| Diets through the ages
Follow us on a chronological tour of diets through the ages So, you want to lose weight? These days you can take your pick from the handful of extreme diets advertised everyday. From the well-publicised and controversial Atkins diet (which advocates few carbs and high protein) to Sugar Busters (where sugar is the enemy), and the lesser-known chewing gum diet (this one is self-explanatory), we are constantly bombarded with new and increasingly sparse eating regimes. But, is the yearning to be lean a totally modern scourge? Apparently not. From Ancient Greece to the second millennium, people have always found imaginative ways to abuse their relationship with food.
The Ancient Greek Mathematician Pythagoras and his followers practised one of the first recorded diets, known as vegetarianism. Although Ancient Greeks did have a penchant for the athletic look, Pythagoras’ abstinence from the heartier foods in life had little to do with becoming a perfect size ten. Vegetarianism was, in fact, the only way to ensure you were not eating your grandmother or another relative, whose soul could have transmigrated to your neighbour’s pig (remember, reincarnation was a popular belief in the Ancient world). The great mathematician was so passionate about his diet that he is said to have met his death defending a bean field.
Romans in the time of Caesar had special rooms in which to expel their feasts, but this was for the sake of gluttony rather than wanting to be thin. They would purge between courses to make room for every dish on offer.
One of the oldest diets in history – if you believe the Jesus diet website (www.jesusdiet.com). The proponents of this eating regime claim that almost all diseases and pains can be healed by prayer and fasting. You are only allowed to eat raw food (excluding meat) and, even then, dine only twice a day at the most. These two meals have to be restricted to one or two pounds (there seems to be no biblical justification for this restriction, however). To top it off, fasting completely for at least one day a week is recommended. The rationale being that if you have the energy to feel anything at all (including pain) after eating like this, then you must truly be touched by the Lord.
Some say bulimia, curiously called ox-hunger long ago, first began in the Middle Ages. People at celebrations gorged on food and then induced purging through vomiting. Like the Romans, this early form of bulimia was not motivated by a desire to be slim for fashion’s sake. Instead, eating a lot is believed to have been a sign of wealth and status. Thought to be a Victorian form of anorexia, ‘hysteria’ swept through the middle classes and the Aristocracy of Western Europe and North America during the second half of the nineteenth century. Literally starving oneself was believed to be the fastest way to embody the Victorian fad of frailty, which was associated with spiritual purity and femininity. At that time, the aristocracy romanticised people who had tuberculosis, or consumption – this may explain the strange moniker of this form of anorexia.
San Francisco art dealer, Horace Fletcher, earned his title, ‘The Great Masticator’ – a reference to animals that ‘chew the cud’ – through his publication of a best-selling diet book. In it, he recommended chewing each mouthful at least 32 times until it became a thin, liquid paste, and that any food that couldn’t be broken down to a gruel consistency had to be spat out. Fletcher claimed to lose 65 of his 217 pounds through his remarkable method.
The 1920s saw the emergence of glamorous flappers as the feminine ideal. In an effort to achieve this slim, hipless, flat-chested look, women tried the Hollywood, 18-day, or Grapefruit diet (which is still around today). The premise is to consume only 800 calories a day through eating barrels of ‘fat-burning’ grapefruits so as to kick-start your metabolism. The only plus: you can have as much black coffee as you like.
Advertisements for tapeworm pills first emerged in the 1920s. Since then, a number of famous women are alleged to have tried this revolting eating plan. Here’s how it works: the tiny parasite lives in the intestine of the host, helping to consume her food. The result: you are hungry all the time but still able to remain rail thin , however much you eat. One urban myth that circulated during the early eighties claimed that a woman taking a ‘miracle diet pill’ lost such an alarming amount of weight in just a few weeks that her doctors decided to get to the bottom of things. When they opened these mysterious pills to investigate the contents, they were greeted by the head of a tapeworm. This plan was advocated by American Presbyterian minister, Sylvester Graham, who was nicknamed ‘Dr Saw Dust’. Bland foods such as crackers and dry bread were favoured over meat, spices and stimulants because it was argued that the spirit would grow strong only through denial of the flesh. He felt that resisting these luxurious foods would eventually encourage restraint in people’s sexual and social behaviour. Graham developed a band of supporters across the U.S., but his diet soon lost popularity when devotees became too weak and ill.
The Bretharian Institute of America (www.breatharian.com) explains their philosophy in this statement: ‘When humans reach the purest sense of harmony with the surrounding world as well as a complete understanding of each individual’s role as a function of God to create the universe, they will have reached a vibrational frequency on this material plane, where they no longer require food, water or sleep’. Spin-offs of this interesting programme are still in practice today. Ellen Greve, an Australian who practices this particular brand of madness, has 5,000 disciples and charges more than £1000 per ticket for her seminars, where she attempts to liberate people from the ‘drudgery of food and drink’. More sinister, one Australian couple who led a similar group that advocated living on air alone were convicted of manslaughter when one of their disciples died of dehydration.
A whole host of celebrities from Nigella Lawson to Renee Zellweger embraced the the carb shunning, protein heavy diet as did the public. The Atkins Diet books hit the top spot in best sellers lists everywhere and although the diet suffered a minor blip when the its creator died it remains popular, although the GI (Glycemic Index) diet seems to have now claimed the top spot. |