Dieting practices of women in the 1950s & '40s?

[K.D. Lightner]

In regards to weight and voluptuousness, we have done a 180-degree turn in society. At the turn of the 20th century, if you were heavy and pale, it is because you had enough food to eat and had the leisure to carry a sun umbrella, nor did you have to work outside. If you were slim and brown, you were poor.

Past the mid-century, if you were heavy and pale, it is because you ate cheap foods (carbohydrates) and had to work long hours in a factory with no time for leisure; if you were slim and brown, you had money to eat lean meat, fancy salads and fish, got to spas, and sun in the Riveria.

Please know that, until after the war, most people did not eat snacks. My mother does not ever remember eating out, let alone eating junk food. I once saw a 1932 photo taken of an entire student body in a small town in Iowa -- about 300 kids, plus teachers, janitors, etc. There was one fat person in the whole picture -- a boy. You could look at him and see there was something wrong hormonally.

Women were allowed up until the 60's to be voluptuous -- I have a middle-aged friend who was slender in high school -- kids called her Olive Oil. She hated being slim, was shy and an outcast. She has since gotten her revenge. I also have a friend who attended high school in the late 90's, she was 5'10" and weighed about 105 pounds. She was a popular cheerleader. (Although she said when someone got mad at her, she was called, not Olive Oil, but an "anorexic b**ch." So some things never change).

karol

 

[Mrs. Foss]

Vintage Diets

In Hollywood there was a diet and fitness guru names Madame Sylvia who looked after many of the stars, such as Gloria Swanson, Joan Crawford, and Carole Lombard. I picture it a lot like the scene at the beginning of The Women. For gals like Joan Crawford and Carole Lombard who arrived in Hollywood on the chubby side, she prescribed nothing but steak and vegetables until they had each lost about 20lbs. Early low card diets. She also prescribed an hour of vigorous massage a day to pretty much beat their fat into submission.

I have a book from the 50's called Lilly Dache's Glamour Book that has lots diet and exercise advise. Lots of stretching, fruit for breakfast, and a broiled chop and veggies for dinner. There's even a chart with the ideal measurements for your height. Margery Wilson has similar advise in the 40's. Some of my older cookbooks have chapters of reducing diets, too.

I have a Charm magazine from '46, right before the end of the war. It talks about making sure that you eat healthy and don't skip breakfast because the boys overseas want to come home to a strong, bright eyed, pink cheeked healthy girl - not a girl who looks like she'll be blown over by a puff of wind.

Most of the advice that I've seen has been pretty reasonable and still stands up pretty well. One that I wonder about is the DuBarry Success Course, which is advertised in a lot of my older magazines and seems to be a weight loss plan. I don't know what they were peddling.

~Mrs. Foss

 

[mysterygal]

No matter thin or volumptious, women are their best when they feel good about themselves. It kind of gets me mad at how the media tries to push 'the perfect body' it's hard on kids. With watching my mother-in-law and my husband try all these different kinds of diets, I observed that nothing really works until you change your actual eating habits.

 

[AllaboutEve]

Oh and let's not forget the changes in domestic chores....women during the 40's and 50's did a lot more hard physical work than we do now. There were virtually no mod cons. my grandmother (and mother to a certain extent) did most of their washing by hand, all their own baking etc.
I also think the lack of a refridgerator forced women to go shopping for food on a daily basis (more exercise) along with having to plan decent healthy meals.
I think that there has been a huge cultural swing with regards to eating habits over the last 30 years, it seems more and more acceptable to be eating all the time rather than just at meal times.
Like K.D.Lightner says snack/fast food didn't really exist, especially in Britain so people didn't really have the chance to pile on the pounds.
Hollywood was a law unto itself then (as it probably still is ) I can easily believe the demands placed on Miss Crawford and Miss Lombard, I think the stars then were under pressure to look good as part of their contract.

 

[MissAmelina]

Just giving this a bump since I stumbled upon something cool.

I found this article about Marilyn's regime from an old Pageant magazine and downloaded the pictures from the web:

 

[December]

My Grandma was very slim in the 50s and has said it was all down to rationing. Even when it stopped, they weren't used to eating a lot so kept meal sizes down. She ate a lot of home-grown vegetables and didn't have a car so walked everywhere.

She never smoked as it cost too much and she was saving for a pair of green shoes apparantly!

As for the hourglass shape, it's perfectly possible to have a slim waist with ample hips and chest. I have a 10" difference between my hips/chest (which are the same size) and waist. My waist is the thing that fits fine with vintage clothing- my hips and bust are the problems! lol

 

[Miss Vixen]

I loved reading everyones responses. My grandma said the rationing kept them slim and also smoking and all the calories a lady would burn up during the day with all the household chores. I just got a stack of 1946-1956 Ladies home journals and some Romance magazines from 1945 and they have a special *diet table* lol that they were pushing for a easy *workout* while trying to reduce. I love the old magazines, the ads crack me up!

 

[Blondie]

 

[December]

Wow Blondie! She did a fantastic job!

Do you know who she is and how she did it?

 

[Blondie]

No, i don't know who she is, a friend emailed me the pics after we were talking about diets. Whatever she did it worked !!!

 

[MissAmelina]

Oh my gosh.....I am so doing this tomorrow morning, just for the heck of it.

http://www.jacklalanne.com/tv.html

 

[zendy]

Me too! Ha ha does he have a skull and crossbones belt buckle on that sweet workout onesie? lol

 

[Shirin]

Ibm not sure if this has to do with controlling weight, maybe I'm reading too much into it., but my 1941 Saturday Evening Post has about eight or nine ads for Laxatives. One was for Kellogs All Bran, use it to keep things running smooth. Again, I'm not sure if they were, at that time, used to control weight or if there was really a need for laxatives from lack of fiber maybe?

 

[MissAmelina]

Me too! Ha ha does he have a skull and crossbones belt buckle on that sweet workout onesie? lol

He just said "TRIMNASTICS!!" and I love his ballet shoes.

 

[miserabelle]

Housework is an amazing workout.
So... I'm finding out, is owning a small dog x

 

[dhermann1]

I read somewhere that the average American consumes 125 lbs of sugar a year, whether consciously or not. Our foods are drenched with sugar, from cereals to soft drinks to all sorts of other stuff that you would never suspect. 75 years ago I believe the average consumption was about 1/4th that or less. Sugar is the poison of the American diet!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ibm not sure if this has to do with controlling weight, maybe I'm reading too much into it., but my 1941 Saturday Evening Post has about eight or nine ads for Laxatives. One was for Kellogs All Bran, use it to keep things running smooth. Again, I'm not sure if they were, at that time, used to control weight or if there was really a need for laxatives from lack of fiber maybe?

Exactly right. The dominant diet was heavy on meat and potatoes, with soggy canned vegetables on the side, and "roughage" was becoming less and less common in everyday meals. There was a fad in the early thirties for lettuce-and-carrot based meals as a reaction to this, but nonbelievers sneered at this as "rabbit food," and it didn't catch on with the general public.

Another thing you'll notice from vintage ads is that the ads for products like Ironized Yeast, which promised to help you *gain* weight very much outnumbered ads for weight-loss products -- a direct result of widespread malnutrition during the Depression years.

Weight loss pills did exist though -- and most of them were unsafe. A product called "Marmola" was widely used during the thirties, until the FDA took it off the market in 1935. It was made from bovine thyroid extract, and had a tendency to cause fatal heart failure if too much was taken.

 

[MissAmelina]

I read somewhere that the average American consumes 125 lbs of sugar a year, whether consciously or not. Our foods are drenched with sugar, from cereals to soft drinks to all sorts of other stuff that you would never suspect. 75 years ago I believe the average consumption was about 1/4th that or less. Sugar is the poison of the American diet!

That's right! Sad isn't it? I am reading' "Sugar Blues" by William Dufty, which outlines this theory. He was also Gloria Swanson's last husband.

She was a HUGE supporter of the whole foods/natural foods movement. Her health gurus were Dr. Harold Bieler and Gaylord Hauser. She believed sugar was evil, and she was a real health nut. If you see footage of her before her death, you can tell that *something* was working. She looked alot better than the other 80-somethings from her day---and did not have any plastic surgery (with the exception of tiny cysts removed from her eyes). I am also reading her autobiography---I am in part II, and she is just beginning to discuss all this. It is having a real effect on me.

P.S. Also reading (i always have at least four books going at once! hehe) "Hollywood Dish" which is a natural foods cookbook that discusses alot of Golden Age stars and their healthfood kicks.

 

[Shirin]

I read somewhere that the average American consumes 125 lbs of sugar a year, whether consciously or not. Our foods are drenched with sugar, from cereals to soft drinks to all sorts of other stuff that you would never suspect. 75 years ago I believe the average consumption was about 1/4th that or less. Sugar is the poison of the American diet!

This is so true. I've been cutting way back on sugar these days. Last year I stopped putting sugar in my coffee, now I take it with just milk, and I actually like it better this way. A huge success for me! Also, I stopped eating chocolate 2 months ago (with the exception of 2 May birthday cake slices) and my skin cleared up! I didn't have zits up until I had some chocolate balls last week with my son, then I got 2 literally overnight. So back to no chocolate for me. I also don't eat those sugary cereals, and have to keep reminding my husband NOT to bring them home because we eat eggs and toast in the morning. So now theres unopen boxes of kids cereals on the shelf. I don't have the heart to throw them out, but we won't eat them. Donate maybe? One thing I wish they wouldn't add sugar in is orange juice-I hate that!

 

[Inky]

Queens of Vintage just had an article about war time rationing helping the waistline

http://www.queensofvintage.com/would-a-wartime-diet-help-our-waistlines