Book description
Today we are urged from all sides to slim down and shape up, to shed a
few pounds or lose life-threatening stones. The media's relentless
obsession with size may be perceived as a twenty-first-century
phenomenon, but as award-winning historian Louise Foxcroft shows, we
have been struggling with what to eat, when and how much, ever since the
Greeks and the Romans first pinched an inch. Meticulously researched,
surprising and sometimes shocking, Calories and Corsets tells the epic
story of our complicated relationship with food, the fashions and fads
of body shape, and how cultural beliefs and social norms have changed
over time. Combining research from medical journals, letters, articles
and the dieting bestsellers we continue to devour (including one by an
octogenarian Italian in the sixteenth century), Foxcroft reveals the
extreme and often absurd lengths people will go to in order to achieve
the perfect body, from eating carbolic soap to chewing every morsel
hundreds of times to a tasteless pulp. This unique and witty history
exposes the myths and anxieties that drive today's multi-billion pound
dieting industry - and offers a welcome perspective on how we can be
healthy and happy in our bodies. Today we are urged from all sides to
slim down and shape up, to shed a few pounds or lose life-threatening
stones. The media's relentless obsession with size may be perceived as a
twenty-first-century phenomenon, but as award-winning historian Louise
Foxcroft shows, we have been struggling with what to eat, when and how
much, ever since the Greeks and the Romans first pinched an inch.
Meticulously researched, surprising and sometimes shocking, Calories and
Corsets tells the epic story of our complicated relationship with food,
the fashions and fads of body shape, and how cultural beliefs and social
norms have changed over time. Combining research from medical journals,
letters, articles and the dieting bestsellers we continue to devour
(including one by an octogenarian Italian in the sixteenth century),
Foxcroft reveals the extreme and often absurd lengths people will go to
in order to achieve the perfect body, from eating carbolic soap to
chewing every morsel hundreds of times to a tasteless pulp. This unique
and witty history exposes the myths and anxieties that drive today's
multi-billion pound dieting industry - and offers a welcome perspective
on how we can be healthy and happy in our bodies.
