Category:
Dieting and Weight Loss
Dieting and Weight Loss
Get Slim Slippers
These were mini slippers that supposedly helped one lose weight. How? Something to do with reflexology and magnets. And also, I assume, the extra effort required to balance in them.
They were sold via the website GetSlimSlippers.com, which no longer exists (but is archived at the Wayback Machine).
Quackwatch.org has an article by someone who tried them out to see if they would actually work:
I obeyed all the instructions. I started off gradually. In fact I had to — my arches, bearing almost all of my weight, hurt fiercely the first few days. (If you've ever climbed a round-runged ladder in your bare feet, you know the feeling.) I never went over the 2-1/2-hour limit, and I tried to "respect the slippers" in spite of jeers from my office mates. In a sense, I even "became One with the slippers"—they delivered a terrible foot odor each time I took them off. Apparently, the canvas uppers don't "breathe."
Related post: Slimming Insoles
Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 23, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Shoes, Dieting and Weight Loss
The Great Starvation Experiment, 1944-1945
I wrote this brief article a number of years ago. It used to be posted on another site, which no longer exists. So I'm relocating it here. . .One of the greatest killers of World War II wasn't bombs or bullets, but hunger. As the conflict raged on, destroying crops and disrupting supply lines, millions starved. During the Siege of Leningrad alone, over a thousand people a day died from lack of food. But starvation also occurred in a more unlikely place: Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was here that, in 1945, thirty-six men participated in a starvation experiment conducted by Dr. Ancel Keys.
Group photo of the participants
The Purpose of the Experiment
Dr. Ancel Keys
The starvation experiment developed out of Keys' interest in nutrition. He realized that although millions of people in Europe were suffering from famine, there was little doctors could do to help them once the war was over, because almost no scientific information existed about the physiological effects of starvation. Keys convinced the military that a study of starvation could yield information that would have both humanitarian and practical benefits — because knowing the best rehabilitation methods could ensure the health of the population and thereby help democracy grow in Europe after the war. Having secured his funding, Keys set out on his novel experiment.
More in extended >>
Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 07, 2023 -
Comments (5)
Category: Experiments, Nutrition, 1940s, Dieting and Weight Loss
Select-A-Size Mirror
The Select-A-Size mirror, invented by Milton Doolittle, had a knob you could turn to make yourself look slimmer or fatter. As explained in the 1976 Canadian patent:A mirror has an upper portion which is held in flat condition by being secured in the upper portion of a vertically extending frame. The integral lower portion of the mirror is flexible, and its curvature is variable about a vertical axis, so that by varying the curvature of the lower portion, there is provided an image of the appearance of a person's body after a weight loss, the upper flat portion reflection a true reflection of the person's face, which would change comparatively little, if at all, after a weight loss. The curvature of the mirror lower portion is varied by rotation of a knob threadedly engaging a screw that moves a lever connected to the mirror. The mirror is supported on a stand or a wall support by a vertically movable member in a hollow tube at the back of the mirror, so that it may be vertically adjusted to reflect the face of people of different heights in the flat portion of the mirror.
Palm Beach Post - Mar 20, 1983
Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 02, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Patents, 1970s, Dieting and Weight Loss
Amorous Dietitian
Published in 1961. It's got an intriguing title. However, a review on Goodreads reveals that "The title and the cover text have nothing to do with anything in the book."More info: Pop Sensation
Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 28, 2023 -
Comments (5)
Category: Books, 1960s, Dieting and Weight Loss
Grapefruit Diet Ad
"With success, comes class!"
Posted By: Paul - Sat Nov 26, 2022 -
Comments (2)
Category: Food, Fruit, Advertising, 1980s, Dieting and Weight Loss
Fat Distributor
"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!
Source: Oklahoma Historical Society
Posted By: Alex - Fri Oct 28, 2022 -
Comments (3)
Category: Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, 1970s, Dieting and Weight Loss
Fly Swatter Vogue
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.
Boston Globe - Mar 24, 1927
via Useless Information
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jul 12, 2022 -
Comments (1)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, 1920s, Dieting and Weight Loss
Lucky Strikes as Weight-Loss Aid
See more in this series at the link.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jul 26, 2021 -
Comments (1)
Category: Advertising, Smoking and Tobacco, Twentieth Century, Dieting and Weight Loss
The DentalSlim Diet Control
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.
It reminds me of the anti-eating face mask patented in 1982.
More info: British Dental Journal, University of Otago, Fox News
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jul 01, 2021 -
Comments (2)
Category: Dieting and Weight Loss
The Shipwreck Diet
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
Waterloo Courier - Nov 16, 1949
Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 16, 2020 -
Comments (4)
Category: Food, Nutrition, Experiments, 1940s, Dieting and Weight Loss
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