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The Conversation USA

The long, strange history of dieting fads

  • Written by Melissa Wdowik, Assistant Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Colorado State University
imageAnother day, another diet.Yuriy Maksymiv/Shutterstock

“Of all the parasites that affect humanity I do not know of, nor can I imagine, any more distressing than that of Obesity.”

So started William Banting‘s “Letter on Corpulence,” likely the first diet book ever published. Banting, an overweight undertaker, published...

Read more: The long, strange history of dieting fads

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