Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 articles
    • Obituary notices
  • Authors & Reviewers
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
    • Patient engagement
  • Physicians & Subscribers
    • Benefits for Canadian physicians
    • CPD Credits for CMA Members
    • Subscribe to CMAJ digital
    • Subscribe to CMAJ print
    • Subscription prices
    • Obituary notices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2023
    • Avis de décès
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN

User menu

Search

  • Advanced search
CMAJ
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN
CMAJ

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 articles
    • Obituary notices
  • Authors & Reviewers
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
    • Patient engagement
  • Physicians & Subscribers
    • Benefits for Canadian physicians
    • CPD Credits for CMA Members
    • Subscribe to CMAJ digital
    • Subscribe to CMAJ print
    • Subscription prices
    • Obituary notices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2023
    • Avis de décès
  • Visit CMAJ on Facebook
  • Follow CMAJ on Twitter
  • Follow CMAJ on Instagram
  • Listen to CMAJ podcasts
Humanities

From plunger to Punkt-roller: a century of weight-loss quackery

Yoni Freedhoff
CMAJ February 17, 2009 180 (4) 432-433; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.090061
Yoni Freedhoff MD
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Tables
  • Related Content
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

“People trust the quack with their lives who would not trust him with the loan of a sixpence. They seem to believe advertised testimonials as if they were guaranteed by a prominent physician, forgetting that many obscure prints can be got to write any falsehoods and back up any quackery under the sun. These lying testimonials are paraded in papers that ought to know better than to insert them, and the public believe in their statements as if they were scientific truths.”1 — Dr. Nathaniel Edward Yorke-Davies, 1901

From I Love Lucy–style body jigglers, to heated “slenderizing” jeans and tens of thousands of fad diets, weight-loss quackery has dominated this past century's snake-oil market. While the marketing of hope will always have its victims, with some of these products it is truly difficult to understand the mentality of the buyer. Did people in the late 1800s really find hand-drawn before-and-after testimonial pictures to be compelling? Was there really a large German market for the turn of the century's Punkt-roller, the suction-cupped rolling pin? Were there armies of jiggling bodies in basements hoping their weight would bounce away?

Figure
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

This selection of the author's mechanical “weight-loss” devices includes, in the foreground, the Punkt-roller from Germany, the Knead-Away (left), which was billed by Sears Roebuck as “the scientific way to remove fat,” and the “Redusaway” (right), which when plugged in vibrates and ironically blows hot air. Image by: Roger Collier

Sadly, the answer to all of those questions is a resounding “yes”; preying on the vulnerabilities often associated with obesity has shown itself to be a lucrative business.

Unfortunately, it was not only unscrupulous business people preying on the vulnerable, sometimes it was medical doctors. Take for example Dr. Thomas Lawton. In his 1917 book, The Lawton Method of Weight Reduction, he reports, “I have reduced the weight of thousands of other people and can do it for you. Get that firmly in your mind — you are going to be brought to a normal, comfortable and vigorously healthy weight.”2 What was his method? Believe it or not it involved using what looks like a toilet plunger to “dissolve” fatty tissue.

Figure
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

Ironically, this “Relax-a-cizor” relied on electric shocks for treatment of obesity. More than 400 000 units were sold between 1949 and 1970 when sales were stopped by the United States Food and Drug Administration, which found that the device purportedly led to spontaneous abortions. Image by: Roger Collier

Fad diets are not new either. In Dr. C. Stanford Read's 1909 book, Fads and Feeding, he soundly bashes a popular diet of the day, the “Salisbury diet,” which apparently involved consuming large quantities of rump-steak, cod-fish and hot water. Read's own recommendations seem similarly suspect. They included living by the seaside, having a, “tumblerful” of hot water half an hour before breakfast and avoiding soups at dinner while of course minimizing everything that tastes good.3

Figure
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

This device, which was sold in the early 1930s, was not only marketed for weight loss, it apparently also treated constipation, atherosclerosis, rheumatism, neuritis, insomnia and wrinkles, of course. Image by: Roger Collier

Unfortunately, even today it seems that the possession of a medical degree does not automatically guarantee that the holder possesses ethics, morals or a respect for the scientific method (see page 367). While it may be fair to explain the turn-of-the-century doctors' recommendations as being the products of a belief-based, rather than our current evidence-based focus to medicine, what of our modern day Lawtons with their financially driven weight-loss plans and products?

So while you view some of my collection of memorabilia bear in mind that there is no shortage of weight-loss collectibles in today's marketplace and, as always, the adage, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” holds true today as much as ever.

Figure
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

Visit any drugstore and you'll find that there is no shortage of magic pills for obesity, but that's nothing new. Of this grouping of products from the past, the only one that “worked” was Obese Factor — yes, amphetamines do cause weight loss. Ayds, a brand name that wouldn't resonate very well these days, was marketed by glamorous Hollywood movie stars throughout the early 1970s. Image by: Roger Collier

Figure
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

Photo by: Roger Collier

Footnotes

  • Online extras. Additional images of historic weight-loss products and a podcast of a weight-loss record are posted online at www.cmaj.ca. The recording is from the set of 11 records (right), purchased by Miss Esther N. Horn of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, in 1922, which was marketed as a means to treat, “undue fleshiness” without “under-nourishment” through dance and calisthenics.

REFERENCES

  1. 1.↵
    Yorke-Davies NE. Foods for the fat. London: Chatto & Windus; 1901.
  2. 2.↵
    Lawton T. The Lawton method of weight reduction. New York: Stein, Berlau & Creange Press; 1917.
  3. 3.↵
    Stanford Read C. Fads and feeding. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company; 1909.
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

Canadian Medical Association Journal: 180 (4)
CMAJ
Vol. 180, Issue 4
17 Feb 2009
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author

Article tools

Respond to this article
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
To sign up for email alerts or to access your current email alerts, enter your email address below:
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on CMAJ.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
From plunger to Punkt-roller: a century of weight-loss quackery
(Your Name) has sent you a message from CMAJ
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the CMAJ web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
From plunger to Punkt-roller: a century of weight-loss quackery
Yoni Freedhoff
CMAJ Feb 2009, 180 (4) 432-433; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.090061

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
‍ Request Permissions
Share
From plunger to Punkt-roller: a century of weight-loss quackery
Yoni Freedhoff
CMAJ Feb 2009, 180 (4) 432-433; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.090061
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Footnotes
    • REFERENCES
  • Figures & Tables
  • Related Content
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF

Related Articles

  • “Lose 40 pounds in 4 weeks”: Regulating commercial weight-loss programs
  • PubMed
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • <<Perdre 20 kilos en 4 semaines>> : la reglementation des programmes commerciaux d'amaigrissement s'impose
  • "Lose 40 pounds in 4 weeks": Regulating commercial weight-loss programs
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • The end
  • The need to respect a person’s identity: experiences of a transgender man
  • Your project was cute
Show more Humanities

Similar Articles

Collections

  • Topics
    • History of medicine
    • Obesity

 

View Latest Classified Ads

Content

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Collections
  • Sections
  • Blog
  • Podcasts
  • Alerts
  • RSS
  • Early releases

Information for

  • Advertisers
  • Authors
  • Reviewers
  • CMA Members
  • CPD credits
  • Media
  • Reprint requests
  • Subscribers

About

  • General Information
  • Journal staff
  • Editorial Board
  • Advisory Panels
  • Governance Council
  • Journal Oversight
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Copyright and Permissions
CMAJ Group

Copyright 2023, CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved. ISSN 1488-2329 (e) 0820-3946 (p)

All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association or its subsidiaries.

To receive any of these resources in an accessible format, please contact us at CMAJ Group, 500-1410 Blair Towers Place, Ottawa ON, K1J 9B9; p: 1-888-855-2555; e: [email protected]

CMA Civility, Accessibility, Privacy

 

Powered by HighWire