Calories and Corsets: A history of dieting over two thousand yearsToday 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. |
Contents
The Origin of the Diet | |
Luxury and Sloth | |
Strictly Avoid Frightening Ideas | |
Advice to Stout People | |
Fads and Feeding | |
Keep Your Eyes Open and Your Mouth Shut | |
Half a Grapefruit and Two Olives | |
Skeletons and Sweater Girls | |
Modern Industrial Dieting | |
Bibliography | |
Illustration Credits | |