In pursuit of beauty: strange diets that you can wear out with light

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today's promotion of an elastic and slender body is accompanied by the need to comply with all kinds of diets. By the way, earlier our ancestors, in order to keep up with the fashion trends of their time, also exhausted themselves with unusual diets. Unfortunately, excessive zeal very often led to sad consequences.

1. Turpentine diet

As you know, in ancient Rome, the beauty of the human body was valued. Moreover, a pleasant smell from the body was considered a sign of noble origin. In the struggle for the favor of others, some girls drank turpentine oil or simply turpentine. Then their secretions from the glands smelled of violets. For some, such zeal ended very sadly, since more than 15 ml of turpentine formed burns to the mucous membrane, and this could lead to death.

In the fight against unpleasant odors in ancient Rome, the first antiperspirants were invented. They rubbed gruel of crushed chalk and aromatic mixtures into their armpits.

2. Vodka diet

For a long period of time in tsarist Russia, women were considered beautiful, corpulent, since thinness was considered a sign of ill health. However, it should be noted that the Orthodox canons implied strict fasts for about eight months a year. In his observations about the life of Russians, the English physician of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Samuel Collins noted that women, in an effort to get better, “lie down, drink vodka, eat and lie down again”. It is worth noting that the "vodka" diet really took place, and it was called "wedding". For the celebration, the bride was literally fed. They drank vodka to improve appetite. After the wedding, doctors were specially invited to wealthy homes "for abdominal scrubbing," that is, from the negative consequences caused by overeating.

3. The vinegar diet

Beauties and beauties in Europe in the XIX century and were considered pale and thin people. The example of the English poet George Byron is indicative. Naturally inclined to be overweight, he desperately tried to lose weight. For this, the young man resorted to the vinegar diet. Byron drank diluted vinegar, ate rice soaked in vinegar, vegetables, and a few biscuits.

Judging by the records, at the age of 18, the poet's weight was 88 kg, and by the age of 23 - less than 57 kg. Lord Byron achieved painful thinness and pallor, only he died at the age of 37. Doctors associate early death with a vinegar diet, which literally worn out the poet's body.

4. Arsenic diet

A lot has been written about arsenic in literary works about the times of the 17th-19th centuries. This substance was used to kill unwanted political competitors or favorites. In this case, arsenic was used for cosmetic purposes. From its use, the ladies appeared shine in the eyes, the complexion improved, and an excited state of the body was observed. Some courtiers, in pursuit of fashion, ended their days very early.

5. Dairy diet

Just a century ago, in many countries of the Middle East and Africa, female plumpness was considered a sign of beauty. British travelers in the 19th century noted with surprise that women of incredible size lived in the African state of Karagwe, and next to them were tubs of milk, which they constantly drank.

In our time, in Mauritania, the tradition of feeding girls with milk is still preserved. It is believed that if the bride has less than 12 folds on her belly, then she will not be married. The tradition of feeding girls from early childhood is by no means voluntary. Fat milk is constantly and forcibly poured into children. The stomach refuses to take in so many high-calorie foods and causes gag reflexes. To prevent girls from vomiting, their toes are clamped with two sticks (pain suppresses other reflexes). According to statistics, one in five women in Mauritania have broken toes. Human rights activists are trying to resist this tradition, but it does not lose its popularity. In the "enlightened" XX century, ladies also tried to be slim and beautiful. The most incredible and insane diets of the 20th century demonstrate what women are ready to go to in order to achieve their goal.