Brief history of weight loss cures and methods, from antiquity to today, made by Mihaela Bilic. “It's the only situation where we forget about food!”
Mihaela Bilic made a brief history of weight loss diets and methods, reviewing the practices used from Antiquity to the present to lose extra pounds. Her conclusion about people's relationship with food.
Mihaela Bilic, about the obsession with slimming belts. PHOTO: Facebook/Pixabay collage
Nutritionist Mihaela Bilic published on social networks a brief review of how people have tried, over time, to lose weight in order to have a silhouette considered ideal. It shows that the preoccupation with the way we look and the desire to get rid of extra pounds are not at all recent, but have been with people for centuries, and the solutions they resorted to were often extreme.
“Slimming is not a new invention, people have always struggled with extra pounds, and an easy and effective method to “melt” fat has not been discovered. Yet!
If we review the strategies related to losing weight, we sadly note that hunger and implicitly eating little are sacred. The dilemma is: how do you manage to endure hunger? From Antiquity to the present day, the solutions have been as radical and drastic as possible: hunger, cold, sleeplessness, exercise, purgatives, laxatives and, in the 20th century, amphetamines.” wrote the nutritionist who has numerous fans on social networks.
Starvation, exhaustion and laxatives
In the post, she recalls that since Antiquity, doctors recommended severe methods to reduce body weight. Hippocrates, considered the father of medicine, advised those who wanted to lose weight to do intense physical work before meals, until exhaustion. In the second century, the physician Soranus promoted a similar approach, based on little sleep and a lot of exercise, but also on a very restrictive diet, with only one meal a day, consisting of a single cold dish, mainly vegetables, supplemented by a little fish or meat.
Also, the use of laxatives and emetics was already widespread by that time, and this practice continued into the Middle Ages.
“Laxatives and emetics have been used since antiquity. In the Middle Ages, the attitude remains the same: Avicenna emphasizes exercise and purgatives to prevent digestion. From the year 1700, the obese were advised to sleep little, sweat a lot and abuse laxatives. In Paris, Dr. Antoine Petit uses vinegar and black coffee to help lose weight, and in England, Dr. Malcom Fleming prescribes the ingestion of soap to melt fats”, she explained.
According to Mihaela Bilic, even the beginning of the 20th century did not bring softer solutions. Although medicine was beginning to better understand the body's metabolism and energy use, weight loss regimens remained extremely restrictive. The Guelpa cure, for example, relied almost exclusively on starvation, with only water, hot teas, and a castor oil purgative allowed.
Obsession with weight loss and drug use
In the 1920s, Dr. Leven's milk cure also became popular, which involved the consumption of ten cups of tea for the first two to three days, followed by about ten days in which the diet consisted exclusively of warm milk flavored with vanilla, caramel or coffee.
The obsession with the figure intensified after the 60s, when the ideal promoted by popular culture began to influence the general public more and more.
“The obsession with slimming belts has been increasing since the 60s and the interest in the silhouette is gradually “infecting” the entire population, regardless of age, gender or profession.
Jane Fonda tells in a documentary how she learned from her mother to induce vomiting as a method of maintaining her figure and how she turned to amphetamines to suppress her appetite. And Audrey Hepburn, famous for her filiform figure, led her existence between episodes of bulimia and anorexia, “sprinkled” liberally with psychotropic drugs. writes Mihaela Bilic.
Finally, the nutritionist emphasizes that, despite the advances in science, there is still no simple and definitive solution for obesity today, and the fight against hunger remains a constant.
“Unfortunately there is no 'cure' for obesity, people endure hunger even now, in the 21st century, as they did in ancient times. We have no natural mechanisms to lose weight, and hunger is a sensation that we cannot forget! As for willpower, there is little hope that we can abstain in the long term, instincts make us greedy and lustful.
Food is scarce and hard to come by, a small stomach and hormones to block the appetite… that could save us. In anticipation of this miracle, it is worth being in love; it's the only situation in which we forget about food!”, concluded Mihaela Bilic.
