It's January. We all ate too much over the holidays and the gym is full of New Year's Resolution members (most of whom won't be there two months later). So it seems like the perfect time to discuss the perils of celebrity yo-yo dieters, and warn against the dangers of letting them influence how we treat our bodies.
The popular media thrives on stories of celebrities, male and female, who are too fat, or too thin, possibly anorexic, or have mental health problems associated with their weight. We suck them up, we judge, and yet we try to emulate them.
An Age-Old Problem
This isn't new. A new book by historian Louise Foxcroft, Calories and Corsets, documents 200 years of faddy dieting, and declares poet Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) to be the first 'celebrity dieter'. He was culturally hugely influential, and there was widespread concern that his extreme dieting would lead to ill-health among fashionable, impressionable Victorians.
Byron's Eating Habits
The UK NHS states that a healthy weight for a man of Byron's height (174cm/ 65.5 inches) is between 9 and 12st/ 57.2 and 76.2kg. When he was 18 Lord Byron weighed 88kg/13st 12lb. He was already self-conscious about his appearance thanks to the club foot he was born with, and became so obsessed with being thin that he adopted a dangerous diet whilst studying at Cambridge University.
He alternated between surviving on biscuits, potatoes in vinegar and soda water, cracking every so often and bingeing on enormous meals. He wore many layers of clothes in an attempt to sweat the pounds off, and was obsessed with weighing himself.
According to records at famous London wine bar Berry Bros and Rudd, he was one of a number of fashionable males who used the owners' scales. In 1811 he had shrunk to an unhealthily thin 57kg (just under 9st).
Following a number of scandals Byron left England for Italy in 1816. He is reported, while living there, to have breakfasted on bread and water; eaten vegetables, more water and a dash of wine for dinner; and drunk a cup of unsweetened green tea for his evening meal. Not the most substantial of diets, and he had eaten himself into poor health within a few years.
Women
Fear of Byron's influence was well-founded. He had 'disciples' who, he claimed, were indirectly responsible for the semi-starvation diets of young society women, though there can be little doubt his assertion that women should eat only lobster salad and champagne in front of others was also partially to blame.
Lessons learned?
Byron died of fever aged only 36 - a result of how he mistreated his body? Certainly we shouldn't be looking at his diet and thinking it's a good, nutritious one, and most of us would scoff at the idea of half-starving ourselves to follow a celebrity. But the wealth of information we have access to now, whether through diet books, through Internet forums or through following celebrities' diet regimes, means we are susceptible to all kinds of strongly-endorsed fads and fashions, some of which will be as dangerous as Byron's.
Sources
The Express and Star (www.expressandstar.com)
The Guardian newspaper (www.guardian.co.uk)
The NHS (www.nhs.uk)
The BBC (www.bbc.co.uk)
Jennie Gillions - Jennie Gillions has a History and Archaeology degree. She is a published writer with particular interests in art, history and mental ...
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