"Mary Ellen Sage is using a gadget called a fat distributor."
The image appeared in the Oklahoma City Times (June 5, 1972), accompanying an article titled "Medical Gimmicks, Magic Potions Trap the Unwary." Unfortunately the article didn't elaborate on how exactly the fat distributor was supposed to work, beyond what the caption said. But I suppose it's self-evident. You rolled it over your body, and it distributed the fat!
There is a big run on fly swatters in local stores—but not for swatting flies. This time they are for swatting ladies, who, in the cloistered privacy of their boudoirs, apply the little Nemesis of the fly to their fatted parts to obtain a perfect figure.
Researchers have unveiled a new weight-loss device that involves attaching magnetic bolts to a person's jaw so that they can't open their mouth more than 2mm wide. This allows them to consume liquid foods, but no solid ones.
People who have used the device said that it did help them lose weight, although it made their lives, in general, "less satisfying".
The researchers emphasized that the device isn't intended for your average dieter, but rather for people struggling to lose weight so that they can have weight-loss surgery.
Studies conducted by the U.S. Army in the late 1940s sought to determine the minimum amount of food a person would need to survive if they were shipwrecked on a desert island.
One of the oddities the researchers discovered was that if, for some reason, the shipwrecked person had to choose between steak and water, they should choose the water: "Protein has the effect of drying up the body. Therefore eating a steak on a desert island with little or no water available would probably be worse than eating nothing, depending upon how long rescue took."
"Shipwreck Diet: One of eleven Army volunteers who for six weeks will live on biscuits and water at the Metropolitan Hospital, New York City, to determine a human survival ration."
Newsweek - Mar 15, 1948
The Cornell Drug Corporation came out with Trim Cigarettes in 1958, claiming that smoking three of them a day would reduce appetite and thereby help with weight loss:
Smoke a TRIM reducing aid cigarette and you'll be amazed to find yourself shaking your head as the food is passed around. There'll be no argument, you won't have to close your eyes and grit your teeth, you just won't want!
The FDA promptly banned them. More info: wikipedia
Roy Mack set off from New York on May 2, 1939, intending to walk to San Francisco. To make this more of a challenge, he decided to do this while living on a diet of only milk — about six quarts of it a day. He said he wanted to "prove you can live on milk." The media dubbed him the "human milk bottle."
By August he had reached Oklahoma City and had also lost 10 pounds in weight. He maintained this was due to all the exercise, not his milk diet.
I have no idea if he ever did reach San Francisco, because I can't find any news reports about him after Oklahoma City. Perhaps the milk diet got the better of him.
While participants without any dieting experience seemed to be unaffected by the bitten dessert, those with dieting experience who viewed the bitten dessert responded more favorably (higher purchase intentions, desirability evaluations, etc.) than those who viewed the cut and whole desserts. These findings were expected as research has shown that dieters differ from non dieters in their responses to food cues (Frank, Kim, Krzemien, & Van Vugt, 2010)...
These findings explain that the bitten dessert is percieved as more real and authentic in comparison to the cut and whole dessert, and, thus, these perceptions of realness resulted in its positive evaluations. After the bitten dessert, the cut dessert was perceived as being the next most real, with the whole dessert being viewed as the least real of the three.
The application is simplicity itself. You merely apply the ointment to the part you wish reduced, then literally, "wash the fat away" without injury to the most delicate skin.
I can't find any description of what was in this ointment, but it sounds like something out of a horror story.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.