"comfortable salary received as superintendent of a hospital, for I know I was only sixty five per cent efficient, for efficiency decreases in direct proportion as excess weight increases."
She wrote her calorie book based upon the calorie as the answer to all our problems, and recommended 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."
This certainly worked, it's something we've all heard, you may even of uttered the words yourself. Their are masses of people desperate to know how much they consume and all so they can eat less. I'll admit I do count frequently, but I like to do it the opposite way, in order to ensure I get enough each day, thus enabling my body to function optimally. Indeed, while my wife was pregnant with Daisy, we both worked hard to ensure that she received enough energy for the both of them.
Hunt Peters seemed to have a real problem with weight, probably caused by her own issues, stating:
"How anyone can want to be anything but thin is beyond my intelligence… if there is anything comparable to the joy of taking in your clothes I have not experienced it."
Dieting to Peters meant total self control, very much like it does today with the dieters suffering a lifelong attempt to semi-starve in a twisted attempt to stay thin, (yep thin not lean) by avoiding appropriate amounts of energy. To Lulu being overweight was a sign of moral weakness, and she declared: “that for every pang of hunger we feel we can have a double joy" and often fined people who hadn't lost weight. Today its more likely that you'll be rewarded with a sticker or similar when you reach specific starvation goals. Is this behaviour adaption safe? Based on my research, no!
Peter's is largely responsible for our obsession with cutting back on calories, but she is also held accountable for creating feelings of guilt amongst those who simply cannot SURVIVE on meager amounts of food/energy. She encouraged us to feel shame in being overweight, and to be overjoyed when we managed to ignore hunger. And sadly for a lot of people that contact me, they feel that shame and they hold the false belief that feeling hungry is something to be proud of.
Eat up people.