Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies & Fat

by Hillel Schwartz

This light-hearted historical account of dieting is devoted to explaining the cultural fit between shared fictions about the body and the reducing methods of the era.

Discussions are as follows: dieting and history; ritual and romance of dieting; men, women and fat; thin body and the Jacksonians; buoyant body (obese) in Victorian America; the balanced body at century's turn; regulated body (fasting, slow chewing of foods, calorie counting, and thyroid pills); measured body (calorie controlled) ; physiological effects of obesity and body types; dieting and marketing profits; overweight children and dieting; and a weightless body.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Food, Fat Studies, Fat, Research, Science

468 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Araminta Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book, perhaps not ironically, at lunch this afternoon. I found it intriguing--particularly coming off my recent perusal of "Diets that Time Forgot," a BBC reality-television series that followed 9 dieters as they historically-reenacted both time period and diet fads of Victorian, Edwardian, and Roaring Twenties eras. It was fantastic--hence the desire to read this book.

While I understand that dieting before industrialization was probably non-existent as food and food sources were not as easily accessible. In other words, people had less stable staples, so dieting was likely not a major concern. Coupled with a worldview of corpulence as opulence, this view of diet is partly owed to fashion, as well. At the same time, I won't deny that I was disappointed that this book only spanned about 200 years of dieting history. At least it starts off with a diet that reared its head in Maine. Comfort food, that.

I was most intrigued by the feminist lens through which Schwartz viewed dieting and its clear relationship to women's fashion. I was riveted by the story of the Bloomer costume, The Water Cure, and of course, Dr. Mitchell's Rest Cure (so familiar to me from my years of teaching Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"). Much of her lens, however, is critical of diets of our past and it is clear that she is also viewing the entire subject through another lens: that lens being an overweight person (which she announces several times in the book). At the same time, I found none of that distracting. In fact, her style is engagin and, as I'd hoped, made history fun!

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obsession with physical appearance and neurosis about food is not just a modern day phenomenon. I liked the end chapter the best when the author describes a world without fat stigma. It’s written in “acedemese” as opposed to plain English

[Amanda Opelt · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was a lot to learn from this book, but I found his style of writing a bit difficult to follow. His points were often so granular, I found it hard to understand the big picture. Nevertheless some of the anecdotes were fascinating!

[shana · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was VERY dry and very dated. There were some interesting topics (the portion about fasting, for instance), but they were few and far between.

[Nicole C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would love to read an updated version, yet still entertaining and fascinating despite its datedness.

[LowCarbConfidential · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little tough to get into at the beginning because of the anachronistic style, but it begins to pick up as you get used to it and begin to see where he is going with the work...interesting so far.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decidedly not a cookbook. I wanted it to be better, but interesting ideas and a ton of content.

[Eva · Rating 2 out of 5]

A promising topic, but wandering and hard to wade through.