Published on March 29, 2016
Even after all these years of listening to new clients recite a long list of diets (aka “torture”) they’ve put themselves through, I am still not immune to being shocked by how some will resort to absolutely insane levels in order to avoid hard work. Too many people would rather put up with stinky breath or starvation or hair loss or missed menstrual cycles or irritability or lack of sleep or dry skin or depression or mood swings (and that’s just to name a few!) just in case THIS is the diet that holds the magic key to the eternal perfect body.
The all-too-willing to hand over hard-earned dollars to snake oil salesmen and pseudo-science practitioners for weight loss witchcraft and spells, pills and potions, gimmicks and tricks is not a modern day phenomenon, however. As a continuation of previous posts —Worming Your Way to Weight Loss; Take a Puff, Lose a Pound; and Cookies and Cabbage and Candy . . . Oh, My! — here, from the you-can’t-make-this-shit-up-department, are a few more vintage diet ads.
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Here’s an ad from waaaaay back, 1893, for Dr. (quack, quack) Edison’s obesity gimmicks: fruit salt, pills and bands. Their pills (unlike others of a lower quality, ya see [sarc]) were made from “the waters of the German Imperial Springs” dontcha know! Ooooooooh, aaaaaah.
Want to wash that fat right out of your ungainly ankles and unbecoming wrists? Welcome to the 1930’s, a decade where women would believe anything in magazines, especially if it was about weight loss. Hmm, come to think of it, nothing has changed, eh?!
A 1940’s advertisement for Bile Beans offered the World War II generation a remedy for all sorts of female complaints as well as an unsafe laxative approach to slim down.
How ’bout this one: From 1959. The Fat Girls Diet. Just what they needed in those days, eh? A diet for every insecurity!
What hasn’t changed in 100’s of years is the quest for an easy fix for fat.
The quest for an easy fix for fat hasn't changed in 100's of years. Share on X
What has changed is that we know a hell of a lot more nowadays as relates to understanding what our bodies need to function healthfully . . . and it ALWAYS requires work. Hard work.
It’s hard to be fat.
It’s hard to get slim.
It’s hard to stay slim.
Choose your hard.
Slimcerely yours℠,
