Some of these “life hacks” are terrifying.
Nowadays, the problem of excess weight is especially acute: due to constant employment, many have neither the time nor the energy to prepare healthy food, while shops and catering establishments offer a huge variety of ready-made meals and products with not the most useful composition.
The number of bad food habits is growing, as is the average weight of the inhabitants of most developed countries. In response to this, new methods of getting rid of excess weight are emerging, including surgical ones, which are discussed in the Obesity Treatment Center program on TLC, which is released on Wednesdays at 21:00.
However, obesity is by no means a new problem for humanity. Overweight was also fought in previous centuries, and often in very specific ways.
Acetic acidity in the everyday menu
One of the first famous people to be seen deliberately trying to lose weight was the English poet Lord Byron. He was a rather large man, but at the same time he wanted to achieve a “noble” pallor and thinness. To achieve his goal, the poet began to adhere to the so-called vinegar diet. He began to soak food in vinegar and also drink acid diluted in water. This diet contributed to vomiting and diarrhea, which likely led to weight loss. Many young admirers of the famous poet, for whom he was an authority, took an example from Byron.
The second wave of popularity for the vinegar diet began in the 1970s in the United States. Those who wanted to lose weight began to drink a few tablespoons of vinegar before meals to suppress their appetite. Pharmaceutical companies even made vinegar tablets for those who didn’t want to taste the acid. However, the effectiveness of this unsafe method was subsequently denied.
Tapeworms as Weight Loss Aids
In the Victorian era, in an effort to lose weight, many resorted to not only an unpleasant, but also dangerous trick for health – swallowing tapeworms. The overgrown parasite interfered with weight gain and nutrient absorption. The worm growing in the intestine could reach 10 meters in length. Upon achieving the desired result, it was necessary to take an antiparasitic pill to remove the worm from the body.
Newspapers and magazines touted the new weight loss method with might and main, and even after information about its dangers became public, it continued to be resorted to periodically. So, for example, already in the twentieth century, the famous opera singer Maria Callas lost 45 kg in a very short time – according to the stories of people from her environment, precisely because of the swallowing of tapeworms.
In the 90s, the so-called weight-loss “Thai pills” were popular in the CIS. It is not known for certain what exactly they contained in the composition, but it is assumed that they worked according to the same principle: there were two tablets in the package – one with a helminth, and the second with an antiparasitic component. In Mexico, this method of combating obesity is still popular: there are many requests on the Internet from those who want to buy parasites and advertising articles that promise instant weight loss. A side effect of this method of dealing with excess weight can be constant abdominal pain, rectal problems, epilepsy, paralysis and dementia, so it is definitely not recommended to make such sacrifices for the sake of beauty.
A little arsenic – and excess weight will go away
In the XNUMXth century, “miraculous” pills and other weight loss products with arsenic began to go on sale in Great Britain. The ad promised to boost metabolism, which helped burn calories from food faster.
The content of the poisonous substance in the tablets was small, but they were still extremely hazardous to health. Some manufacturers did not indicate the arsenic content on the packaging at all, since there was no state control of pharmaceutical products at that time.
In their quest to lose weight, buyers of such drugs risked poisoning, and with long-term use – cancer, diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver and painful death.
Chew and lose weight
At the beginning of the twentieth century, American Horace Fletcher became famous for the invention of a very non-trivial way to lose weight. The newly minted nutritionist argued that chewing food thoroughly for a long time promoted weight loss. He developed special tables that indicated how many times a particular product should be chewed. For example, onions had to be chewed at least 700 times! Any food was chewed at least 30 times, be it meat, porridge or jelly. Fletcher himself stated that thanks to his method he was able to lose 18 kg.
The idea of chewing as a panacea for excess weight became so popular that even such celebrities as the writer Henry James and millionaire John Rockefeller adopted it. The author of this technique, in turn, was nicknamed the Great Grinder.
Many nutritionists today also consider chewing food many times a very healthy habit, because those who chew food for a long time are fed with smaller portions.
If you want to eat – smoke
The beginning of the twentieth century was rich in all sorts of tricks in attempts to lose weight. For example, in the 1920s, tobacco companies began vying to advertise their products as a way to combat obesity. It is likely that their goal was to attract women to the ranks of smokers, which they did quite successfully.
An ad for one tobacco brand said cigarettes reduced cravings for sweets and baked goods. The products were positioned as safe for health and used even by athletes.
Despite the fact that smoking can actually reduce your appetite a little, this way of losing weight is associated with the risk of developing lung cancer, emphysema and other diseases.
Pulling
All in the same 20s of the twentieth century, rubber corsets for weight loss appeared in stores. Unlike their predecessors, they did not have metal bones and were sewn not only for women, but also for men. It was assumed that in addition to the slimming effect, corsets will help reduce adipose tissue and get rid of excess weight.
However, in reality, such products only rubbed the skin and made their owners sweat intensely, while not reducing the amount of subcutaneous fat in any way.
Lose weight me
Modern beauty salons mainly do hairstyles, manicures, pedicures and facials. However, the salons of the middle of the twentieth century were very different from the current ones. In so-called diminutive salons, workers used special exercise machines and devices that promised clients weight loss and subcutaneous fat loss. Some simulators stretched the body up and down, others rolled various objects on its surface, some even beat women with a light current.
The lack of such simulators in modern practice of losing weight is due to the fact that they simply did not work. Some of them were also hazardous to health.
Scientific breakthrough
In 1954, the world’s first bariatric stomach surgery was performed to combat obesity. Unfortunately, the consequences of this intervention were diarrhea and dehydration, which forced doctors to abandon bariatrics for the next few years. In 1966, Dr. Mason from the United States noted that patients who have undergone partial gastric removal due to cancer subsequently lose weight significantly. He and his colleagues developed gastric bypass surgery, which involves connecting the stomach to the middle of the small intestine or closer to its end, which will reduce the area of absorption of nutrients and, as a result, the amount of calories from food. In 1994, bariatric surgery was first performed by the method of laparoscopy – small punctures on the body instead of a full-fledged surgical intervention, which dramatically increased the popularity of this method of combating obesity.
Bariatric surgery is indicated for patients with high body mass index and concomitant diseases associated with obesity. Bariatric treatments include gastric bypass surgery, gastroplasty, intragastric balloon placement, and other types of surgery.
You can see how this works in practice on the Obesity Center on TLC on Wednesdays at 21:00. The new show will show a year in the life of six people diagnosed with obesity, who will fight overweight in the specialized clinic “Pineta Grande” in Naples. The participants will be assisted by the surgeon Cristiano Giardello, as well as nutritionists and psychologists.