk chocolate, starch, whole wheat flour, and bran. The powder was poured over with one cup of water.
By the middle of the last century, they came up with a cabbage diet: you can eat an unlimited amount of low-calorie cabbage soup. It is one of the oldest fad diets and is still popular today. At the same time, the grace of elastic fabric appears - underwear, which replaced the corset and subsequently became very popular.
Thus, the fashion, cosmetics and diet industries targeting women are becoming mega-industries. If up to this point the main sales force was the motivation to own something (“Buy it because your neighbor already has it!”), Now the strategy is changing: what you are and how you look becomes more important. The seed of self-doubt sown in women and doubts that her body is "like this" makes them buy everything from cream for smooth heels to a giant and mindless Kirby vacuum cleaner.
Ideal appearance is no longer a matter of genetic luck. Now it can be bought - by purchasing dietary products or plastic surgeons services. As Suzy Orbach writes in Fat Is a Feminist Theme, women are instilled in the fear of presenting themselves to the world as they are. The world can only be shown a body washed with special means, clean-shaven, oiled with creams, adorned with makeup and dragged into special underwear. Is it any wonder that so many women are sure that those around them will scatter screaming if they go out into the street unpainted and without styling. The feeling of your chronic "non-uniformity" is the best sales engine.
As you know, demand creates supply. The dietary industry merges with the pharmaceutical industry - diet pills appear on the market. The era of weight loss at any cost - even the most disastrous - is coming. In 1959, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first appetite suppressant drug, Phentermine. It contains amphetamines that cause drug addiction. These pills are soon found to be hazardous to health. But by this time, thousands of women have become drug addicted and thin.
In the 1970s, out of pure self-interest, the Sugar Association launched an advertising campaign that promoted sugar as a healthy dietary supplement that suppresses appetite and provides energy. The advertisement says that "if there is not enough willpower to eat less, sugar can replace it" and "if sugar is bad for the figure, why are there so many thin children?"
Then the so-called "Sleeping Beauty diet" appears: a person takes sleeping pills and falls asleep for several days, during which weight loss occurs. Elvis Presley was a big fan of this diet.
A decade later, Jane Fonda's lifelong anorexia nervosa training program became the top-selling video product of the time. With 17 million copies sold worldwide, fitness fever sweeps the planet. Iconic Leggings Fondations and colorful leotards are still popular fitness attributes.
But, in spite of everything, "Phentermine" continues to be in demand. It is not very effective on its own, but it is still touted as a "magic medicine" to be taken in combination with Pondumin. Since 1997, following reports of heart valve disease and pulmonary hypertension, the drug has been withdrawn from the US pharmaceutical market. At the same time, the patent for Pondumin expires, and another slimming agent, Reduxin, appears on the market.
The drug appears on the cover of Time magazine, $ 52 million is spent on an advertising campaign: every week doctors write 85 thousand prescriptions for Reduxin
Time magazine also names Robert Atkins, MD, the creator of the low-carb Atkins diet, as one of the 10 most influential people of the year. The popularity of low-carb diets grew, but the American Heart Association warned that weight loss on such a diet would be short-lived and that low-carb diets were fraught with cardiovascular disease.
Since 2004, the cycle of programs "Lost the Most" starts on the NBC channel: losing weight turns into a show and a competition. It involves people with obesity or overweight, they are fighting for a cash prize, which is awarded to the one who loses as much weight as possible compared to the original weight. Weight loss methods include severe calorie restriction and exercise for up to six hours a day. The fitness trainer of the TV show, Gillian Michaels, humiliates and ridicules the participants in order to motivate them to keep going.
On the subject: The Ducan Diet: Facts About The Risks And Benefits Of The World's Most Popular Weight Loss System
Further research shows that after the show, all of the participants gained weight again, some of whom died prematurely.
For literally ten years, protein diets have become a trend. Many books are emerging that praise the variations of the Paleolithic diet. The Paleo diet favors all types of red meats. Fruits and other carbohydrates can be consumed with restrictions. Then comes the era of the keto diet: coffee with butter for breakfast, that is, some fats and not a gram of carbohydrates. The keto diet provokes a number of health complications.
Nowadays, intermittent fasting is becoming fashionable, and it does not bother anyone that the success of this method has so far been confirmed only in mice. A clinical study by the University of California is released, stating that intermittent fasting does not lead to consistent weight loss in obese people, and that it causes more muscle loss than other diets. The study's author, cardiologist Ethan Weiss, is being harassed online and forced to shut off social media for several days over allegations of bias.
Bitter truth
The scientific evidence on the effectiveness of diets is categorical. Between 95 and 98 percent of people on weight-loss diets will regain what they lose, many more. Some of those who lose weight and maintain weight will develop eating disorders. Dietary behavior can seriously destroy health - fluctuations in weight are one of the main controllable risk factors for developing type XNUMX diabetes.
Regardless, people are struggling to lose weight, and this should rejoice those who own millions of businesses that make diet products - diet pills, low-calorie foods, meal replacements, meal plans, and calorie management apps.
The positive effect of weight loss is observed in some serious diseases, but it occurs already with a weight loss of 5-10 percent. Further effort usually leads to breakdowns, bouts of overeating, self-loathing, and despair.
Together with another dietary product, the client buys dreams of general sympathy, success, eternal youth and beauty. Humanity was made to believe that it is necessary to look different from what is predetermined by genetics, and this can be achieved only at the cost of incredible efforts and a lot of money. In a world of constant mutual condemnation, physical thinness seems to be both a moral value and the only recipe for health.
