Who scientifically planned and prescribed diet for slimming?
The first SCIENTIFICALLY PLANNED SLIMMING DIET was prescribed for a grossly overweight London undertaker called William Banting by Dr Harvey, an ear specialist, in 1862. The Banting diet, later enshrined in the verb ‘to bant’, was based on the reduction of carbohydrates, and was thus the precursor of most of the weight-reducing systems in use today. In Banting’s case, it meant that the undertaker was obliged to forgo pastry, potatoes, pies and all sweet stuffs and restrict himself to lean meat, fish and fruit.
His new regime consisted of the following, Breakfast-4 oz lean meat, fish or bacon; 1 oz toast, Dinner—`A little more meat’, vegetables (no potatoes); fruit; 1 oz toast, Tea—Tea without milk; a rusk; fruit, and, Supper–4 oz meat or fish.
Within a year Banting had decreased his 203 lb bulk to a svelte 153 lb, and was encouraging others to follow his example in his ‘Letter on Corpulence’. At first dieting tended to be a male preoccupation, but became a fashionable activity among women when they ceased to distort their figures with corsets and stays after 1914.
