Jenny Ellison - Obesity in Canada - Critical Perspectives

In 1864 Francois Dancels diet manual Obesity or Excessive Corpulence: The Various Causes and the Rational Means of Cure was translated and published by W.C. Chewett and Company in Toronto. Written for the many individuals of both sexes who are afflicted with an excessive development of fat, rendering the ordinary duties of life not only irksome but oft-times impossible, the manual offered an easy method of reducing obesity (v). Dancel claimed fatness was of

little importance, in so far as the happiness of men is concerned; but as regards the gentler sex, such is by no means the case Beauty, the richest gift of nature, deserves to be carefully guarded by those who happily possess it; corpulence [is] its enemy It is a painful sight to witness the many instances of women, who, though still of youthful years lose by degrees, in the midst of an overwhelming fat, all this relative and graceful harmony, and whose ever increasing corpulence serves only to render them ill-favoured and repulsive. (3)

Following this lengthy exposition of the risks obesity posed to women, Dancel explored the physical consequences of excessive corpulence, presumably for both sexes, which included sterility, hernia, headaches, heart problems, hysteria, varicose veins, and somnolence (7, 9, 17, 21, 30, 31, 40, 41). He then laid out his method of weight reduction: patients must eat primarily meat, with small quantities of vegetable matter. The reasoning behind this was that water fruits and vegetables have an especial tendency to develop fat. For this reason, Dancel also recommended reducers abstain from drinking large quantities of water, beer, cider, brandy or wine (65). After ten or twelve days of this treatment patients experience a feeling of freedom from oppression, and already reduction of fat has become apparent. According to Dancel, continuing this treatment for six months would result in a marked improvement of the general health (69).

Published over 150 years ago, Dancels diet advice appears laughable for its focus on meat and its suggestion to abstain from drinking water. And yet it illuminates important continuities in the public and academic conversation about obesity. For example, Dancel tends to see beauty as synonymous with slenderness and slenderness as synonymous with health, reflecting a gendered understanding of obesity. Dancels manual also illustrates how those who find excess weight problematic conflate bio-medical, social, and cultural concerns about obesity. His use of the terms obesity and fatness, for example, indicates ongoing ambivalence about the terminology used to describe those who are overweight. In his history of dieting, Hillel Schwartz argued that the range of terms for describing fatness reflects a sense of embarrassment that has blushed from language itself (1986, 89). In the twentieth century,