On Corpulence is a booklet by William Banting, who is known for being the first to popularize a weight loss diet based on limiting the intake of carbohydrates, especially those of a starchy or sugary nature. The booklet contains the particular plan for the diet he followed. It was written as an open letter in the form of a personal testimonial. Banting accounted all of his unsuccessful fasts, diets, spa and exercise regimens in his past. His previously unsuccessful attempts had been on the advice of various medical experts. He then described the dietary change which finally had worked for him, following the advice of another medical expert.
Letter On Corpulence, Addressed To The Public , By William Banting. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Today we are urged from all sides to slim down and shape up, to shed a few pounds or lose life-threatening stones. The media's relentless obsession with size may be perceived as a twenty-first-century phenomenon, but as award-winning historian Louise Foxcroft shows, we have been struggling with what to eat, when and how much, ever since the Greeks and the Romans first pinched an inch. Meticulously researched, surprising and sometimes shocking, Calories and Corsets tells the epic story of our complicated relationship with food, the fashions and fads of body shape, and how cultural beliefs and social norms have changed over time. Combining research from medical journals, letters, articles and the dieting bestsellers we continue to devour (including one by an octogenarian Italian in the sixteenth century), Foxcroft reveals the extreme and often absurd lengths people will go to in order to achieve the perfect body, from eating carbolic soap to chewing every morsel hundreds of times to a tasteless pulp. This unique and witty history exposes the myths and anxieties that drive today's multi-billion pound dieting industry - and offers a welcome perspective on how we can be healthy and happy in our bodies.
Diet books contribute to a $60-billion industry as they speak to the 45 million Americans who diet every year. Yet these books don’t just tell readers what to eat: they offer complete philosophies about who Americans are and how we should live. Diet and the Disease of Civilization interrupts the predictable debate about eating right to ask a hard question: what if it’s not calories—but concepts—that should be counted? Cultural critic Adrienne Rose Bitar reveals how four popular diets retell the “Fall of Man” as the narrative backbone for our national consciousness. Intensifying the moral panic of the obesity epidemic, they depict civilization itself as a disease and offer diet as the one true cure. Bitar reads each diet—the Paleo Diet, the Garden of Eden Diet, the Pacific Island Diet, the detoxification or detox diet—as both myth and manual, a story with side effects shaping social movements, driving industry, and constructing fundamental ideas about sickness and health. Diet and the Disease of Civilization unearths the ways in which diet books are actually utopian manifestos not just for better bodies, but also for a healthier society and a more perfect world.
In this eye-opening book, New York Times science writer Gina Kolata shows that our society's obsession with dieting and weight loss is less about keeping trim and staying healthy than about money, power, trends, and impossible ideals. Rethinking Thin is at once an account of the place of diets in American society and a provocative critique of the weight-loss industry. Kolata's account of four determined dieters' progress through a study comparing the Atkins diet to a conventional low-calorie one becomes a broad tale of science and society, of social mores and social sanctions, and of politics and power. Rethinking Thin asks whether words like willpower are really applicable when it comes to eating and body weight. It dramatizes what it feels like to spend a lifetime struggling with one's weight and fantasizing about finally, at long last, getting thin. It tells the little-known story of the science of obesity and the history of diets and dieting—scientific and social phenomena that made some people rich and thin and left others fat and miserable. And it offers commonsense answers to questions about weight, eating habits, and obesity—giving us a better understanding of the weight that is right for our bodies.
Fat: such a little word evokes big responses. While ‘fat’ describes the size and shape of bodies, our negative reactions to corpulent bodies also depend on something tangible and tactile; as this book argues, there is more to fat than meets the eye. Fat: A Cultural History of the Stuff of Life offers a historical reflection on how fat has been perceived and imagined in the West since antiquity. Featuring fascinating historical accounts, philosophical, religious and cultural arguments, including discussions of status, gender and race, the book digs deep into the past for the roots of our current notions and prejudices. Three central themes emerge: how we have perceived and imagined obesity over the centuries; how fat as a substance has elicited disgust and how it evokes perceptions of animality; but also how it has been associated with vitality and fertility. By exploring the complex ways in which fat, fatness and fattening have been perceived over time, this book provides rich insights into the stuff our stereotypes are made of.
“Trust me; I’m a doctor” no longer has the credibility it once did. Nutritional therapy is often overlooked in medical school, and the information provided to physicians is often outdated. Advice to avoid healthy fats and stay out of the sun has been proven to be detrimental to longevity and wreak havoc on your system, and yet many doctors still regularly espouse this “wisdom.” What kind of advice is your doctor giving you? Is it possible you’re being misled? Dr. Ken Berry is here to dispel the myths and misinformation that have been perpetuated by the medical and food industries for decades. This updated and expanded edition of Dr. Berry’s bestseller Lies My Doctor Told Me exposes the truth behind all kinds of “lies” told by well-meaning but misinformed medical practitioners. In this book, Dr. Berry will enlighten you about nutrition and life choices, their role in your health, and how to begin an educated conversation with your doctor about finding the right path for you. This book is a survival kit on your journey through the confusing, and often misleading, world of conventional medicine and includes such topics as • How doctors are taught to think about nutrition and other preventative health measures—and how they should be thinking • How the Food Pyramid and MyPlate came into existence and why they should change • The facts about fat intake and heart health • The truth about the effects of whole wheat on the human body • The role of dairy in your diet • The truth about salt—friend or foe? • The dangers and benefits of hormone therapy • New information about inflammation and how it should be viewed by doctors Come out of the darkness and let Ken Berry be your guide to optimal health and harmony!
Reclaim your time, money, health, and happiness from our toxic diet culture with groundbreaking strategies from a registered dietitian, journalist, and host of the Food Psych podcast. 68 percent of Americans have dieted at some point in their lives. But upwards of 90% of people who intentionally lose weight gain it back within five years. And as many as 66% of people who embark on weight-loss efforts end up gaining more weight than they lost. If dieting is so clearly ineffective, why are we so obsessed with it? The culprit is diet culture, a system of beliefs that equates thinness to health and moral virtue, promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, and demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others. It's sexist, racist, and classist, yet this way of thinking about food and bodies is so embedded in the fabric of our society that it can be hard to recognize. It masquerades as health, wellness, and fitness, and for some, it is all-consuming. In Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison takes on diet culture and the multi-billion-dollar industries that profit from it, exposing all the ways it robs people of their time, money, health, and happiness. It will turn what you think you know about health and wellness upside down, as Harrison explores the history of diet culture, how it's infiltrated the health and wellness world, how to recognize it in all its sneaky forms, and how letting go of efforts to lose weight or eat "perfectly" actually helps to improve people's health—no matter their size. Drawing on scientific research, personal experience, and stories from patients and colleagues, Anti-Diet provides a radical alternative to diet culture, and helps readers reclaim their bodies, minds, and lives so they can focus on the things that truly matter.
A remarkably modern book about dieting in the 1860s, celebrating the 175th anniversary of The London Library Oh! that the faculty would look deeper into and make themselves better acquainted with the crying evil of obesity - that dreadful tormenting parasite on health and comfort William Banting, a short man who suffered great personal distress from his increasing fatness, finally happened upon a 'miracle cure'. So great was his relied that he wrote and published A Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public. In singling out sugar and fats as the main cause of obesity, he was remarkably ahead of his time. The tract was an immediate success: thousands took up his diet; there were four editions of his book by 1869; and 'to bant' or 'banting' became a popular phrase for slimming, which lasted well into the twentieth century. Contains also a small piece by Lewis Carroll on 'feeding the mind', in which he tells us the best way to 'consume' books. On Corpulence is part of 'Found on the Shelves', published with The London Library. The books in this series have been chosen to give a fascinating insight into the treasures that can be found while browsing in The London Library. Now celebrating its 175th anniversary, with over 17 miles of shelving and more than a million books, The London Library has become an unrivalled archive of the modes, manners and thoughts of each generation which has helped to form it.
