In the quest for a trimmer waistline, better health and more energy, it seems we’re prepared to give any bonkers diet regimen a go. And the fad diet isn’t a new concept – we’ve been prepared to try food plans varying from mildly eccentric to downright dangerous for centuries. From the 1500s to the present day, loveFOOD’s nutritionist Angela Dowden selects some of the weirdest diets and weight loss methods to have ever existed.
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1558: the starvation diet
Italian nobleman Luigi Cornaro wrote the first diet book, La Vita Sobra (The Sober Life) advocating extreme dietary restriction even before calories had been recognized. Aged 35, he turned around his own poor health (and reportedly lived to 102), by cutting his food intake to just 12 ounces (342g) a day and drinking 14 ounces (400ml) of wine daily. Over 460 years later there’s decent evidence that mice live longer when fed starvation rations, but it’s not been proven in humans.
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1727: the “move away from the swamp” diet
This was the year that writer Thomas Short observed that overweight people lived near swamps. His treatise on the subject, titled The Causes and Effects of Corpulence, outlined the only logical way to solve your weight loss woes: move away from the swamp. Obviously, no connection between swamps and weight actually exists, but intriguingly there is some evidence that living in rural areas ups your obesity risk.
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1700s: hot sand to “sweat out fat”
Sprinkling the body with hot sand was a bizarre 18th-century custom advocated for shifting those extra lbs. It was believed that the heat of the sand would help you lose weight through sweating out fat. We now know that it’s actually only water and salts that are lost through sweat. Plus, any water weight lost is only temporary – you put it straight back on when you rehydrate.
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Early 1800s: the Lord Byron vinegar diet
British poet and politician Lord Byron was the first celebrity dieter. He survived on soda water and biscuits but also popularized drinking vinegar – a lot of it – to lose weight. Byron lost five stone between 1806 and 1811. Apple cider vinegar is still advocated as a weight loss aid but there’s no evidence it works and in large doses vinegar is dangerous – Byron swigged so much he had stomach problems.
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1830s: the “chastity” diet
Reverend Sylvester Graham, after whom whole wheat graham flour is named, was an early advocate of temperance and vegetarianism. So far, so healthy, but Graham also believed that white sugar, refined flour and spices promoted sinful sexual urges and were best avoided. It’s likely he would be a bit upset that his legacy lives on in the s’more – a traditional US campfire favorite in which two graham crackers are sandwiched together with a layer of melted marshmallow and chocolate.
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Mid-1800s: rubber underwear
Rubber underwear, including knickers and corsets, was the Spanx of the 19th century, holding in those wobbly bits. But more importantly (and yuckily) rubber next to the skin caused sweating, which was believed to help shed the lbs. Unfortunately, the fluid loss only caused temporary weight loss and the sweaty rubber undies made skin more vulnerable to infection.
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1800s: diet pills… with arsenic
Pills and potions to speed up the metabolism have been around since the 19th century, but in the early days many of these seemingly miracle tablets contained small amounts of strychnine and arsenic, which consumers might not have been aware of. Chronic arsenic poisoning leads to cancer and liver disease.
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1894: the corn flakes diet
Dr John Harvey Kellogg created corn flakes as a food for the patients of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, where he was superintendent. Like Sylvester Graham before him, Kellogg believed in making foods as bland as possible to curb sexual urges. And corn flakes fitted the bill perfectly.
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Early 1900s: the tapeworm diet
Why diet when you can have a very hungry worm inside you absorbing all the calories before they have a chance to make you fat? At the turn of the 20th century, tapeworms were sold in pill form for diet purposes and people lapped them up. Baby tapeworms can grow to 25 feet long and the side effects are more than just being deprived of nutrients – the US government banned their sale after people started getting seizures, meningitis and cysts on the brain.
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1903: chewing and spitting
Followers of Horace Fletcher – a.k.a. The Great Masticator – believed that chewing their food at the rate of 100 bites a minute would result in weight loss. Even if this were true (it’s not) it’s hardly the recipe for a sociable meal with friends, especially considering Horace Fletcher’s acolytes also had to spit out whatever was left in their mouths that hadn’t turned to liquid when the chewing was done.
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1923: the milk diet
Bernarr Macfadden was an American body builder who advocated consuming nothing but milk – four to six quarts of the stuff per day (eight to 12 pints) – for peak fitness. “I realize that one taking the milk diet has little time for other occupation – visiting, picture shows, etc.,” he wrote, “but if the highest beneficial results are expected, nothing should be allowed to interfere with the regimen.” Milk is nutritious stuff for sure, but it does lack vitamin C and fiber, and can cause digestive distress in people with lactose intolerance.
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1930s: the Inuit diet
Swede Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who lived in the Arctic, argued that a high calorie diet of whale blubber, caribou and raw fish was the best because the Inuit who lived on this diet were slim and healthy. While this diet is high in heart-healthy omega-3 fats, it lacks fruit and vegetables and ignores the fact the Inuit are genetically adapted to their diet and burn a lot of calories in exercise and keeping their bodies warm.
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1940s: master cleanse diet
Unbelievably this crazy diet still endures to this day (Beyoncé is a fan, apparently using the regime to lose weight for the movie Dreamgirls). There are various versions but basically, it’s a 10-day or so liquid-only diet consisting of three things: a lemonade-like beverage, salt-water drink and a herbal laxative tea. It will lead to weight loss because it’s so low in calories, but it’s short on nutrients and impossible to sustain in the long term.
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1950s: the cabbage soup diet
The cabbage soup diet was hugely popular among 1950s housewives and has been in and out of fashion ever since. Essentially you survive on three to four servings of cabbage soup a day, which fills your stomach, but side effects like fatigue, light-headedness (and plenty of gas!) are common. There’s no magic – you lose weight on this diet as it is low in calories, but cabbage soup alone doesn’t provide enough protein or energy for good health.
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1962: the drinking man’s diet
How about getting rid of your belly with steak and red wine? In The Drinking Man’s Diet, Robert Cameron advocated a diet of meat washed down with alcohol. Looking back, this was one of the first low carbohydrate diets and it was pretty popular (there’s still a Kindle version available via Amazon). Not surprisingly, Harvard School of Public Health declared the diet unhealthy as more than one or two alcoholic drinks daily is linked with cancer, heart disease, strokes and accidents.
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1960s: the sleeping beauty diet
Bizarre and dangerous, the Sleeping Beauty Diet – which involves taking sleeping tablets and sleeping a lot to avoid hunger and eating – was reportedly used by Elvis Presley. Very worryingly, the sleeping beauty diet is still doing the rounds.
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1960s: amphetamines
Use of stimulants to speed up the metabolism soared through the 1960s, and in 1970–1971 a shocking survey revealed 5% of adults in the US had used amphetamines in the past 12 months. Diet clinics, where usually poorly qualified diet doctors (not real doctors at all) handed out these addictive medicines like candy, were everywhere. Side effects of amphetamines include anxiety, headache and dry mouth.
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Early 1970s: the grapefruit diet
The grapefruit diet, hugely popular back in the 1970s, essentially involves eating a grapefruit at every meal, sometimes as a replacement for a complete meal. Like all weight loss diets, it works to whittle your waistline through calorie restriction. Interestingly though, research has since found that components in grapefruit may have a beneficial effect on blood glucose and insulin levels, at least in mice, and that could help prevent obesity.
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1974: the Hollywood cookie diet
The Hollywood cookie diet is still around today but was launched in 1974. It’s a form of meal replacement diet that involves eating up to four high protein cookies in place of breakfast, lunch and snacks. Who wouldn’t want to get stuck into this one? Sadly, it’s not as fun as it sounds – the cookies aren’t Oreo-level yummy, and it’s hard to get enough of the unprocessed good stuff – such as fruit and veg – when so much of your diet is made up of cookies.
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1981: Beverley Hills diet
Promoted by Judy Mazel in her 1980s best seller, this faddy regimen allows only fruit for the first 10 days, carbohydrates on day 11 and finally protein on day 19. It’s based on the unscientific notion that blending certain foods inhibits digestion and that undigested food is what makes people fat. It’s complete nonsense and potentially dangerous too with very low calories and a lack of nutrients on some days.
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Early 1990s: the Hallelujah Diet
This diet – from US Reverend George Malkmus – involved only consuming things that Adam and Eve might have eaten in the garden of Eden (though how he knew what they scoffed is hard to tell). Despite the wacky premise, the diet, which is still around today, isn’t too terrible as it is mainly based on fruits and vegetables. But it also advocates lots of supplements, which is often a hallmark of a fad diet.
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2007: the Kimkins diet
This diet was originally promoted by Heidi Kimberly Diaz (a.k.a. “Kimmer”) who faked a 200lb (90.7kg) weight loss. The extremely low-carb diet involved eating as few as 500 calories a day and encouraged taking laxatives. Unfortunately, the awful diet got publicity in 2007 when it was featured in Woman’s World magazine. However, the magazine subsequently apologized.
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2010: the baby food diet
The baby food diet is precisely what it says on the tin: instead of proper grown up food you eat puréed baby food. Most jars of baby foods are low in calories, made mainly of fruits and vegetable and low in salt, so in theory it’s not bad for you. On the downside, baby food doesn’t meet all adult nutritional needs and is monotonous, so chances are you’ll soon get bored. And because you don’t chew, you won’t feel full either.
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2013: eating cotton wool balls
Cotton wool balls aren’t just being used to remove make-up anymore – in the past few years some desperate dieters have started the very dangerous practice of downing cotton balls soaked in juice. As well as providing absolutely no nutrition, cotton balls can easily cause choking or become lodged, leading to ulcers, gangrene and intestinal bleeding.
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2018: celery juice
Fresh celery juice is the latest wellness fad, which was largely kicked off by Anthony William, an LA-based wellness influencer who calls himself the Medical Medium and the “originator of a global celery juice movement”. Celery juice fans including Debra Messing drink a pint or more a day, claiming it helps with weight loss, skin problems, energy and more. In fact, there’s absolutely no evidence that it’s any more or less healthy than other vegetable juices.
