August 13, 2025 • 24 mins
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--
Diet culture emerged in the 1920s, when calorie counting was invented, cigarettes were marketed as weight loss aids, and thinness became associated with moral virtue for the first time in American history.
Discover how the birth of modern diet culture 100 years ago created patterns we're still repeating today.
Main Takeaways:
- Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters invented calorie counting in 1918, selling 2+ million copies of the first diet bestseller
- Lucky Strike's "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet" campaign increased cigarette sales 300% by targeting weight-conscious women
- The moral dimension of dieting (connecting food choices to character and virtue) started in the 1920s and persists today
- Bizarre 1920s fads (grapefruit diets, tapeworm pills, vibrating belts) reveal humanity's eternal search for effortless weight loss shortcuts
- Energy balance remains the core principle, but now we understand the many other nutrition and lifestyle components that matter
- The desire for quick fixes is deeply human but misleading... sustainable success comes from embracing fundamentals
Episode Resources:
- Join Wits & Weights Physique University for $27/month - get your custom nutrition plan built for free when you use this exclusive podcast listener link: bit.ly/wwpu-free-plan
- Get Chef's Foundry P600 Ceramic Cookware - 50% off at witsandweights.com/chefsfoundry
Timestamps:
2:37 - Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters, calorie counting pioneer
6:42 - Cigarettes vs. sweets campaign
9:30 - Bizarre 1920s fads (grapefruit diet, tapeworms, and vibrating belts)
12:44 - What the 1920s got right about weight loss
15:18 - 3 major mistakes that persist today
19:17 - Why we still seek the same quick fixes 100 years later
22:21 - Sustainable fundamentals vs. magic solutions
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:02):
Keep a candy bar in your pocket and you are
committing a moral crime.
Light a cigarette instead andyou're making a smart health
choice.
That was America in 1925, whenweight loss meant counting
calories, resisting sweets andturning to tobacco companies for
nutrition advice.
Today, you're going to discoverin a very fun episode how the
(00:22):
first diet bestseller in historyrevolutionized eating by
reducing food to simple math,why cigarette companies waged
war against candy manufacturersin the name of slimness, and the
bizarre lengths people went toto lose weight from grape-only
diets to swallowing parasites.
These aren't just quirkyfootnotes from history.
(00:43):
The echoes of 1920s dietculture still shape how we think
about food, willpower and ourbodies today.
Welcome to Wits and Weights, theshow that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
(01:06):
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach and historian,
philip Pape, because today we'retraveling back to the roaring
20s this is 100 years ago tolook at the birth of modern diet
culture.
I thought this would be funbecause I'm a huge fan of
history and I wanted to see whathas stuck with us till today.
I'm a huge fan of history and Iwanted to see what has stuck
(01:26):
with us till today.
What has kind of was insaneback then.
That doesn't exist, and alsowhat practices were used that
are still used, just maybe in adifferent way.
When it comes to the fitnessindustry and marketing and diet
culture, we go back a century,to when Americans discovered
calorie counting, whencigarettes were used as diet
aids and the pursuit of thinnessfirst became fashionable and
(01:47):
even patriotic.
We're gonna look at what worked, what failed and why.
Understanding history because,as they say, those who
understand history, who do notunderstand history, are doomed
to repeat it.
Why this might save you fromrepeating the same mistakes when
we look at the context andreflect on the choices that are
great or great greatgrandparents made.
All right, before we get intothis, if you want to come into
(02:09):
the modern age and understandwhat does work for nutrition
nothing fancy, no tricks, nolose weight quick schemes I have
a guide that is really popular.
It's called Nutrition 101 forBody Composition and it tells
you how to set everything up forfat loss or muscle building.
It gets you started.
If you've never done thisbefore or you want a refresher,
you can get a free copy byclicking the link in the show
(02:30):
notes or go to whitsawaitscomslash free for the Nutrition 101
for Body Composition guide.
All right, let's get into thefun today and begin our story
way back in 1918 with Dr LuluHunt Peters, a woman who would,
unknowingly at the time, reshapehow America thinks about food.
(02:51):
Even that's stuck with us tothis day Now.
Peters was a doctor orphysician in California.
She struggled with weight herentire life.
That we can all identify with.
At her heaviest she was like220 pounds, and in the early
1900s that we can all identifywith.
At her heaviest she was like220 pounds, and in the early
1900s that was an outlier thatmade her stand out dramatically.
This is a society that was justbeginning to shift away from
(03:14):
viewing plumpness as a sign ofprosperity.
We're aware of that.
How in some cultures, eventoday, but definitely in the
past, saw being heavier as asign of wealth and prosperity.
And Peter revolutionized weightloss 100 years ago by doing
something nobody had thought ofbefore.
She took the scientific conceptof the calorie, which
researchers used at the time tostudy malnutrition and make sure
(03:38):
people got enough energy, andshe reversed the purpose Instead
of using calories to helppeople eat enough, she used them
to help people eat less.
And she wrote a book which youcan still find copies of it
online.
It's called Diet and Healthwith Key to the Calories, and it
was the first diet book to hitthe bestseller list.
We are talking about a womanwho sold over two million copies
(04:01):
at a time when there were nopodcasts, there was no social
media, there was no Amazon.
There was no social media,there was no Amazon, there was
no Barnes and Noble, it was justword of mouth, newspaper
columns, and her book stayed inthe top 10 bestsellers from 1922
to 1926.
And it was number one for twoyears straight.
Peters turned food into mathright, which that appeals to me
as an engineer, and it's a lotof what we talk about when we
(04:21):
talk about being data-driven.
Instead of saying, you know,eat one slice of bread, she'd
say, eat 100 calories of bread.
She created formulas tocalculate what she called ideal
weight and daily calorie needs,where women could eat whatever
they wanted as long as theystayed within their calorie
budget.
So what does that sound like?
It sounds like if it fits yourmacros, doesn't it?
And I don't mean that as acriticism either.
It's more of okay, interesting,different way to think about it
(04:44):
.
Rather than quantities of food,it's energy levels of food in
terms of calories, and that'sstill what we do today.
When we talk about trackingyour food with an app like
Macrofactor, right, you're justmeasuring the calories and
macros.
So Peter's literally inventedcalorie tracking as a weight
loss strategy and, just liketoday, it worked because it
created awareness andaccountability around the thing
(05:05):
that matters when it comes togaining and losing weight, and
that's energy balance, and we'regoing to add nuance to this.
And why?
That's not the only thing, ofcourse, before you get your
hackles raised too much, juststick with me.
So Peters was.
She was teaching nutrition, butshe was also selling what you
might call a moral philosophybecause of how she framed
(05:27):
dieting.
She said it was a patrioticduty, and this was during World
War I.
She said that hoarding food inyour body was as unpatriotic as
hoarding food in your pantry andconnected thinness to
self-control, to modernity, tovirtue, where being overweight
wasn't just unhealthy, it wasmorally suspect.
Okay, and that's the part wecan question and that is stuck
(05:50):
with us to today.
The moral dimension of dieting,the idea that what you eat
reflects your character, startedat that time.
So that is the big black markthat we're going to come back to
in this episode.
You know there's good and badright, somebody who can do a
great thing and also set us upfor failure for years to come.
So at the time that she wasteaching the country to count
(06:13):
calories, we have the tobaccoindustry.
Okay, and the tobacco industrywas all about marketing.
They saw opportunity in the 20sbecause the beauty standards
were changing.
You had the flapper look Go,google it Like the roaring 20s,
the flappers.
That flapper look, having aboyish figure was more
fashionable for women.
Women were looking for moreways to stay thin.
(06:35):
It was all part of a newdieting culture.
It was not something thatstarted in the 80s.
This started in the 1920s.
So we have George WashingtonHill, president of the American
Tobacco Company, and he ownedLucky Strike Cigarettes, very
famous brand.
Back then.
In 1925, he launched what wouldbecome one of the most
successful and controversial adcampaigns in history.
(06:56):
Quote reach for a lucky insteadof a sweet, reach for a lucky
instead.
We're talking about cigarettes,guys.
And so there wasn't subtlemarketing.
It was like they werepositioning cigarettes as a diet
aid.
Their ads had slim, elegantwomen.
They promised that smokingwould help you avoid the
temptation of fattening sweets.
(07:17):
So it's kind of like a, a habitswab, if you will like, instead
of a sweet, you can have thiscigarette in your mouth.
They hired celebrities forendorsements.
They claimed that somethinglike over 20,000 physicians
endorsed their cigarettes asless irritating to the throat.
Right, we know later on thingslike menthol and all these
positive associations with this.
This wonderful cigarette camealong in the marketing, but it
(07:37):
was really successful becausetheir sales skyrocketed by.
I think they like tripled inone year because of this
campaign.
They went from 14 billioncigarettes in 1925 to 40 billion
in 1930 and became the numberone cigarette brand because of
this focus on being slim.
And then so then we have anotherhealth health segment the
(07:59):
confectionery industry, thecandy industry right, so
cigarettes and candy, right, theNational Confectioners
Association.
They threatened legal action,arguing that candy was part of a
balanced diet and that LuckyStrike was spreading dangerous
misinformation.
So look, we even had socialmedia wars back then.
Before social media, we hadcandy manufacturers arguing for
(08:21):
nutritional balance and you hadtobacco companies promoting
cigarettes as health aids.
And it sounds so absurd todayif it weren't so harmful and
long-lasting in the history ofthis country.
So eventually, the Federal TradeCommission, the FTC, they
stepped in.
They forced Lucky Strike totone down their marketing and by
1930, their ads had disclaimersthat said they didn't claim
(08:45):
smoking would reduce weight orflesh or whatever, but that,
rather than reaching for acigarette instead of
overindulging would helpmaintain a quote modern,
graceful form.
Lucky Strike had at that pointsuccessfully associated
cigarettes with weight controlin the mind of the public and
anybody who's older than maybe ateenager, and probably, if
(09:08):
you're a teenager, you're awareof the association between
smoking and being thin.
It's been around for a longtime and the percentage of women
smokers in America jumped from6% in 1924 to over 15% by 1929,
right, that's millions of newwomen smokers, probably most of
them motivated by concerns abouttheir weight.
So you see how this is allcoming together.
(09:30):
So while Peters was teachingcalorie counting and Lucky
Strike was pushing cigarettes,the overall diet industry was
getting really creative withtheir marketing in a way that,
like modern influencers, wouldprobably admire, I'll just say,
to put it cynically.
So I'll give you an example thegrapefruit diet.
It was also known as theHollywood diet or the 18 day
(09:53):
diet.
It emerged in the thirties.
It had its root, I guess, inthe late twenties, but emerged
in the thirties.
It required eating a wholegrapefruit with every meal and
the theory was that grapefruitcontained special enzymes that
could burn fat.
But what ended up happening ispeople would have a very low
calorie diet of like five to 800calories per day of just eating
(10:13):
a grapefruit as a meal.
Right, that was one diet.
There was another one calledthat involved tapeworm pills.
This is crazy.
Advertisements at the timepromoted pills containing
tapeworm eggs, gross.
The idea was that you wouldswallow the pill, the tapeworm
would hatch in your intestinesand then it would eat some of
(10:33):
your food.
For you.
I hope I didn't lose you withhow disgusting that is.
You didn't even have to haveportion control.
You didn't have to have Ozempic, just eat a tapeworm egg and
let the parasites do the work.
So historians that are lookingback at this in my research they
debate whether the pills evencontain tapeworms.
Maybe they were just a scam,but the point is people were
(10:54):
willing to intentionally ingest,you know, tapeworm eggs and
infest themselves with parasitesjust to lose weight.
And then you had all themechanical solutions that we
laugh about.
You had salons that were calledreducing salons that popped up
and they had vibrating belts.
They had the electrical musclestimulation.
They had wooden barrelmassagers.
All of them promised to shakethat fat right off your body.
(11:17):
Women would pay to be strappedinto a contraption that would
jiggle them into slimness, allright.
So when we look back from themodern perspective, what did the
20s get right?
Because I think it's importantto kind of look at both sides.
Hey, this is Philip, and beforewe continue, I want to talk
about cookware.
We all love to make our ownfood.
(11:37):
I love nonstick pans.
The problem is I've avoidedthem for years because when they
get scratched, when they getheated, they can release
microplastics, pfas smallparticles that can accumulate
over time in the body and somestudies have shown them to be
linked to health issues.
If you're optimizing yournutrition and making lots of
food for you and your family athome, it doesn't make sense to
(11:58):
compromise that withquestionable cookware.
So that's why I was interestedwhen Chef's Foundry, who is
sponsoring this episode, showedme their questionable cookware.
So that's why I was interestedwhen Chef's Foundry, who is
sponsoring this episode, showedme their ceramic cookware.
It's called the P600 and usesSwiss-engineered ceramic coating
which has no Teflon, no PFAS,no plastic components.
It is nonstick, it works on allstovetops, it goes straight
(12:20):
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Right now you can get the P600at 50% off by going to
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You'll also get a bunch ofaccessories with that.
There's a whole page thatexplains what you'll get for
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Go to witsandweightscom slashchefs foundry or click the link
(12:41):
in the show notes.
All right, let's get back tothe show.
So we go back to Peters, whocreated the book.
Her core insight about energybalance that was obviously
important.
That was spot on.
Calories in versus calories outis still the fundamental
principle of managing weight.
And her emphasis on tracking,on awareness that was actually
pretty revolutionary at the timeand it's still the foundation
(13:01):
of a dieting or a food awarenessapproach today.
When it comes to tracking, somewould argue that there's many
other ways to do it and it comesdown to psychology and this and
that, but it's an importantfoundational concept.
She also understood somethingmany people today forget and
that is you have to makesustainable changes you can live
with long term.
Because she didn't ban foodgroups, she didn't require you
(13:24):
to do anything exotic with yourrecipes.
She had a very practical andflexible approach.
So those are good things rightNow.
What about all the things theygot wrong?
Because that's pretty muchwhere it ends.
First is the what I callreductionist approach to
nutrition, where you're onlyfocusing on calories right,
peter's, only focused oncalories and you're not thinking
about food quality and nutrientdensity and adequate vitamins
(13:46):
and minerals, where you couldtechnically follow such a plan
and eat nothing but junk food,just like the podcast I just did
, the all junk food diet versusclean eating right, it's that
same thought.
And you could eat nothing butcandy and you could quote
unquote lose weight.
But you're gonna have a lot ofother problems, right?
And the same mistake shows uptoday with the misnamed if it
(14:09):
fits your macros approaches.
And so I want to say it thatway, because if it fits your
macros itself has beenbastardized to mean not what it
was originally intended, but wethink of it often as just
ignoring food quality eatingwhatever you want as long as it
fits your macros, right.
But we know that nutritionquality matters for your health,
for your satiety and for thesustainability of your diet.
So that's the first one.
Is that reductionist approach.
(14:30):
The second problem from backthen that sticks with us today
is moralizing food choices,because they turned eating into
a moral issue at the time, tyingit to the war, where thin
represented virtue andself-control, where overweight
represented weakness and lack ofcharacter.
And we still see that today.
Right, not just themoralization of food I've talked
(14:52):
that to death in other episodesand even the idea of cheat
meals, but the idea that it'sabout willpower and discipline
and that you are failing ifyou're not able to do this.
The third thing is that thewillingness to embrace dangerous
quick fixes right, thecigarette, the tapeworm examples
.
I know they're extreme, butthey were happening, especially
(15:15):
the cigarettes.
You know that mindset is stillwith us today.
The belief that there must be ahack, a shortcut, a secret that
makes weight loss effortless.
Right, we see that in detoxteas, fat-burning supplements,
extreme elimination diets.
The products change over theyears, but the underlying
promise is the same that you canbypass the fundamentals of
energy balance because that'snot going to work for you, right
(15:35):
?
No, no, no, that's not going towork for you.
No, I don't need to change mybehavior, I just need the right
product, the right shortcut.
So what we're really looking athere is the birth of diet
culture as we know it today,before this decade we're talking
about before the 20s beingplump, being bigger, being full.
It was often seen as desirable,it was a sign of health and
(15:57):
prosperity, and it was the 1920sthat created the modern
association we still havebetween thinness and virtue,
health, social status.
And it happened for a fewreasons.
The first I already mentionedthe flapper fashion that
required that boyish, slenderfigure.
World War I normalizedrestriction and rationing, and
so it became easier to framefood limitation as a noble thing
(16:20):
.
You had the rise of mass mediaand advertising.
That created new ways to sellproducts by making people
dissatisfied with their bodieswhat we would call today a pain
point.
And, probably most importantly,the 20s marked the moment when
weight became seen as somethingcompletely under individual
control, this calorie countingthat Peters came up with.
(16:41):
It suggested if you had enoughknowledge and willpower, you
could achieve any body size youwanted.
And although this was kind ofrevolutionary, it was also
problematic, as we see today,because it places the entire
burden of weight management onindividual choices, ignoring all
the things that affect thosechoices, like genetics, hormones
(17:02):
, environment, dozens of otherfactors that influence your
metabolism and ultimately, yes,calorie balance and your body
weight.
But they might have upstreamcauses that then affect your,
let's say, ability to make thosechoices.
So we're still dealing withthose consequences of the mental
shift today.
When someone is struggling withtheir weight, right, we assume
(17:24):
they're not trying hard enoughor they don't have enough
information, rather thanrecognizing this complex
interplay of factors involved.
I mean, consider just geneticsalone, brain-related genes and
appetite, and how powerful thatcan be when combined with the
modern food environment.
So all of these bizarre methods, all of these dangerous
products, you know, we can lookat them from afar and say, oh,
that's insane.
(17:44):
What were they thinking?
But the challenge that peoplefaced back then was the same one
we face today.
Right, we are still humanbeings and we still want to
balance enjoying food and socialeating with maintaining a
healthy body weight in anenvironment that makes it very,
very easy to overconsume.
And that's why I think it goesbeyond just energy balance.
Energy balance is thedownstream effect of many, many
(18:07):
upstream causes.
Calorie counting does work, ortracking, I should say tracking
your food works because itcreates awareness and it creates
structure.
The cigarette ads weresuccessful because they offered
an alternative to food-basedpleasure.
The weird fad diets providedclear rules and a sense of
control.
Right, and so none of thesewere perfect solutions.
(18:29):
They were attempts to solve aproblem that industrialization
and food abundance had created,that never existed before.
And so what's different todayright now, in this moment, in
2025, is we have the scientificknowledge to do this well, to do
this much better.
We understand protein's role indo this much better.
We understand protein's role insatiety and muscle.
We know strength trainingincreases your metabolic
(18:51):
capacity, resilience and health.
We understand the importance ofsleep and stress management,
having a healthy relationshipwith food, how important that is
, as well as sustainability.
But somehow we are still drawnto the same types of solutions
that our great-grandparents fellfor.
We still look for the magicfood, the secret supplement, the
perfect workout that's going tomake everything effortless.
(19:12):
So the 1920s do teach ussomething important.
That's why I made this episode.
The desire for quick fixes andsimple solutions is deeply human
, but also deeply misleading,because when you succeed, it's
because you embrace fundamentalsand principles that make it
sustainable long-term, so thatyou can keep doing the thing
(19:34):
long past getting someintermediate result.
Peters, going back to again theauthor, she succeeded not
because of a magic solution, butbecause she created a system
for managing energy balance.
It was a good start from thatperspective, not from the other
stuff she did regardingmoralizing the food and
moralizing being skinny, thepeople who fell for the
(19:55):
cigarette ads and the tapewormpills.
They were looking for the quickfix instead of doing the work.
And again, I'm not saying anyone of these is 100%.
One way or the other.
There's little bits and pieceswe can take from history.
There's lots of it we throwaway, and what's left, we see
how it holds up through thescientific method and through
experimentation.
So today we still have thesemagic pills.
(20:17):
It might be intermittentfasting or keto or a carnivore
diet or whatever new detox orother trend that promises to
make weight managementeffortless.
Obviously, we have now theweight loss medications, which I
hesitate to put that exactly inthe same category, even though
the, let's say, certain type ofperson that might be seeking it
out to avoid doing the lifestylechanges might fall under this
(20:39):
category, as opposed to someonewho's like you know what I want
to do both.
I understand the value of both,and one is a tool and one is a
system I need to put in place.
Either way, the underlyingappeal is the same that there's
a shortcut around thefundamental work of building
healthy habits.
Not that, not that you have tohave willpower and make certain
choices necessarily, but just wehave to find a way to make it
(21:00):
so that you can make thosechoices, if that makes sense.
So the problem is, what worksis not exciting, it's not
exciting.
I try to make it exciting onthe show, maybe you know, and
once you get the result yourealize how exciting it is.
But we're talking nutrientquality, protein training.
You know psychological aspectsof behavior change, sleep
management, stress, all that funstuff, and it actually works.
Those work right.
(21:20):
You don't need tapeworms, thankGod, and those things work All
right.
So as we wrap up this journeythrough history, through 1920s
diet culture, just think aboutthe lens of history and how
every generation thinks it hasdiscovered the secret, the
secret to easy weight loss.
Right, the specifics alwayschange, the methods change.
The fundamentals are the same.
That's what doesn't change DrLulu Hunt-Peters, who wrote the
(21:43):
book.
She got it right when shefocused on energy balance and
practical tracking.
She got it way wrong when sheignored food quality and turned
eating into a moral issue.
The tobacco industry, I think,got it all wrong.
Right, promoting cigarettes asa health aid.
But they understood humanpsychology.
People want alternatives torestriction.
It's just they provided areally awful alternative.
(22:05):
The fad diet promoters, whostill exist to this day.
They always get it wrongbecause it's dangerous, it's a
quick fix which has othernegative side effects.
But they also recognize peopledo want something simple and
clear to understand.
They don't want something toocomplex and confusing.
So that's where we come to fullcircle, here to wits and weights
, where we have the knowledge todo better.
(22:26):
Right, we can sure we can countcalories when it's helpful, but
we don't have to becomeobsessive.
We can improve our bodycomposition through strength
training instead of somesupplement or whatever.
We can create sustainablehabits, all of that stuff.
But we can also simplify it atthe same time and cut through
there and give you the clarityof what to do next.
Right, the goal is never to beperfect.
(22:47):
It's never to find the one truething or the one true diet.
It's to build a sustainablenutrition approach and training
approach that supports you, yourhealth, your physique goals and
, of course, your quality oflife.
So if you want to learn how todo that very clearly, to
accelerate the results not aquick fix, but to accelerate
efficiently how to go on thatjourney I'd love to help you in
(23:09):
Wits and Weights PhysiqueUniversity.
That is not a quick fix program,I'm sorry to say.
It is not a magic solution.
It is not even a secret.
Everything we do in there istalked about on this show.
We just help apply it to youspecifically to get it done and
do it efficiently and get theresult.
For just $27 a month you willget what amounts to personalized
, individualized nutritionplanning, training, adjustments,
(23:32):
live coaching, communityaccountability all of that stuff
to take a nutrition plan andexecute it and get the feedback
as you get stuck along the way.
And if you join now, using theexclusive link in the show notes
, I'm going to build your customnutrition plan for free.
That's normally an add-on, butI want to make it easier for you
to get started and even furtheraccelerate the process to doing
(23:53):
what works.
Go to the link in the shownotes it's a special link in the
show notes and join PhysiqueUniversity.
Let's build something togetherthat is sustainable for you.
Let's stop chasing all thetrends so that you can finally
have the result and make it last.
All right, until next time.
Keep using your wits, liftingthose weights and remember the
best diet.
Secrets aren't secrets at all.
(24:15):
They are just fundamentalsapplied consistently over time.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights Podcast
.
You
Keep a candy bar in your pocket and you are
committing a moral crime.
Light a cigarette instead andyou're making a smart health
choice.
That was America in 1925, whenweight loss meant counting
calories, resisting sweets andturning to tobacco companies for
nutrition advice.
Today, you're going to discoverin a very fun episode how the
(00:22):
first diet bestseller in historyrevolutionized eating by
reducing food to simple math,why cigarette companies waged
war against candy manufacturersin the name of slimness, and the
bizarre lengths people went toto lose weight from grape-only
diets to swallowing parasites.
These aren't just quirkyfootnotes from history.
(00:43):
The echoes of 1920s dietculture still shape how we think
about food, willpower and ourbodies today.
Welcome to Wits and Weights, theshow that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
(01:06):
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach and historian,
philip Pape, because today we'retraveling back to the roaring
20s this is 100 years ago tolook at the birth of modern diet
culture.
I thought this would be funbecause I'm a huge fan of
history and I wanted to see whathas stuck with us till today.
I'm a huge fan of history and Iwanted to see what has stuck
(01:26):
with us till today.
What has kind of was insaneback then.
That doesn't exist, and alsowhat practices were used that
are still used, just maybe in adifferent way.
When it comes to the fitnessindustry and marketing and diet
culture, we go back a century,to when Americans discovered
calorie counting, whencigarettes were used as diet
aids and the pursuit of thinnessfirst became fashionable and
(01:47):
even patriotic.
We're gonna look at what worked, what failed and why.
Understanding history because,as they say, those who
understand history, who do notunderstand history, are doomed
to repeat it.
Why this might save you fromrepeating the same mistakes when
we look at the context andreflect on the choices that are
great or great greatgrandparents made.
All right, before we get intothis, if you want to come into
(02:09):
the modern age and understandwhat does work for nutrition
nothing fancy, no tricks, nolose weight quick schemes I have
a guide that is really popular.
It's called Nutrition 101 forBody Composition and it tells
you how to set everything up forfat loss or muscle building.
It gets you started.
If you've never done thisbefore or you want a refresher,
you can get a free copy byclicking the link in the show
(02:30):
notes or go to whitsawaitscomslash free for the Nutrition 101
for Body Composition guide.
All right, let's get into thefun today and begin our story
way back in 1918 with Dr LuluHunt Peters, a woman who would,
unknowingly at the time, reshapehow America thinks about food.
(02:51):
Even that's stuck with us tothis day Now.
Peters was a doctor orphysician in California.
She struggled with weight herentire life.
That we can all identify with.
At her heaviest she was like220 pounds, and in the early
1900s that we can all identifywith.
At her heaviest she was like220 pounds, and in the early
1900s that was an outlier thatmade her stand out dramatically.
This is a society that was justbeginning to shift away from
(03:14):
viewing plumpness as a sign ofprosperity.
We're aware of that.
How in some cultures, eventoday, but definitely in the
past, saw being heavier as asign of wealth and prosperity.
And Peter revolutionized weightloss 100 years ago by doing
something nobody had thought ofbefore.
She took the scientific conceptof the calorie, which
researchers used at the time tostudy malnutrition and make sure
(03:38):
people got enough energy, andshe reversed the purpose Instead
of using calories to helppeople eat enough, she used them
to help people eat less.
And she wrote a book which youcan still find copies of it
online.
It's called Diet and Healthwith Key to the Calories, and it
was the first diet book to hitthe bestseller list.
We are talking about a womanwho sold over two million copies
(04:01):
at a time when there were nopodcasts, there was no social
media, there was no Amazon.
There was no social media,there was no Amazon, there was
no Barnes and Noble, it was justword of mouth, newspaper
columns, and her book stayed inthe top 10 bestsellers from 1922
to 1926.
And it was number one for twoyears straight.
Peters turned food into mathright, which that appeals to me
as an engineer, and it's a lotof what we talk about when we
(04:21):
talk about being data-driven.
Instead of saying, you know,eat one slice of bread, she'd
say, eat 100 calories of bread.
She created formulas tocalculate what she called ideal
weight and daily calorie needs,where women could eat whatever
they wanted as long as theystayed within their calorie
budget.
So what does that sound like?
It sounds like if it fits yourmacros, doesn't it?
And I don't mean that as acriticism either.
It's more of okay, interesting,different way to think about it
(04:44):
.
Rather than quantities of food,it's energy levels of food in
terms of calories, and that'sstill what we do today.
When we talk about trackingyour food with an app like
Macrofactor, right, you're justmeasuring the calories and
macros.
So Peter's literally inventedcalorie tracking as a weight
loss strategy and, just liketoday, it worked because it
created awareness andaccountability around the thing
(05:05):
that matters when it comes togaining and losing weight, and
that's energy balance, and we'regoing to add nuance to this.
And why?
That's not the only thing, ofcourse, before you get your
hackles raised too much, juststick with me.
So Peters was.
She was teaching nutrition, butshe was also selling what you
might call a moral philosophybecause of how she framed
(05:27):
dieting.
She said it was a patrioticduty, and this was during World
War I.
She said that hoarding food inyour body was as unpatriotic as
hoarding food in your pantry andconnected thinness to
self-control, to modernity, tovirtue, where being overweight
wasn't just unhealthy, it wasmorally suspect.
Okay, and that's the part wecan question and that is stuck
(05:50):
with us to today.
The moral dimension of dieting,the idea that what you eat
reflects your character, startedat that time.
So that is the big black markthat we're going to come back to
in this episode.
You know there's good and badright, somebody who can do a
great thing and also set us upfor failure for years to come.
So at the time that she wasteaching the country to count
(06:13):
calories, we have the tobaccoindustry.
Okay, and the tobacco industrywas all about marketing.
They saw opportunity in the 20sbecause the beauty standards
were changing.
You had the flapper look Go,google it Like the roaring 20s,
the flappers.
That flapper look, having aboyish figure was more
fashionable for women.
Women were looking for moreways to stay thin.
(06:35):
It was all part of a newdieting culture.
It was not something thatstarted in the 80s.
This started in the 1920s.
So we have George WashingtonHill, president of the American
Tobacco Company, and he ownedLucky Strike Cigarettes, very
famous brand.
Back then.
In 1925, he launched what wouldbecome one of the most
successful and controversial adcampaigns in history.
(06:56):
Quote reach for a lucky insteadof a sweet, reach for a lucky
instead.
We're talking about cigarettes,guys.
And so there wasn't subtlemarketing.
It was like they werepositioning cigarettes as a diet
aid.
Their ads had slim, elegantwomen.
They promised that smokingwould help you avoid the
temptation of fattening sweets.
(07:17):
So it's kind of like a, a habitswab, if you will like, instead
of a sweet, you can have thiscigarette in your mouth.
They hired celebrities forendorsements.
They claimed that somethinglike over 20,000 physicians
endorsed their cigarettes asless irritating to the throat.
Right, we know later on thingslike menthol and all these
positive associations with this.
This wonderful cigarette camealong in the marketing, but it
(07:37):
was really successful becausetheir sales skyrocketed by.
I think they like tripled inone year because of this
campaign.
They went from 14 billioncigarettes in 1925 to 40 billion
in 1930 and became the numberone cigarette brand because of
this focus on being slim.
And then so then we have anotherhealth health segment the
(07:59):
confectionery industry, thecandy industry right, so
cigarettes and candy, right, theNational Confectioners
Association.
They threatened legal action,arguing that candy was part of a
balanced diet and that LuckyStrike was spreading dangerous
misinformation.
So look, we even had socialmedia wars back then.
Before social media, we hadcandy manufacturers arguing for
(08:21):
nutritional balance and you hadtobacco companies promoting
cigarettes as health aids.
And it sounds so absurd todayif it weren't so harmful and
long-lasting in the history ofthis country.
So eventually, the Federal TradeCommission, the FTC, they
stepped in.
They forced Lucky Strike totone down their marketing and by
1930, their ads had disclaimersthat said they didn't claim
(08:45):
smoking would reduce weight orflesh or whatever, but that,
rather than reaching for acigarette instead of
overindulging would helpmaintain a quote modern,
graceful form.
Lucky Strike had at that pointsuccessfully associated
cigarettes with weight controlin the mind of the public and
anybody who's older than maybe ateenager, and probably, if
(09:08):
you're a teenager, you're awareof the association between
smoking and being thin.
It's been around for a longtime and the percentage of women
smokers in America jumped from6% in 1924 to over 15% by 1929,
right, that's millions of newwomen smokers, probably most of
them motivated by concerns abouttheir weight.
So you see how this is allcoming together.
(09:30):
So while Peters was teachingcalorie counting and Lucky
Strike was pushing cigarettes,the overall diet industry was
getting really creative withtheir marketing in a way that,
like modern influencers, wouldprobably admire, I'll just say,
to put it cynically.
So I'll give you an example thegrapefruit diet.
It was also known as theHollywood diet or the 18 day
(09:53):
diet.
It emerged in the thirties.
It had its root, I guess, inthe late twenties, but emerged
in the thirties.
It required eating a wholegrapefruit with every meal and
the theory was that grapefruitcontained special enzymes that
could burn fat.
But what ended up happening ispeople would have a very low
calorie diet of like five to 800calories per day of just eating
(10:13):
a grapefruit as a meal.
Right, that was one diet.
There was another one calledthat involved tapeworm pills.
This is crazy.
Advertisements at the timepromoted pills containing
tapeworm eggs, gross.
The idea was that you wouldswallow the pill, the tapeworm
would hatch in your intestinesand then it would eat some of
(10:33):
your food.
For you.
I hope I didn't lose you withhow disgusting that is.
You didn't even have to haveportion control.
You didn't have to have Ozempic, just eat a tapeworm egg and
let the parasites do the work.
So historians that are lookingback at this in my research they
debate whether the pills evencontain tapeworms.
Maybe they were just a scam,but the point is people were
(10:54):
willing to intentionally ingest,you know, tapeworm eggs and
infest themselves with parasitesjust to lose weight.
And then you had all themechanical solutions that we
laugh about.
You had salons that were calledreducing salons that popped up
and they had vibrating belts.
They had the electrical musclestimulation.
They had wooden barrelmassagers.
All of them promised to shakethat fat right off your body.
(11:17):
Women would pay to be strappedinto a contraption that would
jiggle them into slimness, allright.
So when we look back from themodern perspective, what did the
20s get right?
Because I think it's importantto kind of look at both sides.
Hey, this is Philip, and beforewe continue, I want to talk
about cookware.
We all love to make our ownfood.
(11:37):
I love nonstick pans.
The problem is I've avoidedthem for years because when they
get scratched, when they getheated, they can release
microplastics, pfas smallparticles that can accumulate
over time in the body and somestudies have shown them to be
linked to health issues.
If you're optimizing yournutrition and making lots of
food for you and your family athome, it doesn't make sense to
(11:58):
compromise that withquestionable cookware.
So that's why I was interestedwhen Chef's Foundry, who is
sponsoring this episode, showedme their questionable cookware.
So that's why I was interestedwhen Chef's Foundry, who is
sponsoring this episode, showedme their ceramic cookware.
It's called the P600 and usesSwiss-engineered ceramic coating
which has no Teflon, no PFAS,no plastic components.
It is nonstick, it works on allstovetops, it goes straight
(12:20):
into the oven All the things youneed if you're trying to cook a
lot of your meals at home.
Right now you can get the P600at 50% off by going to
witsandweightscom slash chefsfoundry.
You'll also get a bunch ofaccessories with that.
There's a whole page thatexplains what you'll get for
that discounted 50% off.
Go to witsandweightscom slashchefs foundry or click the link
(12:41):
in the show notes.
All right, let's get back tothe show.
So we go back to Peters, whocreated the book.
Her core insight about energybalance that was obviously
important.
That was spot on.
Calories in versus calories outis still the fundamental
principle of managing weight.
And her emphasis on tracking,on awareness that was actually
pretty revolutionary at the timeand it's still the foundation
(13:01):
of a dieting or a food awarenessapproach today.
When it comes to tracking, somewould argue that there's many
other ways to do it and it comesdown to psychology and this and
that, but it's an importantfoundational concept.
She also understood somethingmany people today forget and
that is you have to makesustainable changes you can live
with long term.
Because she didn't ban foodgroups, she didn't require you
(13:24):
to do anything exotic with yourrecipes.
She had a very practical andflexible approach.
So those are good things rightNow.
What about all the things theygot wrong?
Because that's pretty muchwhere it ends.
First is the what I callreductionist approach to
nutrition, where you're onlyfocusing on calories right,
peter's, only focused oncalories and you're not thinking
about food quality and nutrientdensity and adequate vitamins
(13:46):
and minerals, where you couldtechnically follow such a plan
and eat nothing but junk food,just like the podcast I just did
, the all junk food diet versusclean eating right, it's that
same thought.
And you could eat nothing butcandy and you could quote
unquote lose weight.
But you're gonna have a lot ofother problems, right?
And the same mistake shows uptoday with the misnamed if it
(14:09):
fits your macros approaches.
And so I want to say it thatway, because if it fits your
macros itself has beenbastardized to mean not what it
was originally intended, but wethink of it often as just
ignoring food quality eatingwhatever you want as long as it
fits your macros, right.
But we know that nutritionquality matters for your health,
for your satiety and for thesustainability of your diet.
So that's the first one.
Is that reductionist approach.
(14:30):
The second problem from backthen that sticks with us today
is moralizing food choices,because they turned eating into
a moral issue at the time, tyingit to the war, where thin
represented virtue andself-control, where overweight
represented weakness and lack ofcharacter.
And we still see that today.
Right, not just themoralization of food I've talked
(14:52):
that to death in other episodesand even the idea of cheat
meals, but the idea that it'sabout willpower and discipline
and that you are failing ifyou're not able to do this.
The third thing is that thewillingness to embrace dangerous
quick fixes right, thecigarette, the tapeworm examples
.
I know they're extreme, butthey were happening, especially
(15:15):
the cigarettes.
You know that mindset is stillwith us today.
The belief that there must be ahack, a shortcut, a secret that
makes weight loss effortless.
Right, we see that in detoxteas, fat-burning supplements,
extreme elimination diets.
The products change over theyears, but the underlying
promise is the same that you canbypass the fundamentals of
energy balance because that'snot going to work for you, right
(15:35):
?
No, no, no, that's not going towork for you.
No, I don't need to change mybehavior, I just need the right
product, the right shortcut.
So what we're really looking athere is the birth of diet
culture as we know it today,before this decade we're talking
about before the 20s beingplump, being bigger, being full.
It was often seen as desirable,it was a sign of health and
(15:57):
prosperity, and it was the 1920sthat created the modern
association we still havebetween thinness and virtue,
health, social status.
And it happened for a fewreasons.
The first I already mentionedthe flapper fashion that
required that boyish, slenderfigure.
World War I normalizedrestriction and rationing, and
so it became easier to framefood limitation as a noble thing
(16:20):
.
You had the rise of mass mediaand advertising.
That created new ways to sellproducts by making people
dissatisfied with their bodieswhat we would call today a pain
point.
And, probably most importantly,the 20s marked the moment when
weight became seen as somethingcompletely under individual
control, this calorie countingthat Peters came up with.
(16:41):
It suggested if you had enoughknowledge and willpower, you
could achieve any body size youwanted.
And although this was kind ofrevolutionary, it was also
problematic, as we see today,because it places the entire
burden of weight management onindividual choices, ignoring all
the things that affect thosechoices, like genetics, hormones
(17:02):
, environment, dozens of otherfactors that influence your
metabolism and ultimately, yes,calorie balance and your body
weight.
But they might have upstreamcauses that then affect your,
let's say, ability to make thosechoices.
So we're still dealing withthose consequences of the mental
shift today.
When someone is struggling withtheir weight, right, we assume
(17:24):
they're not trying hard enoughor they don't have enough
information, rather thanrecognizing this complex
interplay of factors involved.
I mean, consider just geneticsalone, brain-related genes and
appetite, and how powerful thatcan be when combined with the
modern food environment.
So all of these bizarre methods, all of these dangerous
products, you know, we can lookat them from afar and say, oh,
that's insane.
(17:44):
What were they thinking?
But the challenge that peoplefaced back then was the same one
we face today.
Right, we are still humanbeings and we still want to
balance enjoying food and socialeating with maintaining a
healthy body weight in anenvironment that makes it very,
very easy to overconsume.
And that's why I think it goesbeyond just energy balance.
Energy balance is thedownstream effect of many, many
(18:07):
upstream causes.
Calorie counting does work, ortracking, I should say tracking
your food works because itcreates awareness and it creates
structure.
The cigarette ads weresuccessful because they offered
an alternative to food-basedpleasure.
The weird fad diets providedclear rules and a sense of
control.
Right, and so none of thesewere perfect solutions.
(18:29):
They were attempts to solve aproblem that industrialization
and food abundance had created,that never existed before.
And so what's different todayright now, in this moment, in
2025, is we have the scientificknowledge to do this well, to do
this much better.
We understand protein's role indo this much better.
We understand protein's role insatiety and muscle.
We know strength trainingincreases your metabolic
(18:51):
capacity, resilience and health.
We understand the importance ofsleep and stress management,
having a healthy relationshipwith food, how important that is
, as well as sustainability.
But somehow we are still drawnto the same types of solutions
that our great-grandparents fellfor.
We still look for the magicfood, the secret supplement, the
perfect workout that's going tomake everything effortless.
(19:12):
So the 1920s do teach ussomething important.
That's why I made this episode.
The desire for quick fixes andsimple solutions is deeply human
, but also deeply misleading,because when you succeed, it's
because you embrace fundamentalsand principles that make it
sustainable long-term, so thatyou can keep doing the thing
(19:34):
long past getting someintermediate result.
Peters, going back to again theauthor, she succeeded not
because of a magic solution, butbecause she created a system
for managing energy balance.
It was a good start from thatperspective, not from the other
stuff she did regardingmoralizing the food and
moralizing being skinny, thepeople who fell for the
(19:55):
cigarette ads and the tapewormpills.
They were looking for the quickfix instead of doing the work.
And again, I'm not saying anyone of these is 100%.
One way or the other.
There's little bits and pieceswe can take from history.
There's lots of it we throwaway, and what's left, we see
how it holds up through thescientific method and through
experimentation.
So today we still have thesemagic pills.
(20:17):
It might be intermittentfasting or keto or a carnivore
diet or whatever new detox orother trend that promises to
make weight managementeffortless.
Obviously, we have now theweight loss medications, which I
hesitate to put that exactly inthe same category, even though
the, let's say, certain type ofperson that might be seeking it
out to avoid doing the lifestylechanges might fall under this
(20:39):
category, as opposed to someonewho's like you know what I want
to do both.
I understand the value of both,and one is a tool and one is a
system I need to put in place.
Either way, the underlyingappeal is the same that there's
a shortcut around thefundamental work of building
healthy habits.
Not that, not that you have tohave willpower and make certain
choices necessarily, but just wehave to find a way to make it
(21:00):
so that you can make thosechoices, if that makes sense.
So the problem is, what worksis not exciting, it's not
exciting.
I try to make it exciting onthe show, maybe you know, and
once you get the result yourealize how exciting it is.
But we're talking nutrientquality, protein training.
You know psychological aspectsof behavior change, sleep
management, stress, all that funstuff, and it actually works.
Those work right.
(21:20):
You don't need tapeworms, thankGod, and those things work All
right.
So as we wrap up this journeythrough history, through 1920s
diet culture, just think aboutthe lens of history and how
every generation thinks it hasdiscovered the secret, the
secret to easy weight loss.
Right, the specifics alwayschange, the methods change.
The fundamentals are the same.
That's what doesn't change DrLulu Hunt-Peters, who wrote the
(21:43):
book.
She got it right when shefocused on energy balance and
practical tracking.
She got it way wrong when sheignored food quality and turned
eating into a moral issue.
The tobacco industry, I think,got it all wrong.
Right, promoting cigarettes asa health aid.
But they understood humanpsychology.
People want alternatives torestriction.
It's just they provided areally awful alternative.
(22:05):
The fad diet promoters, whostill exist to this day.
They always get it wrongbecause it's dangerous, it's a
quick fix which has othernegative side effects.
But they also recognize peopledo want something simple and
clear to understand.
They don't want something toocomplex and confusing.
So that's where we come to fullcircle, here to wits and weights
, where we have the knowledge todo better.
(22:26):
Right, we can sure we can countcalories when it's helpful, but
we don't have to becomeobsessive.
We can improve our bodycomposition through strength
training instead of somesupplement or whatever.
We can create sustainablehabits, all of that stuff.
But we can also simplify it atthe same time and cut through
there and give you the clarityof what to do next.
Right, the goal is never to beperfect.
(22:47):
It's never to find the one truething or the one true diet.
It's to build a sustainablenutrition approach and training
approach that supports you, yourhealth, your physique goals and
, of course, your quality oflife.
So if you want to learn how todo that very clearly, to
accelerate the results not aquick fix, but to accelerate
efficiently how to go on thatjourney I'd love to help you in
(23:09):
Wits and Weights PhysiqueUniversity.
That is not a quick fix program,I'm sorry to say.
It is not a magic solution.
It is not even a secret.
Everything we do in there istalked about on this show.
We just help apply it to youspecifically to get it done and
do it efficiently and get theresult.
For just $27 a month you willget what amounts to personalized
, individualized nutritionplanning, training, adjustments,
(23:32):
live coaching, communityaccountability all of that stuff
to take a nutrition plan andexecute it and get the feedback
as you get stuck along the way.
And if you join now, using theexclusive link in the show notes
, I'm going to build your customnutrition plan for free.
That's normally an add-on, butI want to make it easier for you
to get started and even furtheraccelerate the process to doing
(23:53):
what works.
Go to the link in the shownotes it's a special link in the
show notes and join PhysiqueUniversity.
Let's build something togetherthat is sustainable for you.
Let's stop chasing all thetrends so that you can finally
have the result and make it last.
All right, until next time.
Keep using your wits, liftingthose weights and remember the
best diet.
Secrets aren't secrets at all.
(24:15):
They are just fundamentalsapplied consistently over time.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights Podcast
.
You
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