12 Bizarre Retro Diet Trends That Somehow Caught On
From swallowing tapeworms to chain-smoking for weight loss, history is packed with bizarre diet trends that prove people will try just about anything to shed a few pounds.
- Alyana Aguja
- 4 min read
Over the years, humans have tried some very strange diet fads in the quest for weight loss, ranging from ingesting live tapeworms to eating baby food or cotton balls in place of meals. Most of these fads, such as the Cigarette Diet and the Sleeping Beauty Diet, were more concerned with speedy results rather than health, often with fatal results. While most of these trends have lost their allure, they remain a compelling (and cautionary) reminder of the lengths that humans will go in pursuit of the perfect body.
1. The Tapeworm Diet (1900s–1920s)
Sean Thomas from Unsplash
Desperate individuals swallowed pills containing live tapeworm larvae, hoping the parasites would devour excess calories. Weight loss ensued, but as the worms developed within the intestines, malnutrition, nausea, and life-threatening infections occurred. Tapeworm diets were ultimately prohibited, yet some disreputable black-market sources still distribute them today.
2. The Chewing Diet (Fletcherism, Early 1900s)
Matt Seymour from Unsplash
Horace Fletcher, or “The Great Masticator,” advocated chewing every bite at least 32 times (or until it liquified) before swallowing to facilitate digestion and decrease food consumption. He even promoted spitting out the solids to prevent wasting calories. Although preposterous, this fad had devotees such as John D. Rockefeller and Franz Kafka.
3. The Cigarette Diet (1920s–1950s)
Irina Iriser from Unsplash
Taking advantage of nicotine’s hunger-suppressing effect, tobacco manufacturers sold smoking as a means of remaining slender and stylish. Lucky Strike, for instance, invited consumers to “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” The diet worked but at the evident price of lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and dependence.
4. The Bananas & Skim Milk Diet (1930s)
Mockup Graphics from Unsplash
Marketed by Dr. George Harrop, this diet told individuals to consume four to six bananas and three to four glasses of skim milk daily. The mixture allegedly contained all the nutrients needed with minimal calories. It was popular for a short time in the 1930s but was later discredited due to its inability to provide essential fats and proteins.
5. The Grapefruit Diet (1930s–1980s)
Łukasz Rawa from Unsplash
Also known as the Hollywood Diet, this craze proposed that having half a grapefruit before each meal would stimulate fat-burning enzymes. Some versions limited food to grapefruit, eggs, and black coffee and were very low-calorie. The diet endured for decades, although it was not because grapefruit holds any fat-burning qualities—it simply reduced one’s food intake.
6. The Cabbage Soup Diet (1950s–1990s)
ibuki Tsubo from Unsplash
This crash diet consisted of just cabbage soup for seven days and promised to burn off 10–15 pounds. Though low in calorie content, the diet was extremely monotonous and caused gassiness. The diet lasted a maximum of a few days for most individuals due to extreme bloating and nutritional deficiency.
7. The Sleeping Beauty Diet (1960s–1970s)
Greg Pappas from Unsplash
This strange regimen consisted of sedating yourself for days at a time on the theory that if you’re asleep, you can’t eat. Elvis Presley supposedly tried it, using massive sedatives to sleep for days at a time. The clear risks—addiction to drugs, dehydration, and wasting away of muscle—finally pushed this regimen into obscurity.
8. The Drinking Man’s Diet (1964)
Vinicius “amnx” Amano from Unsplash
A precursor to low-carb diets, the craze taught individuals to dine on steak, butter, and bacon—all paired with booze. The reasoning was that carbs were the devil, but booze was A-OK in moderation. Absurd as the premise was, the book sold more than two million copies, though physicians soon advised against the practice of excessive drinking.
9. The Prolinn Diet (1970s, also known as the “Last Chance Diet”)
Neven Krcmarek from Unsplash
Dr. Roger Linn developed Prolinn, a liquid meal consisting of slaughterhouse waste such as ground animal tendons, hooves, and hides. The low-calorie meal contained virtually no nutrients, causing scores of deaths from heart failure. The FDA later intervened, but not before it was a deadly fad.
10. The Cotton Ball Diet (1980s–1990s)
Kelly Sikkema from Unsplash
Believed to have started in modeling circles, this diet involved soaking cotton balls in juice or water and swallowing them to feel full without consuming real food. Some dieters suffered intestinal blockages and malnutrition, as cotton is completely indigestible. Despite obvious health risks, this dangerous practice has occasionally resurfaced on social media.
11. The Ice Cube Diet (2000s)
Giorgio Trovato from Unsplash
A firm sold “Hoodia Ice Cubes,” which purported to have an African cactus extract that curbed hunger. Individuals were urged to consume frozen cubes of the product instead of meals. Studies later discredited Hoodia’s efficacy, and the FDA took action against deceptive marketing.
12. The Baby Food Diet (2010s)
Taylor Kiser from Unsplash
Made famous by celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson, the diet involved swapping meals for containers of baby food, which have low calories and are portion-based. The logic was that a diet of mashed bananas and pureed peas would result in losing weight without stuffing oneself. As effective as it was at being a calorie limitation, critics also noted that grown-ups require greater amounts of fiber and protein than baby food has to offer.