Article ID: CBB000774475

How the Ideology of Low Fat Conquered America (2008)

unapi

This article examines how faith in science led physicians and patients to embrace the low-fat diet for heart disease prevention and weight loss. Scientific studies dating from the late 1940s showed a correlation between high-fat diets and high-cholesterol levels, suggesting that a low-fat diet might prevent heart disease in high-risk patients. By the 1960s, the low-fat diet began to be touted not just for high-risk heart patients, but as good for the whole nation. After 1980, the low-fat approach became an overarching ideology, promoted by physicians, the federal government, the food industry, and the popular health media. Many Americans subscribed to the ideology of low fat, even though there was no clear evidence that it prevented heart disease or promoted weight loss. Ironically, in the same decades that the low-fat approach assumed ideological status, Americans in the aggregate were getting fatter, leading to what many called an obesity epidemic. Nevertheless, the low-fat ideology had such a hold on Americans that skeptics were dismissed. Only recently has evidence of a paradigm shift begun to surface, first with the challenge of the low-carbohydrate diet and then, with a more moderate approach, reflecting recent scientific knowledge about fats.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000774475/

Similar Citations

Article Parr, Jessica M.; (2014)
Obesity and the Emergence of Mutual Aid Groups for Weight Loss in the Post-War United States (/isis/citation/CBB001550974/)

Book Christopher E. Forth; (2019)
Fat: A Cultural History of the Stuff of Life (/isis/citation/CBB439415836/)

Thesis Levine, Deborah I.; (2008)
Managing American Bodies: Diet, Nutrition, and Obesity in America, 1840--1920 (/isis/citation/CBB001561378/)

Book Nicolas Rasmussen; (2019)
Fat in the Fifties (/isis/citation/CBB964187680/)

Book Karen Throsby; (2023)
Sugar rush: Science, politics and the demonisation of fatness (/isis/citation/CBB539001735/)

Article Stolberg, Michael; (2012)
“Abhorreas Pinguedinem”: Fat and Obesity in Early Modern Medicine (c. 1500--1750) (/isis/citation/CBB001221620/)

Book Sabrina Strings; (2019)
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (/isis/citation/CBB280233988/)

Book Segrave, Kerry; (2008)
Obesity in America, 1850--1939: A History of Social Attitudes and Treatment (/isis/citation/CBB000951770/)

Article Offer, Avner; (2001)
Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain since the 1950s (/isis/citation/CBB000770462/)

Book Biltekoff, Charlotte; (2013)
Eating Right in America: The Cultural Politics of Food and Health (/isis/citation/CBB001452069/)

Book Foxcroft, Louise; (2012)
Calories and Corsets: A History of Dieting over 2000 Years (/isis/citation/CBB001200874/)

Article Alexandre-Bidon, Danièle; (2012)
Enflures et boursouflures. L'obésité au Moyen Âge (/isis/citation/CBB001420812/)

Book Wendy Mitchinson; (2018)
Fighting Fat: Canada, 1920-1980 (/isis/citation/CBB163094871/)

Book Dawes, Laura; (2014)
Childhood Obesity in America: Biography of an Epidemic (/isis/citation/CBB001510031/)

Authors & Contributors
Rasmussen, Nicolas
Parr, Jessica M.
Karen Throsby
Strings, Sabrina
Charissa S. L. Cheah
Nan Zhou
Concepts
Weight management
Obesity
Nutrition; dietetics
Public health
Health
Human body
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century
19th century
20th century, early
Early modern
Medieval
Places
United States
Great Britain
Americas
China
Canada
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment