In the comfort (sort of) of their own home people were getting into rubber garments. These girdles, corsets and chinbands (for your problem jowl area) were sold through alluring before-and-after circulars showing the transformation from "slouchy" to "willowy". Their only practical effect was "to retain the perspiration on the body surface" and thus macerate the skin.

Less absurd but more dangerous were the new slimming drugs, precursors to "Alli" and such-like preparations. During the 1920s these contained desiccated thyroid extract, guaranteed to speed you up and probably give you heart disease at the very least. Or there was always arsenic, or perhaps Dinitrophenol, a derivative of benzene and a carcinogenic dying agent also used in First World War explosives. It had been noted as an industrial toxin since 1889, and was suppressed by 1938. Up to 100,000 people in America were swallowing this miracle drug for an easy route to a willowy figure. At a low dose it would increase your metabolism by 50 per cent, and you might lose between 2-3lbs a week – not a spectacularly perceptible or divine intervention. Dinitrophenol made people sweat and gave them a bad rash, some lost their sense of taste, some went blind with cataracts. A few slimmers actually died from taking other drugs, including Formula 37, Slim, and Corpu-lean.

The medical profession was horrified by the preposterous foolishness of it all. "Is there no humbug too raw to feed the fat?" asked the world's first Adult Weight Conference in New York in 1926. Dr Joseph Colt Bloodgood who had "seen over 5,000 pairs of breasts in 30 years" addressed the problem of fat armpits in modern evening frocks, but was reluctant to operate even though one needed only a little "artistic genius". His colleague, Dr Howard A Kelly, pioneered a procedure that involved removing "elliptical pieces of skin and fat from the pendulous abdomens" of women, but he knew it usually failed as a quick-fix weight-loss because they wouldn't diet or exercise as well. Still, they would, in pursuit of a fast result (and he, presumably, of a fast buck), "suffer pain and prolonged discomfort" not to mention "pay fees out of all proportion to the character of the work done". He thought they had a "mental twist" that rendered them "easy prey to any dishonest individual, in or out of the medical profession".

When I get to Paxos I'll be half a stone lighter thanks to the Ex-Ray Diet, personally put together by a special friend, tailored to my requirements, and being kept very much a secret – I don't want all of you looking more trim than me at the beachfront taverna. Oh, and those doctors did recommend the warmer southern climes, too, which encourage the "natural" behaviour of men and women, none of this feminist nonsense. The locals were indolent, insolent and thin, they ate lots of fruit and vegetables which was a good thing otherwise their passions would overcome them and the baser indulgences would bring chaos. Fat would cause civilisation to wither. Whither civilisation? Look to your crash diet – you could do worse than to eat more cereal, especially porridge for breakfast, but always remember to avoid excess animal flesh and port.

上一页  [1] [2]