Lulu Hunt Peters

Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters (1873-1930) was born and raised in California. She attended the University of California and graduated in 1909 as a Doctor of Medicine. Having grown up a hefty child and once weighing over 200 lbs, she was always extremely wary of the problems weight presented to her. A few years after graduating, Dr. Hunt wrote a featured newspaper column entitled Diet and Health for the Central Press Association, which supplied content for about 400 newspapers nationwide. In 1918, her diet book Diet & Health: With Key to the Calories, named after her column, sold 2 million copies and presented the concept of cutting back calories as the best form of weight loss/watching weight to American women, who were wanting to conform to the newfound body image “this is in”. Along with presenting a solution for American women, this method, according to Dr. Hunt Peters, was an active form of patriotism (during World War I). She also suggested that dieting meant having complete self-control and recommended that women organize Watch Your Weight Anti-Kaiser Classes to obtain it. Dr. Hunt Peter followed her own advice/health regimens and accredited them, along with her regular attendance at women’s suffragist rallies, for her health, and self-sufficiency, until she died of Pneumonia in the June of 1930.

Diet and Health: With Key to the Calories

Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters' book Diet and Health: With Key to the Calories^[1] was extremely popular because most people found it witty and entertaining, so it remained on the non-fiction bestseller lists from 1922 to 1926. In the book, Dr. Hunt introduced a few new exercise routines and the concept of a calorie to American Women so thoroughly that her book even provides instruction on the words pronunciation. She preaches that women can eat whatever they want as long as a strict diet of 1,200 calories a day in maintained, in order to keep the ideal weight that her system suggests (similar to BMI). She explains in her book that "hereafter you are going to eat calories of food. Instead of saying one slice of bread, or a piece of pie, you will say 100 calories of bread, 350 calories of pie" and shows women how to loose weight with a formula. She captivated her readers by letting them know that she knew the shame in being fat (having once weighed 200 lbs), and the sacrifice that dieting entailed, first hand. In order to be thin, women must resist temptations, which she explains with several biblical references. Her book simply spread the notion that counting calories was the solution to the message that the fashion industry (Vogue, Chanel, etc.) was implying: being fat was no longer in style, through the design of their clothing. The book was written with the mindset that all women wanted to loose weight, because being thin, to her, was an issue of self-esteem. According to Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters, who lost 50-70 lbs with her diet regimen, dieting meant being beautiful, and being in total control of the self, so she saw people who did not have control over their weight as morally distraught. She also mentions other reasons, beyond self-improvement, that made her diet even more appealing. For instance, she says that women who count their calories will be able to leave the left over rations for children during the war. Because during World War I rations were a regular part of life her diet would make it all the more easier. She stated, “that for every pang of hunger we feel we can have a double joy, that of knowing we are saving worse pangs in some little children, and that of knowing that for every pang we feel we loose a pound.” The diet would also help out deter food shortages; women would be showing patriotism and improving themselves at the same time.

After Her Book

Shortly after her book was published, Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters traveled to Bosnia where she served with the Red Cross. When she was through volunteering, she returned to the United States and was pleasantly surprised to learn that she was a best selling author. Upon arriving she published a later edition describing her life after the book. Her book has remained in circulation, despite her death in 1930.

References

1. ^ Peters, Dr. Lulu (1918). Diet and Health: With Key to the Calories. Baltimore: Reilly and Lee. ISBN 1148386610. 

External links

• "1922: Counting Calories". (History of Diets, Part 6).Men's Fitness Mar. 2003: 28. Gale Group: Health & Wellness Center
• Women's America: Refocusing the Past. Seventh ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2011.
• "Lulu Hunt Peters and the Birth of the Modern Diet Book". Calorie Counter (CalorieLab). Calorie Lab Inc.
• "Top 10 Fat-busting Diets". Channel 4.
• Works by Lulu Hunt Peters at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Lulu Hunt Peters in libraries (WorldCat catalog)