Smithsonian Podcast: There's More to That

May 30, 2024 | 36:45

How Americans Got Hooked on Counting Calories More Than a Century Ago

In 1918, Lulu Hunt Peters—one of the first women in America to earn a medical doctorate—published the best seller "Diet and Health With Key to the Calories," after intentionally restricting her own caloric intake and losing 70 pounds as a result. She made a name for herself as an apostle for weight reduction by measuring food intake via the calorie—at the time, an unit of measurement familiar only to chemists.

A century later, the limitations of calorie-counting have become clear. We’ll hear from food historian Michelle Stacey about Peters’ legacy, and from Ronald Young Jr., creator and host of the critically acclaimed podcast “Weight For It,” about how American society continues to stigmatize what he calls “fat folks” for reasons that have nothing to do with public, or even individual, health.

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