The fatlogic myth that weight loss requires starvation, eating only specific foods, and extreme exercise by anti-masturbation advocate John Kellogg
imgur.com/a/Lwkyq
imgur.comPosted Oct 21, 2017, 10:07 PM UTC
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imgur.comI'm going to masturbate while eating a bowl of cornflakes to spite this dude.
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You need to masturbate over Corn Flakes. You need to find them sexy to really spite him.
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He was a Seventh-Day Adventist, which at the time (and somewhat to this day) promotes a healthy lifestyle and vegetarian diet.
He came up with these ideas at the turn of the century and was in many ways ahead of his time (proponent of germ theory, for example).
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He definitely had a lot of good ideas that had a positive impact, true, especially around sanitation in surgery. I think he was a bit like a Dr. Oz in that way, as he is reportedly an excellent surgeon but also has a lot of wacky and some downright dangerous ideas.
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It was Ignaz Semmelweis who developed the idea of sanitation in surgery, preceding Kellogg by many decades.
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I read that Dr. Oz was a surgeon. I have a pet theory that something happened to his hands, not dramatic enough for the public to notice but enough to kill his surgery career, and he became a snake-oil huckster out of sheer spite. I have no evidence and have done no further research, I just like to imagine that's the reason.
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[deleted]
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Except Dormammu will come to HIM to bargain... for activated almonds and matcha-infused coconut oil!
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Born and raised sda, this is correct.
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The SDAs in California are some of the healthiest people on Earth, remaining active into their 90s and 100s.
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In Loma Linda, right? I was raised Adventist so I'm well aware! My family is still Adventist.
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John Kellogg the cereal dude? because that guy was a Seventh Day Adventist. Growing up SDA, that kind of makes sense.
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If you don't mind my asking, how representative are his beliefs with modern SDA? It's hard to not see him as being extreme even in his time and within his own religious culture. Things like vegetarianism seem neutral and as another commentor pointed out he had some good advice, but even so he was over the top in many ways and also promoted a lot of dangerous ideas, especially around sexuality.
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Ellen White [SDA prophet] advocated for vegetarianism and most SDA's follow that as well as healthy eating in general. I would say his beliefs aren't that extreme. I think he also ran a sanitorium which kind of makes sense.
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Ah, John Kellogg, my favorite medical child abuser.
He advocated against infant circumcision so that you could wait until the boy was old enough to remember the pain and be dissuaded from masturbating. Also performed female genital mutilation on girls under his care.
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There’s a great Dollop episode with Patton Oswalt about Kellogg
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Did Kellogg really say all of this??
Because he was a total nut, but in some of this he was way ahead of his time. Really current research is backing up some of this. Not all fruit - that probably isn't good, lol - but cold exposure? Fasting (mild starvation)? These are pretty effective, and might even help your longevity.
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Yes. and he was a seventh day adventist so it makes some sense.
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There are some studies about 7DA's and health that are also pretty interesting.
But luckily you can eat healthy without joining a religion. It's just informative.
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Oh I know. It has to do with ellen white and all that. she's an sda prophet and wrote all these books. some were about religion, some were about living healthy.
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I find some of these things extremely interesting. A friend of mine has a debilitating digestive issue that can actually kill you. She tried everything, and when she tried The Maker's Diet, it was the most helpful thing she's done. I'm not at all religious - but I found it interesting that the foods forbidden by Jewish law were also those she found most inflammatory.
I'm sure the laws have their basis in experiences - but given how long it took me to figure out a fructose malabsorption problem, I'm just amazed that one small group of ancient people saw too many health problems with pork & shellfish & then banned them.
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Kellogg spoke some sense in between all the madness. FAs often think they have to cut out all 'bad' foods, forgetting they just have to cut down on them instead. Weight loss is much easier on your mind when you remember that you can eat and rink what you want as long as it is in moderation, also that you can exercise as much or as little as you want. How you lose weight is up to you and you don't have to do anything you do not want to.
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Yes, you will lose weight on Kellogg's diet. Yes, this is CICO. Yes, you will lose weight if you walk 10-20 miles per day. Yes, eating nothing but a single bland food day in and day out may drive you into eating less because you're sick of it.
However, this is fatlogic that we still see today and it's one of the most common and dangerous ideas that prevent people from losing weight. Fad diets. Having to go to the gym. Having to eat specific foods. Not having money to eat "healthy food". All of that stems from this core type of fatlogickal belief. People try this stuff and usually fail because it's not sustainable, then conclude that weight loss is impossible. Many of us here on r/fatlogic are living proof that you can lose significant amount of weight eating whatever you want and sitting on the couch all day so long as you just eat less than you burn.
To be fair, I do think that weighing yourself daily is good advice.
Kellogg was a whack job in many other ways, which you can read about in his Wikipedia entry. If you want to read more of his advice check out The Living Temple and Plain Facts for Old and Young, both out of copyright and available for free online. Prepare yourself for even more extreme recommendations to kill people's sex drives (corn flakes, burning the clitoris with acid), how masturbating affects your skeleton and causes children to be easily frightened, and how enemas can cure headaches.
Enemas don't cure headaches; they said it went away so they wouldn't get another enema!
It's sort of like people believing the last thing they did before their ailment went away was what actually cured them.
Yesterday I had a headache until my dog licked my face, so doggo spit is magic.
damn, what CAN'T dogs do?
🐶🐶🐶
Sounds like a reasonable course of action.
I feel like a lot of these are roundabout ways to CICO and exercise. And that the people who develop this know it but understand something important about human nature and so create all these obscure instructions people have to follow. Like the “cold water bath”. First he says a swimming pool is ideal. Well, shit. If you get in a pool you’ll probably at least do a little exercise. But also he saiid if you choose a tub, it has to be 75-80 degrees and there are all these things you have to do while you’re in there and - get this - exercise when you get out. Enough to perspire - which I would WANT to do after freezing my ass off in a 75 degree tub for 20 minutes. But if you tell people to swim laps or exercise enough to work up a sweat they won’t do it. It has to be part of a grand ritual of some sort.
I feel like he (and others) know this.