History Of Dietetics

Proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle are inseparable. The food we consume ensures constant renewal, development of body cells and tissues, and is a source of energy. Food products are sources of substances from which hormones, enzymes and other regulators of metabolic processes are synthesized. Metabolism completely depends on the nature of food . The composition of food, its quantity and properties determine physical development and growth, morbidity, work capacity, life expectancy and neuropsychological condition. With food, our body should receive a sufficient, but not excessive, amount of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, trace elements, vitamins and minerals in the right proportions.

From the earliest times to the Banting diet

It is not known how many people have died of hunger throughout the history of mankind. However, evolution favored the survival of those who easily converted food into fat reserves.

In ancient times, there was no science about nutrition . It was not even known that a certain set of products is necessary to sustain life. All types of food were considered equal, and people ate what they could afford, what they could get or grow, and what they simply liked. And, if they did not belong to the upper classes, their diet was quite monotonous. The question of overeating and obesity did not arise in ancient people.

At the same time, the problem of following a specific diet has existed for thousands of years, although not in the systematized form in which it is known today. The oldest surviving medical document, the Ebers Papyrus, written around 1550 BC, already contains a description of an anti-diabetic diet based on wheat germ and okra fruits.

In Ancient Greece, athletes ate mainly meat and refused bread, fruits and vegetables. Doctors noticed that such a diet contributes to weight loss. The "father of medicine" - the famous ancient Greek physician Hippocrates - in the treatise "On a healthy lifestyle" recommended obese people to eat fish and meat with green seasonings. At the same time, he believed that fats should not be given up, as they contribute to satiety, but the amount of food consumed should depend on age, profession, place of residence and season. Hippocrates also gave an explanation of how food is transformed into tissues of the human body: food, for example, bread, contains small invisible particles of all tissues of the body, they are separated from each other, and then the body accumulates them accordingly.

The Roman doctor Asclepiades is considered to be the founder of dietetics , the science of nutrition. With his students, he developed recommendations for the use of food products in the treatment of various diseases. In many ways he contradicted Hippocrates. Thus, he considered the periodic cleansing of the body with the help of emetics and laxatives to be obsolete. Asklepiades was also an opponent of pharmacotherapy in its modern sense.

The issue of proper nutrition of sick and healthy people was also dealt with by the Roman physician Galen. Treatment according to Galen is the right diet and medicines. He has the saying "Get up from the table slightly hungry, and you will always be healthy."

However, in Ancient Rome there was a simpler way to control weight — inducing vomiting after large feasts. Patricians used a quill, an ivory spatula, or a silver wand. Simpler people got by with two fingers.

Until the 17th century, food was not refined, and most types of natural food contained some amount of protein and fat, and even in conditions of limited nutrition , this was enough to sustain life.

At the genetic level, modern people do not differ from their ancestors. As with them, the food consumed in excess of the necessary amount is stored for further use in the form of subcutaneous and internal fat. But the ancestors of modern humans had a better chance of using these fat reserves, because the good times could end at any moment.

Thus, in ancient times, the idea of ​​weight control and nutrition could not be general. Food was not generally available, and people had to work hard to get it. Only very wealthy or powerful people suffered from obesity. So, for example, King Louis VI of France (1080-1137) earned the nickname Fat from his contemporaries.

In the Middle Ages, the doctrine of nutrition fell into decline, and only in the Codex of the Salerno Medical School (8th century) are there scattered instructions on medical and proper nutrition .

However, as food became more and more available, people began to be more discerning about it. A peculiar attitude to food arose, ceremonial food, food for royal persons, for the clergy, peasants, etc., stood out. Overeating began to be considered gluttony, and gluttony, in turn, a sin.

Before the 1800s, fat people were extremely rare, and mostly fatness was considered a sign of wealth and prosperity, as most people had to struggle to survive.

From time to time some prince or bishop found that he had lost his freedom of movement and limited his quantitative needs in food, even without trying to change it structurally. The diet consisted of limiting food to three capons, a barrel of ale or mulled wine and one roast per day. However, more original diets were also born .

In 1066, having won a victory over the Anglo-Saxons in the Battle of Hastings, the Norman Duke William became the king of England. In 1087, he discovered that excess weight prevented him from getting on a horse, which became the main reason for getting rid of it. In order to recover, the king prescribed bed rest and refused solid food, continuing to drink alcohol excessively. History has not preserved evidence of the success of such a royal diet , but it is known that in the same year the king died from an injury received when he fell from a horse. For some reason, he was able to sit on a horse thanks to his diet .

Over the following centuries, hundreds, if not thousands, of weight loss and nutrition programs were offered , but prior to the 19th century, the true relationship between food intake and health was not discovered. People understood that such a connection exists, because when deprived of food they died with previous weight loss. Sometimes the lack of food was associated with the lack of water, which led to addiction. Therefore, pay special attention to the dietwas not assigned. People ate a lot of bread, potatoes, pastries, and root vegetables like turnips. Over time, they began to consume more sugar with puddings and confectionery, but always consumed only as much milk and meat as they could afford. Meat was eaten stewed, added to soups or baked into meat pies. Beer, wine and distilled spirits were consumed daily.

From the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 19th century, obesity became a common phenomenon. Until the end of the 19th century, the cause of obesity was not discovered, it was considered a punishment for sins or a disease. It was also unknown what to do in such a case. Thus, the first ideas about diets appeared only in the 19th century.

For the first time in the 1830s, a priest from New Jersey, Sylvester Graham, publicly called for a diet . He declared gluttony immoral and urged his followers to follow a vegetarian diet . Coffee, tea, tobacco and other stimulants were also banned. Only clean water was allowed to drink. He also baked whole-wheat bread in his bakery, which was called "graham crackers". Bread baked in city bakeries was boycotted because refined flour was used for its preparation. Among the people, Graham received the nickname "Tirsa doctor".

Graham also suggested wearing loose clothing, sleeping on a hard bed, opening windows in the bedroom at night in any weather, taking regular cold showers, and exercising.

There is evidence that Graham's supporters looked quite sickly, because the food prescribed to them was not full. Moreover, he had to ask for the help of bodyguards for his protection, since he made many enemies among the owners of bakeries and milk producers.

In the middle of the 19th century, William Bunting, the owner of a funeral parlor, lived in London. The extra weight caused him excessive stress on his joints, because of which he could not even tie his shoelaces on his own. In order to lose weight, Bunting starved himself, took laxatives and diuretics, visited hot Turkish baths, and exhausted himself with physical exercises, but all this was unsuccessful. Doctors simply told him that obesity is incurable.

Once Bunting had to turn to the specialist in ear diseases William Harvey, and instead of treatment (examination of the patient's ears did not reveal any pathology) he received advice on getting rid of excess weight. Dr. Harvey explained to Bunting that foods containing sugar and starch are converted into body fat and advised him to avoid such foods . The idea of ​​a low- carb diet did not come from Dr. Harvey on his own. In Stuttgart, he listened to a lecture by Professor Niemeyer on the benefits of a diet limited in sugar and starchy foods, and in Paris, a lecture by Dr. Bernard on the use of a low-carbohydrate diet in the treatment of diabetes.

Before starting the diet , Bunting weighed 92 kg at a height of 165 cm. According to modern standards, his body mass index was 34, which is close to the upper limit of the first stage of obesity.

The diet , which Bunting began to adhere to, provided for 4 meals a day, her diet consisted of protein food (meat, poultry, fish), green vegetables, a small amount of unsweetened fruit, several glasses of dry wine and dried bread. (In Bunting's time, it was believed that drying bread reduced the amount of starch in it. Other errors included the belief that pork, too, contained starch. Therefore, pork was forbidden in Bunting 's diet .

Bunting stopped eating root vegetables, potatoes and bread, gave up sugar, sweetened spirits, confectionery and desserts. As a result of the diet , Bunting lost 46 pounds (21 kg) at a rate of slightly less than a pound a week (a British pound equals about 454 g) over 12 months, and maintained that weight for 19 years. In addition, his hearing problems disappeared. Satisfied with the results, he put his impressions in writing and published in 1862 the world's first book (or, rather, pamphlet) on diet , which survived 4 editions. Thus, the world's first guide to dieteticsrecommended a low-carbohydrate diet with limited fat intake. The brochure was translated into French and German, and the last edition had a circulation of 100,000 copies.

During Banting's lifetime, he had about 2,000 supporters who declared the success of the diet . At the same time, there were reports of problems caused by the diet , and also that Bunting had died, or was seriously ill and suffering from furunculosis and other diet - related diseases. All these reports were vigorously denied by the perfectly healthy Bunting.

Bunting also tried to independently establish the effect of sugar on weight gain. He concluded that 5 ounces of sugar (142 g) consumed evenly throughout the week resulted in a 1 pound (454 g) weight gain. Since 142 g of sugar (568 kcal) cannot lead to the deposition of 454 g of adipose tissue, Bunting noted, apparently, an increase in weight due to sugar-bound water (454 g of isotonic glucose solution at a concentration of 5% contains 23 g of glucose, which is almost equal to amount of sugar consumed daily by Bunting during the experiment), as well as A possible increase in glycogen reserves in the body and the water associated with it, since 1 g of glycogen holds about 3 g of water.

Soon, the German doctor Niemeyer supplemented Bunting's advice to eat less carbohydrates with the rule to eat less fat, thus dividing diets into low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets.

After Bunting's death in 1878, low-carbohydrate diets were forgotten for a while.

History of dietetics until the end of the 20th century

By the end of the 19th century, many diets appeared . Most of them were proposed by doctors, but among the authors of nutrition methods were nutritionists, industrialists, housewives, writers, priests, actors, and quite a few people without specific moral principles.

At the end of the 19th century, Victorian priestly morality ruled in England. It was no longer fashionable to show one's wealth through a bulging stomach. The first peak of fashion for thinness in Europe falls on the last third of the 19th century. It is no coincidence that it was during this period that cases of anorexia were noted among the daughters of wealthy people.

Around 1900, insurance companies announced the existence of a relationship between obesity and mortality, and the concepts of obesity and ill health became closely linked in the public consciousness. And, finally, by the beginning of the 20th century, obesity began to be considered a disease that needed treatment. All kinds of bitter and table healing waters, salts and oils were offered for treatment.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the American writer Epton Sinclair advocated fasting as a means of treating obesity and emaciation at the same time. In 1912, spiritualist and illusionist, the "father of raw food" Howard Carrington published a book promoting eating exclusively raw fruits and vegetables.

The original idea to reduce the amount of food eaten and improve health was proposed by the former 4-time Prime Minister of Great Britain, William Gladstone. The idea was to chew food for a long time. It was supposed to reduce appetite and promote weight loss. This idea was picked up and developed by Horace Fletcher, for which he was nicknamed "The Great Chewer". Gladstone believed that each piece of food should be thoroughly chewed 32 times (according to the number of teeth). Fletcher, in turn, suggested chewing food before turning it into a liquid state. Foods with a high fiber content ended up on the sidelines of the diet . As a result, constipation was a common occurrence among Fletcher's supporters.

Fletcher's diet consisted of potatoes, cornbread, beans, and sometimes eggs. Meat, alcoholic beverages, coffee and tea were excluded. Fletcher's two rules: "Don't eat until you feel hungry" and "Don't think about unpleasant things while eating" have reached our time. Fletcher himself lost 30 kg thanks to his "chewing" diet . The first "dollar" billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, who lived for 98 years, was a supporter of Fletcher.

A side effect of the Fletcher Diet was that in 1906, William Keith Kellogg founded a cereal company to provide Americans with enough fiber.

In 1879, the first artificial sweetener - saccharin - was invented. At the same time, saccharin advertising was addressed not to fat people, but to the poor, who had the opportunity to drink sweet tea or coffee. And for those who are losing weight, saccharin became the first of a number of products designed to replace the recognized "harmful" component of food, be it sugar or fat.

In the 1890s, university chemistry professor Wilbur Atwater broke down food into its constituent components: proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. He developed the idea of ​​changing the calorific value of food by burning it in a calorimetric bomb. At the end of the experiment, Atwater came to the conclusion that Americans consume too much fat and sweets and do too little exercise. Such a conclusion did not cause excitement in society, his discovery that alcoholic beverages also have nutritional value caused an ambiguous reaction. Such a conclusion did not suit the Union of Temperance, of which, by the way, Atwater was a member. But the manufacturers of alcoholic beverages immediately began to use this discovery to advertise their products. Atwater underestimated the role of fruits and vegetables because, from his point of view, they contained insufficient calories.

The system for calculating the energy value of food products proposed by Atwater was often criticized, but a competitive alternative to it was never offered. The Attwater system is an arrangement similar to the nitrogen balance arrangement.

Atwater's ideas on counting calories were developed by another American, the father of American biochemistry, Russell Chittenden — he suggested counting not only the calories received from food, but also the calories expended (for physical effort, work, etc.). However, the number of calories in food continued to remain a far from practical, scientific concept. Doctors did not take advantage of Atwater's discovery, but the US Department of Agriculture commissioned him to conduct a series of experiments to determine the nutritional value of various foods.

Since it was Atwater who first stated that a person's daily diet should be balanced in the amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates, and the number of calories consumed should not exceed the value determined by lifestyle, he is quite rightly considered the "father" of modern dietetics .

In 1918, Los Angeles physician Lulu Hunt Peters published a book called Diet and Health, with a Key to Calorie Counting. By the time the book was published, the idea of ​​counting food calories was quite innovative. In her book, Dr. Peters wrote: "From now on you will eat not a piece of bread, but 100 calories of bread." (In the book, a calorie is mistakenly called a 1000 times larger unit - kilocalorie. This error is considered in some editions to this day). For weight loss (the book is mainly addressed to women), Dr. Peters recommends a diet with a caloric content of 1,200 kcal with the indicated imbalance of 1,000 kcal.

At the same time, after successful weight loss and reaching the target weight, she recommends "slightly increasing caloric intake to 1200 kcal." Since we are not talking about returning to the equilibrium caloric intake of 2,200 kcal indicated as an example (a typical value for a woman who does not engage in physical labor), it is clear that Dr. Peters was aware that on a 1,200 kcal diet there is a decrease in basal metabolic rate, so returning to previous nutrition without weight gain was considered impossible.

In her book, Dr. Peters emphasized that a calorie-counting diet should be followed throughout life, and that activity, exercise, and certain restrictions are also needed.

The book sold 2 million copies and became the first American bestseller in the field of dietetics . This book stated that people who are unable to control their weight are undisciplined or have no control over themselves. For the first time, it was stated that excess weight is a sign of moral weakness. Weight control was declared the new morality, obesity was declared immoral.

Oddly enough, later they began to believe that the "calorie theory" was proposed in 1930 by two scientists from the University of Michigan - Newborg and Johnston. In the modern mind, the opinion about the priority of Newborg and Johnston has solidified from the presentation of the fierce opponent of counting calories and supporter of nutrition with consideration of the glycemic index, Michel Montignac.

And quite anecdotally, there is an Internet fable that the theory of calories was invented and the first tables of calorie content of products were invented by German scientists, chemist Justus Liebig and physicist Julius Mayer, on the instructions of the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm III, who was concerned about the scientific basis of the diet of his soldiers.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the idea of ​​making money on people's need to look good appeared, which was facilitated by the appearance of cinemas and the desire of viewers to look like movie characters. And the success of Peters's book prompted other authors to express their ideas about proper nutrition. In the 1920s and 1930s, special attention began to be paid to the combination of products. This approach was first developed by William Howard Hay and Gaylord Hauser. Hay insisted that proteins, starches and fruits should be eaten separately, in order to avoid acid-base balance, and believed that obesity was caused by "depletion of vital forces". At one meal, Hay recommended consuming foods of the same kind, and also putting an enema every day, all with the same goal of "washing out poisons." Critical objections that nature mixes proteins and carbohydrates in many foods, and that the human digestive system is capable of digesting this mixture, were simply ignored by Hay and his supporters. Heiser declared foods high in vitamin B1 to be miraculous, such as brewer's yeast, wheat germ, yogurt, skimmed milk powder, black molasses.diet , the basis of which is "Hauser's drink". Today, there is no convincing evidence of the benefits of separate nutrition for health, although in some disorders such nutrition can be beneficial.

Another version of the idea of ​​combining products was the theory of "magic pairs" of products. It was believed that with the joint consumption of products from such a couple, increased burning of internal fat occurs. Thus, the "magic couple" consisted of young lamb chops and pineapple. Although such a theory did not have any scientific data, even nowadays there are diets advertised as "fat burners". Proponents of such diets believe that the combination of foods has properties that "deceive" the body and force it to utilize less nutrients from the combination than from the same foods separately.

Also, in the 1920s and 1930s, some products were advertised as promoting weight loss. The American Medical Association has included some of them, such as kelp and laconos, on the list of quack remedies. . In 1929, even "Lakiv Strike" cigarettes were advertised as a means for losing weight.

Lessons from the Great Depression People had other concerns, followed by World War II, with food rationing and restrictions. New programs on proper nutrition and weight control appeared only in the late 40s and early 50s.

Back in 1829, Dr. William Wilde, physician extraordinary to the Prince Regent, announced that obesity was the result of "surpluses at the table." As a remedy for obesity, he suggested "eating food that has little nutritional value." Unfortunately, in those days it was not very clear what this meant.

Understanding came to Marion White in 1943. Instead of olive oil, she suggested consuming mineral oil. Such an idea was quite extravagant, since mineral oil is not absorbed by the human body. Moreover, it causes gas formation in the intestines, flatulence, diarrhea and other unpleasant digestive disorders. Sometimes mineral oil was inappropriately used as a laxative. Marion White's book with her version of proper nutrition was not particularly successful.

But the idea of ​​consuming indigestible products as food continued to exist. In 1951, a line for the production of cakes, puddings, jellies and chocolate sauces with saccharin instead of sugar is launched in the USA. In the early 1960s, protein shakes for weight loss were promoted.

In 1955, OA Batista ground viscose in a mixer and obtained a fat-like mass. The idea to push such a fat into the food market under the name Avicel failed, but 40 years later, in the 1990s, another artificial fat appeared. The Olestra tool (trade name Olegan) was used, and perhaps is still used, in the production of chips. The Olestra molecule is so large that it cannot be digested, but no one has learned the lessons of mineral oil. The manufacturers of Olestra continue to claim that most people do not have any gastronomic problems with this product.

Today, the author of the popular Dukan diet , doctor Dukan, again recommends returning to the consumption of mineral (vaseline) oil instead of animal fats.

The food industry has mastered long-term preservation technologies, refrigerators and household appliances have become widely available, which has reduced the physical burden on a person. Radical changes have taken place in the diet of the population of developed countries. People began to eat more and more, weigh, accordingly, more, and often returned to diets . New diets appeared by the dozens and hundreds, each of which was declared "innovative", "revolutionary", called to finally "end all diets" once and for all.

In 1930, the famous Hollywood diet appeared (more commonly known as the grapefruit diet, apparently widespread among American movie stars).

In the 1930s, "diet guru" Viktor Lindlar introduced the concept of "negative calorie foods" in a series of popular radio broadcasts. His catabolic system of proper nutrition was based on foods that seem to require more calories for their digestion than they contain, such as celery and apples.

In the 1940s and 1950s, tables of "ideal weight" appeared depending on gender, height and constitution. In the 1950s, the method of counting calories, which had lost its popularity in 1920, was again mentioned. In women's magazines, numerous examples of successful weight loss with calorie counting are given.

In 1961, Herman Toller publishes the book "Don't Count Calories" promoting a low-carbohydrate diet . Criminal proceedings are initiated against Toller because he advertises slimming capsules with safflower oil of a particular manufacturer in his book. And in our time, the idea of ​​normalizing the diet and proper nutrition among counting calories is subject to criticism

In 1963, Jean Nidetch founded the Weight Watchers movement. Central to their nutrition and weight management program is scoring—a sort of replacement for calorie counting. In 1978, physical exercises were introduced as a mandatory element in the Weight Watchers weight loss program. Today, "weight watchers" meet at thematic meetings or network forums.

In the 1970s, Harvey and Marilyn Diamond expressed the idea (which had no scientific basis) that you should eat only fruit before lunch, and during the rest of the day you should not combine proteins with carbohydrates in any case. The book by the above-mentioned authors with a description of this idea of ​​proper nutrition also contained obvious errors. Despite this, the book was a great success and sold 3 million copies.

The logical continuation of the idea of ​​eating less and less became the idea of ​​completely giving up food. In the 1970s, Dr. Robert Lynn published the book The Last Chance Diet . Those who are losing weight were suggested to give up food, but to drink several times a day a concoction invented by Dr. Linn, which was called "Prolinn" and was a protein cocktail that provides less than 400 kcal per day. The drink was prepared from ground horns, hooves, hides, tendons, bones and other slaughterhouse waste, treated with artificial aromatic additives, dyes and enzymes to break them down. Between 2 and 4 million people have tried Dr. Lynn's diet , according to data. Some of them lost weight, 58 people died of heart attacks while following the diet .

In the 1970s, the US Food and Drug Administration called for a ban on saccharin in the US. The US Congress did not support such a bill. At the same time, the world is experiencing a wave of scandals related to the spontaneous distribution of biologically active supplements by network marketing methods.

Pritkin's very low-fat, high-fiber diet has been suggested for people with cardiovascular disease . It was also recommended to perform physical exercises. Such a diet immediately caught the attention of those who want to lose weight.

Anorexia became a common phenomenon among people who lost weight, and psychiatrists drew attention to it.

In the 1980s, hundreds of books were published with author's diets promising rapid weight loss. The newest dietary craze is the Beverly Hills diet . In the first 1 days of the diet , it was suggested to eat only fruits. In the future, artificially induced diarrhea and alcohol consumption.

In 1981, the well-known Cambridge diet appears with the consumption of the "Cambridge Nutrition " series of products. Products are first distributed using multi-level marketing methods.

In the same 1981, doctor David Jenkins and a group of researchers from the University of Toronto introduced the concept of the glycemic index. The index allowed those with diabetes to better evaluate carbohydrates in terms of their risk of raising blood glucose levels. However, the results of this study are often abused by the authors of diets "with a dot" to strengthen their proposals. In the same year, the artificial sweetener aspartame went on sale.

A "liquid" protein diet is gaining popularity . As if it was with her help that TV presenter Oprah Winfrey lost weight. Later it turned out that surgeons helped the star to lose weight.

At the end of the 10th century, the Atkins diet , high in protein, high in fat and low in carbohydrates, gained wide popularity . The diet caused a flurry of critical reviews. This food system did not contain anything new - low-carbohydrate diets have been known for a long time. Atkins himself published his first message about the diet back in 1966 in a medical journal. The message remained unnoticed by those who wanted to lose weight. Before Atkins, ketogenic diets were used in neuralgic practice to treat children with epilepsy. Atkins observed that the consequence of using such a nutritional system is a significant decrease in weight in obese children who follow a ketogenic diet.diets _ Atkins tested this diet on himself, and then on his patients. Convinced that the diet worked, he published the first edition of his book, Dr. Atkins' Revolutionary Diet , in 1972. By 2002, the circulation of the book reached ten million.

In 1993, Dr. Ornish's book "eat more and lose weight" became a bestseller. Unlike the high-fat Atkins diet, Ornish advises reducing the proportion of fat in the diet to 10 % of total calories. The diet is combined with exercise, meditation and group support. The diet is recommended for people with coronary heart disease, but it is also recommended for healthy people as a preventive measure.

By the end of the 20th century, the number of overweight people in developed countries is increasing. In 1981, a conference sponsored by the US National Institutes of Health in Washington discussed the nation's rapid weight gain. Susan Powter, who writes on the topic of health, suggests that her readers spend more time on physical exercises.

In the 1990s, the US Food and Drug Administration required manufacturers to provide more detailed information on food labels , indicating the product's energy value and fat content. It was believed that this would help consumers make a more informed choice.

In 2002, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) assembled a group of renowned nutrition experts . They were tasked with determining the expediency of making changes to the system of putting the energy value on food labels so that they more fully reflect how much energy is spent on the digestion process of the same food. All the members of the commission, with the exception of one, proposed to leave everything unchanged, because, they wrote in their decision: "the problems arising as a result of the changes will significantly outweigh the benefits of their implementation."

There was a report that shocked society that 40% of 9-10-year-old teenagers in the US limit themselves in food in order to lose weight.

In the 2000s, it was announced that the number of undernourished people on Earth equaled the number of overweight people.