Vance Thompson

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Vance Thompson
VanceThompson.jpg
BornApril 17, 1863
DiedJune 5, 1925
Occupation(s) Literary critic, writer

Vance Thompson (April 17, 1863 - June 5, 1925) was an American literary critic, novelist, poet and low-carbohydrate diet writer.

Contents

Biography

The son of a Pittsburgh pastor and brother of Maud Thompson, he was educated at Princeton University and graduated in 1883. He later studied in Germany, and worked as a dramatic critic in New York City from 1890 to 1897.In 1890, he was married to stage actress and novelist Lillian Spencer. Like fellow-aesthete and good friend James Huneker, he helped bring fin-de-siècle French authors to the attention of the American public. He also wrote a study on the ego entitled the Ego Book: a Book of Selfish Ideals (1914). A study of French authors with ties to the Symbolist movement was published in 1913, entitled French Portraits: Being Appreciations of the Writers of Young France. From 1895 to 1899, he co-edited the periodical M'lle New York with Huneker. Described as "a highly idiosyncratic blend of serious analyses and presentations of European Symbolist literature and thought with buffoonery and incessant anti-philistinism", it quickly became a manifesto for their cultural ideals. [1]

Dieting

Thompson authored several books on healthy living, such as 1914's Eat and Grow Thin and 1916's Drink and Be Sober.

His diet book Eat and Grow Thin was popular, by 1931 it was in its 112th printing. It advocates a low-carbohydrate diet and contains a list of "forbidden foods". [2] [3] [4] Thompson believed that dairy, pork, ham, bacon, beans, bread, grains, cereals, flour, rice, potatoes, sugar, and all alcoholic drinks should be avoided. [5] He recommended eating all kinds of meat (except pig), game, sea-food, eggs, fruit and green vegetables. [6] The book was criticized for misrepresenting nutritional science. [3]

Physician B. B. Vincent Lyon criticized Eat and Grow Thin for promoting a fad diet. Lyon noted that the high-protein content of the diet is dangerous for obese patients or those with cardiovascular or renal insufficiencies. [7] Physiologist Graham Lusk commented that the advice from the book "made so many of my friends so utterly miserable that I am sure that in the end it will counteract its own message." [8]

Publications

Eat and Grow Thin, 1914 Eat and Grow Thin.png
Eat and Grow Thin, 1914

Related Research Articles

Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated way to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases such as diabetes and obesity. As weight loss depends on calorie intake, different kinds of calorie-reduced diets, such as those emphasising particular macronutrients, have been shown to be no more effective than one another. As weight regain is common, diet success is best predicted by long-term adherence. Regardless, the outcome of a diet can vary widely depending on the individual.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atkins diet</span> Low-carbohydrate fad diet devised by Robert Atkins

The Atkins diet is a low-carbohydrate fad diet devised by Robert Atkins in the 1970s, marketed with claims that carbohydrate restriction is crucial to weight loss and that the diet offered "a high calorie way to stay thin forever".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fad diet</span> Popular diet with claims not supported by science

A fad diet is a diet that is popular, generally only for a short time, similar to fads in fashion, without being a standard dietary recommendation, and often making unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements; as such is often considered a type of pseudoscientific diet. Fad diets are usually not supported by clinical research and their health recommendations are not peer-reviewed, thus they often make unsubstantiated statements about health and disease.

The Zone diet is a fad diet emphasizing low-carbohydrate consumption. It was created by Barry Sears, an American biochemist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Low-carbohydrate diet</span> Diets restricting carbohydrate consumption

Low-carbohydrate diets restrict carbohydrate consumption relative to the average diet. Foods high in carbohydrates are limited, and replaced with foods containing a higher percentage of fat and protein, as well as low carbohydrate foods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diet (nutrition)</span> Sum of food consumed by an organism

In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. The word diet often implies the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management reasons. Although humans are omnivores, each culture and each person holds some food preferences or some food taboos. This may be due to personal tastes or ethical reasons. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Healthy diet</span> Type of diet

A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy.

The Montignac diet is a high-protein low-carbohydrate fad diet that was popular in the 1990s, mainly in Europe. It was invented by Frenchman Michel Montignac (1944–2010), an international executive for the pharmaceutical industry, who, like his father, was overweight in his youth. His method is aimed at people wishing to lose weight efficiently and lastingly, reduce risks of heart failure, and prevent diabetes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sports nutrition</span> Study and practice of nutrition to improve performance

Sports nutrition is the study and practice of nutrition and diet with regards to improving anyone's athletic performance. Nutrition is an important part of many sports training regimens, being popular in strength sports and endurance sports. Sports nutrition focuses its studies on the type, as well as the quantity of fluids and food taken by an athlete. In addition, it deals with the consumption of nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, supplements and organic substances that include carbohydrates, proteins and fats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Taubes</span> Science writer, born 1956

Gary Taubes is an American journalist, writer, and low-carbohydrate / high-fat (LCHF) diet advocate. His central claim is that carbohydrates, especially sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, overstimulate the secretion of insulin, causing the body to store fat in fat cells and the liver, and that it is primarily a high level of dietary carbohydrate consumption that accounts for obesity and other metabolic syndrome conditions. He is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987); Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993); Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), titled The Diet Delusion (2008) in the UK and Australia; Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (2010); The Case Against Sugar (2016); and The Case for Keto: Rethinking Weight Control and the Science and Practice of Low-Carb/High-Fat Eating (2020). Taubes's work often goes against accepted scientific, governmental, and popular tenets such as that obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising too little and that excessive consumption of fat, especially saturated fat in animal products, leads to cardiovascular disease.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western pattern diet</span> Modern dietary pattern

The Western pattern diet is a modern dietary pattern that is generally characterized by high intakes of pre-packaged foods, refined grains, red meat, processed meat, high-sugar drinks, candy and sweets, fried foods, industrially produced animal products, butter and other high-fat dairy products, eggs, potatoes, corn, and low intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, pasture-raised animal products, fish, nuts, and seeds.

Michel Montignac was a French diet developer who originally created the Montignac diet to help himself lose weight, which he based on research that focuses on the glycemic index of foods, which affects the amount of glucose delivered to the blood after eating. The diet, which distinguishes between good and bad carbohydrates, became the basis for best-selling books and a chain of restaurants and stores promoting his diet regimen and was one of the theoretical predecessors of the South Beach Diet.

The South Beach Diet is a popular fad diet developed by Arthur Agatston and promoted in a best-selling 2003 book. It emphasizes eating food with a low glycemic index, and categorizes carbohydrates and fats as "good" or "bad". Like other fad diets, it may have elements which are generally recognized as sensible, but it promises benefits not backed by supporting evidence or sound science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weight management</span> Techniques for maintaining body weight

Weight management refers to behaviors, techniques, and physiological processes that contribute to a person's ability to attain and maintain a healthy weight. Most weight management techniques encompass long-term lifestyle strategies that promote healthy eating and daily physical activity. Moreover, weight management involves developing meaningful ways to track weight over time and to identify ideal body weights for different individuals.

<i>Good Calories, Bad Calories</i> 2007 book by Gary Taubes

Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health is a 2007 book by science journalist Gary Taubes. Taubes argues that the last few decades of dietary advice promoting low-fat diets has been consistently incorrect. Taubes contends that carbohydrates, specifically refined carbohydrates like white flour, sugar, and starches, contribute to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments. Taubes posits a causal link between carbohydrates and cancer, as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preventive nutrition</span> Branch of nutrition science

Preventive nutrition is a branch of nutrition science with the goal of preventing or delaying or reducing the impacts of disease and disease-related complications. It is concerned with a high level of personal well-being, disease prevention, and diagnosis of recurring health problems or symptoms of discomfort which are often precursors to health issues. Preventive nutrition may assist in prolonging the onset of non-communicable diseases and may allow adults to experience more "healthy living years" later in life. The need for preventive nutrition continues to grow as the overweight and obese population numbers steadily rise within the childhood to adult populous, as the numbers have increased over the last 40 years. To educate the public about preventive nutrition, each social structure has its own way to communicate what preventive nutrition is within its own society, this is done through either a public health forum, government programs and policies or nutritional education. In the United States, preventive nutrition is taught to the public through the use of the food pyramid or MyPlate initiatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Mackarness</span> British physician

Guy Richard Godfrey Mackarness was a British psychiatrist and low-carbohydrate diet writer. He is best known for his book Eat Fat and Grow Slim, published in 1958. Mackarness was an early advocate of the Paleolithic diet and authored books on food allergies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cecil Webb-Johnson</span> British physician

Cecil Webb-Johnson was a British physician, dietitian and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaac Burney Yeo</span> English physician and writer

Isaac Burney Yeo was an English physician and writer.

References

  1. The Symbolist Prints of Edvard Munch: the Vivian and David Campbell Collection. Page 26. Yale University Press, 1996.
  2. Eat and Grow Thin. (1916). The American Journal of Clinical Medicine 23 (6): 547.
  3. 1 2 Elias, Megan J. (2009). Food in the United States, 1890-1945. ABC-CLIO. pp. 129-130. ISBN   978-0-313-35410-6
  4. Kraig, Bruce. (2013). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Volume 1. Oxford University Press. p. 510. ISBN   978-0199734962
  5. Elias, Megan J. (2017). Food on the Page: Cookbooks and American Culture. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 67-68. ISBN   978-0812249170
  6. Thompson, Vance. (1914). Eat and Grow Thin. New York: E. P. Dutton. pp. 42-43
  7. Lyon, B. B. Vincent (1916). "The Treatment of Obesity". International Clinics. 26 (3): 42.
  8. Lusk, Graham. (1917). Food In War Time. The Scientific Monthly 5: 307.