Dieting

“On the whole, however, a medicalization model does not work well in explaining the initial stages of the campaign against fat and doctors’ growing involvement in it. Rather, it applies to the intensification of efforts from 1920 onward (Stearns, 44). . . . doctors moved into the diet area somewhat hesitantly; with some individual exceptions, they lagged a full decade behind fashion standards. Nor is there much evidence that health arguments really spurred the initial diet campaign. . . . Doctors themselves, in touting the new wisdom about thinness and beauty, picked up at least as much from the general culture as they contributed to it during the transition years in medical discussions between 1895 and 1920” (45).