🥄 From drinking vinegar to swallowing worm eggs 😳—people have tried wild things in the name of weight loss. Some even believed eating cotton or sleeping through hunger would do the trick. Spoiler: most of these bizarre fads did more harm than good. Curious what other diets once trended? Full story in the article 👇
When trying to lose weight, people often turn to all sorts of strange methods. Wanting fast results, many end up using extreme diets, pills, or different kinds of “cleansing” routines. It’s interesting to note that this obsession with the perfect body isn’t new—people in the past also tried unusual ways to slim down, and we’ve gathered a few of them here.
Hundreds of years ago, ideas about health and the body were very different. In the Middle Ages, people lived much shorter lives. War, disease, and hunger meant that the population was shrinking. That’s why, in old paintings, we often see women with fuller bodies—at that time, curves were seen as a sign of good health and wealth.
Also, during the time of alchemists and the Inquisition, people trusted spiritual beliefs more than logic. A great example is the diet of Charles the Conqueror. His meals were packed with meat, while fruits and vegetables were mostly just used for decoration. Since he was a strong and successful knight who ruled much of western Europe, others wanted to eat like him.
This way of eating eventually led to recipes filled with large amounts of different meats. Just one meal could contain more calories than a hard-working laborer would burn in a day. Over time, this heavy eating caused gout to become known as a disease of the rich.
Other strange diets included “healing” plans based on sugar or vinegar. One of the most famous fans of vinegar was the poet Lord Byron. He drank a few spoonfuls every day and even poured it over his food. His slim figure, though, had more to do with his active lifestyle and very limited meals. Still, many people of that time followed his example, hoping vinegar would help them lose weight.
A more recent example is the banana diet, which showed up about a hundred years ago. It suggested eating lots of bananas along with cream. Later, it was revealed that the diet was created by a banana exporting company.
In the years that followed, many other slimming methods were based more on guesses and strange ideas than real science. Some people were told to chew food for a long time but not swallow it—just spit it out. Others were told to sleep through hunger, swallow live fish, eat cotton balls, or take pills that contained worm eggs. A few of these ideas seemed to work at first, but they usually led to health problems and, in some cases, mental stress.
These days, thanks to modern medicine, we understand that weight loss is all about balancing the calories you eat with how much you move. Doctors and nutrition experts now warn people to stay away from harsh and risky diets. But even today, some are still willing to put their health in danger just to get the “perfect” body.
