London, early 19th century. The English poet Lord Byron decided to follow the vinegar diet to get a slim, pale and sickly look, so fashionable among the romantic.

Louise Foxcroft, a professor of medical history at the University of Cambridge at Calories & Corsets (2012), says that men started dieting in ancient times – the word “diet” comes from Greek – but then the goal of diets was to favor mental and physical health. In the 19th century the aesthetic objective was imposed and the miracle diets to lose the pounds with the least effort and as quickly as possible multiplied as mushrooms. Lord Byron's diet consisted of drinking vinegar every day and eating vinegar soaked foods. His goal was to clean the body and clean it well; the main side effects of the diet were vomiting and diarrhea. And yet, we can't go into the list of the most damaging diets of the time.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, tapeworm began to be used for thinning (many years later there was a rumor that the well-known soprano María Callas used this method, but there is no evidence of it). They took the worm eggs in pills. The growth of the worm in the intestine would begin to absorb food, which, of course, would lead to weight loss as well as other collateral damage such as diarrhea, meningitis, vision problems, epilepsy, dementia... Remember that tapeworms can be up to nine meters in length. It is true that once it has thinned enough, the dietitian could be cured with antiparasitic medicines, but the expulsion of the snake could cause complications in the digestive system.

The arsenic diet was simpler, but not healthier. It consisted of taking as many arsenic as possible, avoiding lethal doses. In addition, the cherophile “dietitians” of the time often did not tell their clients that their magic remedies had arsenic and, therefore, those who had a great obsession with losing weight had a high risk of poisoning themselves.

Thinning rubber was also used, but fortunately the toxic material was not eaten. In the mid-19th century, Charles Goodyear, through the process of vulcanization, greatly improved the properties of the rubber and the use of the material extended a lot. They started making rubber corsets and underpants, which in addition to exerting pressure, increased sweat, but also skin infections.

In the early 20th century, American Horace Fletcher decided that a good way to lose the pounds was to chew the food a lot and then throw it in the mouth. By crushing the food in the mouth, the body would absorb the food it needed and pulling the rest would help to avoid getting fat. Today it is known that chewing well is healthy. But according to Fletcher, the onion, for example, had to chew about 700 times. Therefore, the secret of his diet was not so secret: eating little.