 Dieting started with questionable eating advice from an English poet, evolved to incorporate chewing techniques to make you crap less, and really went off the rails with the invention of amphetamines, cigarettes, and laxatives. Hey everyone, I'm Natalie, and this is the bizarre history of dieting. And who better to start with than the first celebrity diet icon, Lord Byron. Pale, thin, and obsessed with losing weight, Byron worked hard at maintaining his image as the quintessential romantic poet. His go-to slimming tactics, wearing layers of clothes to sweat, staving off hunger by smoking cigars, and eating flattened potatoes soaked in vinegar. People ate this shit up, and young women everywhere tried to emulate him. But one thing the romantic period didn't romanticize was carbs. Nearly 200 years before Keto in 1825, a French lawyer and politician, Jean-Anton, I don't think my mouth works that way. Nearly 200 years before Keto in 1825, a French lawyer and politician, Jean-Anton-Briand-Severon, recommended the first low-carb diet, and his advice was actually pretty solid. In his popular book, Physiologie du Gou, he wrote the cause of obesity is too much starch and flour-based foods, and he recognized people should eat in moderation and exercise. Wait a second, that's actually really good advice. Then where are we still coming up with crazy diet trends today? Well, it might be because his book also included lines like, a dinner without cheese is like a pretty woman with only one eye. In the US, things were a little more uptight with a minister named Sylvester Graham, who lectured to crowds about the advantages of a vegetarian diet and the evils of alcohol. Not only was Graham basically the first wellness Instagrammer, he's also responsible for another dietary innovation, the Graham Crocker. What about these as healthy, they're literally cookies. The idea behind the Crocker and his whole diet was to help repress sexual urges. So yes, we can thank Graham for laying the foundation for s'mores, but let's not forget the whole point of these celibacy crackers. You know how grocery aisles are packed with gossip magazines filled with personal diet tips from the stars? Well, it was like that back in the 1860s too, but instead of gossip magazines, it was pamphlets. And instead of taking advice from famous people, our great-grandparents got diet tips from an undertaker. Specifically, William Banting, who wrote about how he lost 46 pounds through a protein-rich, high-fat, low-carb diet that included wine at every meal, even breakfast. His diet was so well-known, it became its own verb. Joe's drinking has really gotten out of control since he started banting, but he looks great. Wait, I know what you're thinking. All these diets seem a little too mainstream. I'm looking for something that will let me grind my food into liquified gruel while ensuring I never poop again. Well, you're in luck. Flutter, Fletcherism, the early 1900s diet promoted intense chewing. As in, chew your food at least a hundred times until it becomes a liquid and all trace of taste has disappeared. Then, spit out whatever's left. One, two. A key sign of success in this diet was a lack of bowel movements. Oh. Oh. Oh. Mmm. Mmm. That looks good. Self-bragged about going number two once every two weeks. Ugh. The turn of the century in the Industrial Revolution brought a massive shift in not only who was dieting, but how they were doing it. Before, being overweight was mostly a middle and upper-class problem, but working-class people were now moving to cities. They had a little more cash and were eating fewer fresh foods. Couple that with the arrival of semi-modern medicine and you've got the perfect recipe for the quick-fix diet fad. You can find a magazine anywhere in the U.S. in the early 1900s and you'd see ads for diet pills and drugs and some were just plain dangerous, like loaded with small amounts of arsenic dangerous. But if you didn't want to choke down dangerous pills to fit into your flapper dress, they were alternatives like cigarettes. Lucky Strikes started an ad campaign encouraging people to smoke instead of reaching for that cupcake. And if smoking wasn't your bag, you could have tried this chewing gum that's laced with laxatives. That rolls off while you chew. As the early 20th century brought a wave of scientific and industrial progress, some weight loss trends seemed downright medieval. This led to a whole mess of mechanical, vibrating contraptions that supposedly slimmed you down without you having to move at all. Then, in the 50s, diet pills made a huge comeback. They were known as Mother's Little Helpers and filled the medicine cabinets of mid-century housewives everywhere. Most of the pills were a mix of amphetamines and other questionable chemicals and some people died from using them. By 1970, 8% of all prescriptions in the U.S. were for amphetamines. But amphetamines had a few problems. What with the fact that they stopped working after a while and, you know, killing people? So companies started to get creative. Diet industry madmen brought forward a head-spinning array of pills, books, and diet systems, along with celebrity faces to market them. Since then, so many diets have been invented, it'll probably take me 10 minutes to name them all. Prepare to fast forward! The cabbage soup diet, weight watchers, the grapefruit diet. Whee-ah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah! As you've probably noticed, the bizarre history of dieting is pretty repetitive and it's sustained by two things. People who are dying to lose weight and companies that are more than willing to help them thin out. They are wallets. In fact, the weight loss industry is now worth $66 billion. So how do we break the cycle? Well, we could remember what that French lawyer said all the way back in the 1800s about eating in moderation and exercising. I mean, it sure as hell beats a diet of cigarettes, amphetamines, and laxatives. Hey guys, thank you so much for watching this video. I had a lot of fun making it. I'd love to hear your ideas for future episodes for bizarre history. Please comment below and let me know what you think. If you want to watch some other episodes we've already made, you can find them right here. And as always, don't forget to subscribe to attention on YouTube. Thank you.