Body Weight and Self-Control in The United States and Britain Since The 1950s

2001 The Society for ike Social History of Medicine
Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and

Britain since the 1950s
ByAVNER OFFER*
SUMMARY. Body weight has risen in defiance of health and appearance norms. This is
framed in terms of the problem of time-inconsistency and self-control. The social epidemics of overeating and slimming were driven by market forces and the psychology of eating:
restrained eating was easily disinhibited by the stresses of new rewards. For men, the rise in
body weight was associated with the decline of family eating and exposure to greater food
variety. For women, the 'cult of slimming' was associated with mating and workplace competition, driven initially by adverse sex ratios. Food abundance made it difficult for rational
consumers to conform with social norms.
KEYWORDS: obesity, self-control, courtship, overweight, sex-ratios, social class, gender
Body weights have been rising above normative levels, first in the United States
since the 1960s, and subsequently in Britain. These trends have generated a substantial academic response: in physiology, medicine, and psychology, in anthropology and economics, in history and in cultural studies, and also a vast lay and
expert literature of exhortation and self-help. Disinterested observers might infer
that the volume of publication is inversely related to its efficacy: if rising weight is a
problem, there is no reliable knowledge on how to reverse it. Several recent
historical studies are largely written in a socio-cultural, and sometimes explicitly
feminist, vein.1 These accounts are either mostly descriptive, or they focus on cultural pressures on women to slim.2 They do not systematically explain the trends in
body weight. Anthropometric historical research on body weight is only just
beginning. If affluence is generally associated with increasing well-being, then the
increase in body weight above normative levels presents an unwelcome paradox.
The economic theory of consumer behaviour assumes that consumers are the best
judges of their welfare, and that they act consistently and optimally over time.4
Rising weight can be seen as the outcome of rational consumer choice.5 Rosemary
* All Souls College, Oxford, Great Britain OX1 4AL, UK. E-mail: avner.offer@all-souls.ox.ac.uk
1
Recent studies include H. Schwartz, Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies, and Fat
(New York, 1986); R. Seid, Never Too Thin: Why Women are at War with their Bodies (New York, 1989);
P. N. Stearns, Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modem West (New York, 1997); S. Hesse-Biber, Am
I Thin Enough Yet? The Cult of Thinness and the Commercialization of Identity (New York, 1998); N. Wolf,
The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women (London, 1991).
2
Stearns, Fat History, is the most analytical of these studies.
3
S. Rosenbaum, '100 Years of Heights and 'Weigha' Journal of the Royal Statistical Society ser. A, 151
(1988), 276-309; D. L. Costa and R. H. Steckel, 'Long-term Trends in Health, Welfare and Economic Growth in the United States', in R. Steckel and R. Floud (eds.), Health and Welfare During
Industrialization (Chicago, 1997), 47-90; R. Floud, 'Height, Weight and Body Mass of the British
Population Since 1820', NBER Historical Paper no. 108, Cambridge, MA (October 1998).
A. Deaton, Understanding Consumption (Oxford, 1992), ch. 1.
3
G. Becker and K. Murphy, 'A Theory of Rational Addiction', Journal of Political Economy, 96
(1988), 675-700, pp. 693-4; T. J. Philipson and R. A. Posner, 'The Long-run Growth of Obesity as a
Function ofTechnological Change', NBER Working Paper no. 7423 (November 1999).
0951-631X Social History of Medicine Vol. 14 No. 1 pp. 79-106
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Green's dilemma is a challenge to this point of view. In her Diary of a Fat Housewife,
she wrote, 'I'm starting my diet, tomorrow, that's right/so let's have that last bite of
pizza tonight!' But, for many years, tomorrow never came. Like millions of others,
despite her best efforts, her weight would not go down. This study assumes that
consumers may find it difficult to achieve their objectives. This may help to
explain how cultural attitudes were formed. Moving from the individual to society
as a whole, the rise of body weight demonstrates how affluence can rise, and yet fail
to deliver well-being.
The social norms of body weight have reflected two concerns: health and personal
attractiveness. Since the 1950s, both appearance and health norms for body weight
have been going down. The standard height-adjusted measure is the Body Mass
Index (BMI), calculated as weight (kg)/height squared (m2). The World Health
Organization defines 'overweight' as starting at a BMI of 25 for women and men,
and for all ages, with 'obesity' at BMI 30 and above. American agencies, which had
previously used higher thresholds, have recently accepted this norm.7 Large longitudinal studies in the USA indicated that obesity (BMI > 30) doubled mortality
risk.8 Obesity is associated with increased risks of gallbladder diseases, diabetes, heart
disease and hypertension, of eightfold, sixfold, threefold, and one-half respectively.9 That mild overweight is harmful has been disputed,10 but recent work shows
that it is not benign. In a British study of 7,735 men aged 40-59, '[the] risk of
cardiovascular death, heart attack, and diabetes increased progressively from an
index of <20 even after age, smoking, social class, alcohol consumption, and
physical activity were adjusted for'.11 Similar findings were obtained for American
women, aged 3055, on a larger sample. The conventions of personal attractiveness have also lowered weight norms. In personal interaction, the overweight were
held in low regard, and found it more difficult to make and keep friends and
6
R. Green, Diary of a Fat Housewife (New York, 1995), 6 October 1983, p. 14.
G. A. Bray, 'Overweight Is Risking Fate: Definition, Classification, Prevalence and Risks', in R.
J. Wurtman andj. J. Wurtman (eds.), Annak of the New York Academy of Sciences, 499, (15 June 1987),
14-28; R. J. Kuczmarski, M. D. Carroll, K. M. Flegal, and R. P. Troiano, 'Varying Body Mass Index
Cutoff Points to Describe Overweight Prevalence Among U.S. Adults: NHANES III (1988 to
1994)', Obesity Research, 5 (1997), 542-7; K. M. Flegal, M. D. Carrol, R. J. Kuczmarski, and C. L.
Johnson, 'Overweight and Obesity in the United States: Prevalence and Trends, 1960-1994', International Journal of Obesity, 22 (1998), 39-47, p. 39.
Bray, 'Overweight', e.g. fig. 3, p. 20.
9
A. M. Wolf and G. A. Colditz, 'Social and Economic Effects of Body Weight in the United
States', American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 63 (1996), 466-9, table 1, p. 467.
10
W. Bennet and J. Gunn, The Dieter's Dilemma (New York, 1982), ch. 5; Seid, Never Too Thin,
pp. 280-1.
11
A. G. Shaper, S. G. Wannamethee, and M. Walker, 'Body Weight: Implications for the Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease, Stroke, and Diabetes Mellitus in a Cohort Study of Middle Aged
Men', British MedicalJournal, 314 (1997), 1311-17, p. 1311.
12
J. Manson et a/., 'Body Weight and Mortality Among Women', New England Journal of Medicine,
333 (1995), 677-84.
7
Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain
81
spouses. Attractive persons had better prospects in education and at work, and
were more likely to elicit co-operation.13
Weight norms have followed a long cycle. A long-term record of these norms is
provided by the measurement of photographs of models in women's magazines.
The bust-to-waist ratios in Ladies HomeJournal and Vogue declined from the turn of
the century to a minimum in the 1920s, when weight-reduction first came into
vogue. They rose to another peak in the late 1940s, a lower peak in the early 1960s,
and a particularly sharp decline into the 1980s.14 Playboy centrefolds and Miss
America contestants in the 1960s and 1970s fell substantially below normative
weights.15 Such norms were beyond the reach of most women. Feminist writers
decried them as oppressive, in titles like Never too Thin, Unbearable Weight, Am I
Thin Enough Yet?, The Beauty Myth and Tl\e Tyranny ofSlenderness}6
Real consumer spending per head more than doubled in the USA and Britain
between 1950 and 1990.17 In contrast, spending on food, alcohol, and tobacco has
risen only about one-fifth in the UK, and one-quarter in the United States.18 In
spite of the lag in food consumption, body weights continued to rise while weight
norms were going down (Figure 1). From around the turn of the century, average
body weights rose about two BMI units, and may have already reached their 1980
levels in Britain in the 1930s, but were still within the 'optimal' range. Similar
magnitudes of increase occurred in the United States, c. 18941961, with most of
the increase apparently after 1944.20 National surveys since the 1960s show that,
13
J. Rodin, L. R. Silberstein, and R. H. Streigel-Moore, 'Women and Weight: A Normative Discontent', in T. B. Sonderregger (ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: vol. 32. Psychology and Gender
(Lincoln, Nebraska, 1985), pp. 26784, p. 272; N. Allon, 'The Stigma of Overweight in Everyday
Life', in B. Wolman (ed.), Psychological Aspects of Obesity: A Handbook (New York, 1982), pp. 130-74,
pp. 13640; E. Hatfield and S. Sprecher, Mirror, Mirror: The Importance of Looks in Everyday Life
(Albany, 1986), passim.
14
B. Silverstein, B. Peterson, and L. Perdue, 'Some Correlates of the Thin Standard of Bodily
Attractiveness for Women', International Journal of Eating Disorders, 5 (1986), 895-905; B. Silverstein et
a/., 'Possible Causes of the Thin Standard of Bodily Attractiveness for Women', International Journal of
Eating Disorders, 5 (1986), 907-16; B. Silverstein et al., 'The Role of the Mass Media in Promoting
a Thin Standard of Body Attractiveness for Women', Sex Roles, 14 (1986), 51932. On the first
slimming vogue for women, c. 1900 1920s, H. Levenstein, Revolution at the Table (New York, 1988),
pp. 165-6.
15
D. M. Garner, P. E. Garfmkel, D. Schwartz, and M. Thompson, 'Cultural Expectations of Thinness in Women', Psychological Reports, 47 (1980), 483-91; C. V. Wiseman.J. T. Gray,J. E. Mosimann,
and A. E. Ahrens, 'Cultural Expectations of Thinness in Women: An Update', International Journal of
Eating Disorders, 11 (1992), 85-9. The normative weights were derived from tables published by the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, New York.
16
Seid, Never too Thin; S. Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body
(Berkeley, 1993); Hesse-Biber, Am I Thin Enough; K. Chernin, Womansize: The Tyranny of Slendemess
(London, 1981); Wolf, Beauty Myth.
17
U.K. Data are in constant 1990 prices, normalized to American 1987 dollars, which are used for
American prices. In 1990 Purchasing Power Parity between the pound and the dollar was almost
unity. USA: S. Lebergott, Pursuing Happiness: American Consumers in the Twentieth Century (Princeton,
1993), appendix A; UK: Office of National Statistics, National Income Accounts, downloaded electronically.
18
It declined from 40 to 20 per cent of personal consumption expenditure in the UK, and from 30
per cent to 17 in the USA. Elasticities of food expenditure on consumption were 0.22 in the UK and
0.28 in the USA.
19
Floud, 'Height, Weight and Body Mass', figs. 9-10.
20
Costa and Steckel, 'Long-term Trends', fig. 2.4, p. 55. The data are patchy.
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82
A US Black Women
USA Men
USA Women
0 UK Men
o UK Women
A UK Men, early
O UK Women, early
X UK Army 25-9
20
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Year
FlG. 1. Mean adult body mass index (BMI) in the United States and England and Wales, c. 1930-98
Note: For the USA since 1961 and for the UK since 1980, samples are large and representative,
and typical standard errors of the mean are 0.13-0.14 in the USA (1988-91), 0.11-0.14 (E&W,
1991) and 0.04-0.06 (E&W, 1993-95) (USA adults aged 20 upwards). The earlier samples were
large but were not designed to be encompassing. The broken line represents the 'overweight'
boundary.
Sources: Non-encompassing surveys: UKMen, 1929-32, 1943: 10,599 men in 1929-32, 27,515
in 1943, civilian manufacturing employees (ages 20-64), T. Khosla and C. R. Lowe, 'Height
and Weight of British Men', Lancet, 6 April 1968, no. 7545, 742-5, table 1, p. 743. UK Men,
1960: 5239 employees of a Birmingham electric engineering firm, ibid. UK Men, 1968: 6,168
British Petroleum employees (ages 2069), V. M. E. Montegriffo, 'A Survey of the Incidence of
Obesity in the United Kingdom', Postgraduate Medical Journal, 47, Suppl. (1971), 418-22, table
1, p. 419. UK Men, 1972: 540 men in London Borough of Richmond, I. M. Baird, J. T. Silverstone, J.J. Grimshaw and M. Ashwell, 'Prevalence of Obesity in a London Borough', Practitioner, 212 (1974), 706-14, table 1. p. 707. UK Women, 1968: 1894 BP employees,
Montegriffo, ibid., table 2, p. 419. UK Women, 1972: 794 women in Richmond, in Baird et al.,
ibid. UK Regular Army recruits, age 25-29: (1,191-7, 192 men), S. Rosenblum, '100 Years of
Heights and Weights', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, ser. A, 151, 2 (1998), 276-309, table
13, p. 293.
Representative national surveys: E&W, 1980:1. Knight andj. Eldridge, The Heights and Weights
of Adults in Great Britain (London, 1984), table 4.5, p. 33 (adults, age 16-64). Great Britain,
1987: J. R. Gregory, K. Foster, H. Tyler and M. Wiseman, The Dietary and Nutritional Survey
of British Adults (London, 1990), tables 15.18-19, p. 246. England, 1991-95: Great Britain,
Health Survey (1991-1998). USA, 1961-64 to 1976-80: R. J. Kuczmarski, K. M. Flegal, S. M.
Campbell and L. J. Clifford, 'Increasing Prevalence of Overweight Among US Adults: The
National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 1960 to 1991'', Journal of the American
Medical Association, 272, 3 (1994), 205-11, table 4, p. 209. USA 1988-94: R.J. Kuczmarski, M.
D. Carrol], K. M. Flegal and R. P. Troiano, 'Varying Body Mass Index Cutoff Points to
Describe Overweight Prevalence Among US Adults: NHANES III (1988 to 1994)', Obesity
Research, 5, 6 (1997), 542-8, table 2, p. 545.

under affluence, mean BMI has been moving upwards: American men were
already over the BMI health limit of 25 in the early 1960s, and rose to 26.5 thirty
years later. American white women had lower BMIs, British men and women
were lighter still, but average weights were converging upwards, women on men,
and Britons on Americans. By the 1990s they were all well above the 'overweight'
threshold of 25 BMI (Figure 1). Part of the rise can be attributed to ageing, but
health-related weight norms are not adjusted for age, and similar rises are retorded
within age groups.21 It was more significant that obesity (BMI > 30) was described as
expanding sharply. Taking proportions rather than averages, from the 1970s to the
1990s the incidence of'overweight' in the USA rose from 51 to 59 per cent for
men, from 41 to 50 per cent for women, with Britain behind but catching up.
'Obesity' (BMI > 30) more than doubled in Britain to a level of 1517 per cent,
while of American men about one-fifth were defined as obese, and one-quarter of
women. 22 This is commonly referred to as an 'epidemic', which may be appropriate in view of the health consequences.23
Body weight is regulated individually by the relationship between food intake and
energy expenditure. The mismatch between weight aspirations and outcomes can
be regarded as a problem of self-control. Self-control entails the sacrifice of some
immediate reward for the prospect of a superior one. For Norbert Elias, the 'civilizing process' is the rise of self-control over historical time, exemplified in the evolution of table manners, in which the common bowl and greasy fingers gave way
to a structured meal.24 Pierre Bourdieu found a contrast between the coarseness of
working-class eating habits in 1960s France and the restrained and decorous format
of middle-class eating.25 Both of these were progressive narratives, which linked a
rise in affluence to increasing self-control. What they did not anticipate was that
self-control might decline with abundance, nor did they anticipate the fragmenta21
In Britain, National Food Survey households increased in age from an average 34.1 to 36.6
between 19746 and 19924. An increase of this magnitude would raise BMI by 0.60.8 units,
whereas the actual increase was more than twice as large. See A. Chesher, 'Diet Revealed? Semiparametric Estimation of Nutrient Intake-Age Relationships', unpublished paper, University of Bristol,
(February 1996), table 1, p. 4; J. R. Gregory, K. Foster, H. Tyler, and M. Wiseman, The Dietary and
Nutritional Survey of British Adults (London, 1990), tables 15.20-21, p. 247.
22
E n g l a n d : I. K n i g h t a n d j . Eldridge, The Heights and Weights of Adults in Great Britain ( L o n d o n ,
1984), table 4 . 5 , p . 3 3 ; Great Britain, Health Survey for England, 1995, 2 vols., I, table 8.12, p . 334;
U S A : Flegal et at, ' O v e r w e i g h t and O b e s i t y ' , tables 14, p p . 413.
23
P. Bjorntorp, 'Obesity', The Lancet, no. 9075 (1997), 423-6, p. 425; J. C. Seidell, 'Obesity in
Europe: Scaling an Epidemic', International Journal of Obesity, 19, Suppl. 3 (1995), si4; J. Laurance,
'Task Force Aims to Halt Global Obesity Epidemic', The Times (13 March 1996), 10; G. Gardner and
B. Halwell, Overfed and Underfed: The Global Epidemic of Malnutrition, Worldwatch Paper 150
(Washington, DC, 2000).
24
N. Elias, The Civilizing Process, 2 vols., I (Oxford, 1978-82), pp. 99-113; RC. Wood, The
Sociology of the Meal (Edinburgh, 1995), p. 32.
25
P. B o u r d i e u , Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste ( L o n d o n , 1986), p p . 1 9 4 - 6 ;
W o o d , Sociology of the Meal, p p . 201; Stearns, Fat History, p . 2 2 4 .
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don of meal patterns and table manners which has been strikingly observed in
France itself.26
For weights to rise, it was necessary for people to prefer the immediate gratifications of eating, to the delayed ones of normative appearance. It is normal (though
not always rational) to discount the future.27 But when people make choices that
imply adverse consequences which they can foresee, and would not have made
from a more detached or dispassionate perspective, their choice is described as
'time-inconsistent'. Such choices have long puzzled social scientists, as contradicting the assumptions of rational choice.29 They are sufficiently common to have
motivated several explanatory approaches.30 In the rational choice approach there
is no such thing as 'overweight'. People gain weight because the benefits outweigh
the costs.31 But, if consumers (such as Mrs Green) are making a sustained effort to
undo their prior decisions, that suggests that they regret the initial choice, and that
compelling, but inferior, preferences pose a genuine difficulty. An alternative
approach (widely observed in animal and human behaviour) suggests that discounting of future rewards is often not exponential but hyperbolic: rewards
become more attractive as they approach in time, to a point where the ranking of
preferences is reversed, so that an inferior reward now dominates a superior one in
the future.32 The prior choice may be described as 'myopic'. 33
The concept of myopia implies that one can do better by resisting a reward. Selfcontrol, or prudence, the ability to defer gratification, thus becomes an attribute of
rationality. The resources and strategies mobilized for self-control are individual and
cognitive, involving knowledge, willpower, and personal rules and behavioural
'bright lines'. They also draw for support on social resources such as reputation,
interpersonal pledges, contracts, norms, rules, and regulation.
The strategies of self-control, both cognitive and social, take time to develop
and acquire.34 When they persist, they form durable clusters of'culture'. If self26
Seidell, 'Obesity'; D . Laurier et al., 'Prevalence of Obesity: A C o m p a r a t i v e Survey in France, t h e
United K i n g d o m a n d t h e U n i t e d States', International Journal of Obesity, 16 (1992), 56572; C .
Fischler, ' G a s t r o - n o m i e et gastro-anomie: Sagesse d u corps et crise bioculturelle d e l'alimentation
m o d e r n e ' , Communications, 31 (1979), 1 8 9 - 2 1 0 ; C . Fischler, L'homnivore (Paris, 1990).
27
Discussed exhaustively in C . Price, Time, Discounting & Value ( O x f o r d , 1993), esp. ch. 7 .
28
S. J. Hoch and G. F. Loewenstein, 'Time-inconsistent Preferences and Consumer Self-control',
Journal of Consumer Research, 17 (1991), 492-507, p. 493.
29
J . Elster, Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality ( C a m b r i d g e , 1979); J. Elster
(ed.), The Multiple Self (Cambridge, 1986).
3
G. Ainslie, Picoeconomics: The Interaction of Successive Motivational Stales within the Person (Cambridge,
1992); G. Loewenstein andj. Elster (eds.), Choice over Time (New York, 1992); G. Loewenstein, 'Out
of Control: Visceral Influences on Behavior', Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 65
(1996), 272-92; Price, Time; R. F. Baumeister and T. F. Heatherton, 'Self-Regulation Failure: An
Overview', Psychological Inquiry, 7 (1996), 115; W. K. Viscusi, Smoking: Making the Risky Decision
( N e w Y o r k , 1992), ch. 2; J. Elster, Addiction: Entries and Exits ( N e w Y o r k , 1999).
31
G . H . Stigler and G . S. Becker, ' D e Gustibus N o n Est D i s p u t a n d u m ' , American Economic Review,
67 (1977), 7 6 - 9 0 ; G . B e c k e r a n d K . M u r p h y , 'A T h e o r y o f Rational A d d i c t i o n ' , Journal of Political
Economy, 96 (1988) 675700; Viscusi, Smoking; Philipson and Posner, ' L o n g - r u n G r o w t h ' , p . 3 .
32
Ainslie, Picoeconomics.
33
R . H . Strotz, ' M y o p i a and Inconsistency in D y n a m i c Utility M a x i m i z a t i o n ' , Review of Economic
Studies, 2 3 (1956), 1 6 5 - 8 0 .
34
Ainslie, Picoeconomics.

control is costly, then the well-off have better access to it than the poor.33 Partly or
wholly, this is because the poor have fewer realistic prospects of delayed rewards to
look forward to. But self-control has not necessarily increased when society
became more affluent as a whole. Our hypothesis is that myopic choice accounts
for the reversal of the historical trend towards greater self-control. The post-war
period of rapid economic growth was one in which the bulk of the population was
finally released from the shadow of indigence. Food prices, which in earlier times
had dominated manual incomes, fell sharply as a proportion of income, while
supply increased greatly in variety.36 Affluence may be characterized as a flow of
new and inexpensive rewards. If these rewards arrive faster than the disciplines of
prudence can form, then self-control will decline with affluence: the affluent (with
everyone else) will become less prudent. Self-control strategies take time and effort
to devise and to learn. Under the impact of affluence, they become obsolete.
Ill
What caused body weights to rise was the impact of food availability on existing
prudential strategies, interacting with the psychology of food consumption, and
the decline in physical activity. Food availability was driven by supply competition. In the 1950s in Britain and America, most eating took place at home on the
fixed occasions of three or four set meals. Housewives toiled long over 'the regular
unimaginative English mealmeat, potatoes and, sometimes, "greens", followed
by pudding and helped down by a final cup of coffee or tea'.37 In the 1950s, six out
of every ten men took their main meal mid-day and at home. 'To be on the roads
in any populated part of the country around mid-day is to see clouds of cyclists and
motor cyclists who bear witness to this homeward trek.'38 American practice was
similar. In the early 1950s, the core meal was made up of meat, starch (potatoes,
corn, rice), and vegetables, but served more usually in the evening; of the ethnic
minority cuisines, only the Italian made much headway, with spaghetti and tomato
sauce.39
Since the 1950s, the 'family-meal' system has been challenged by market competition, which has greatly expanded availablity. British multiples increased their
shares from one-fifth to three-quarters of the grocery market between 1950 and
1990.40 American supermarkets increased their share from 15 to 61 per cent in the
same period.41 In the 1950s, they stocked 5,000-8,000 items, rising to more than
35
Empirical evidence, see E. Lawrance, 'Poverty and the Rate of T i m e Preference: Evidence from
Panel Data', Journal ofPolitical Economy, 99 (1991), 5477, pp. 545, and references therein.
36
See notes 17 and 18, above.
37
W . E. Crawford and H . Broadley, The People's Food (London, 1938), p. 54.
38
G . C . W a r r e n , The Foods We Eat: A Survey of Meals, their Content and Chronology by Season, Day of
the Week, Class and Age (London, 1958), p . 6 3 ; see J. Burnett, Plenty and Want: A Social History of Diet
in Englandfrom 1815 to the Present (rev. edn. L o n d o n , 1979), ch. 14.
39
C . B r o w n , American Standards of Living (Oxford, 1994), p p . 1945; H . Levenstein, Paradox of
Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modem America ( N e w Y o r k , 1993), ch. 8.
40
H . R a v e n , T . Lang, and C . D u m o n t e i l , Off our Trolleys? Food Retailing and the Hypermarket
Economy ( L o n d o n , 1995), p. 37.
41
United States Department of Agriculture (henceforth USDA), 'U.S. Food Expenditures' [disk]
(1/1996), Stock #91003, table 16. Sales for Food at Home by Type of Outlet.
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25,000 different items by the 1980s. Shops stayed open longer: a median 82 hours
a week in the USA in 1975, 108 in 1990, with universal Sunday opening, and
almost a third of outlets open for 24 hours a day.42
Cautiously, eaters also began to move beyond home cooking in search of variety
and convenience.43 In the 1950s, a fifth of British breakfasts included Americantype cereals.44 French haute cuisine had long provided the model for upper-class
cooking.45 Elizabeth David's celebrated recipes introduced Mediterranean rustic
flavours and 'slow food', with fresh ingredients, careful preparation, and a relaxed
experience of eating. A similar nouvelle cuisine appeared in the United States.46 For
those in a hurry, the freezer and chilled sections of the shops carried ready-made
food, building on the fish-fingers and frozen peas of the 1950s.47 At home, microwave ovens, introduced in 1973, reached 50 per cent of American households by
1985.48 Fridges and freezers made shopping easier.49 A 1984 British survey found
'convenience' food to account for more than a third of all food outlays.50
In Britain, convenience and novelty beckoned in ethnic restaurants and takeaways, Chinese, Indian, Italian and Cypriot, and pizza parlours, burger bars and
fried chicken outlets inspired or franchized from the USA. Still greater culinary
variety diffused through the United States, reinforced by an abundance of themed
cookbooks.51 Exotic cuisines entered the domestic cycle as sources of variety and
spice, although not yet as staples.52 'Alien' cuisines together accounted for about
12 per cent of restaurant turnover in 1975, rising to 27 per cent by 1990, or 36 per
cent if'Continental' ones are included.53
Eating outside the home claimed less than 10 per cent of food outlays in Britain
in 1955. By 1995 eating out had more than doubled its share of food spending,
reaching about 25 per cent in the United Kingdom and more than 45 per cent in
42
J. R . W a l s h , Supermarkets Transformed: Understanding Organizational and Technological Innovations
( N e w Brunswick, NJ, 1993), pp. 9, 4 3 , 49.
43
J. Currie, 'Trends in Food and Cooking Habits', a study based upon research undertaken by the
British Market Research Bureau on behalf ofj. Walter Thompson Company Ltd. (196-), fols. 226.
44
E. J. T. Collins, 'The 'Consumer Revolution' and the Growth of Factory Foods: Changing
Patterns of Bread and Cereal-Eating in Britain in the 20th Century', in D. S. Oddy and D. S. Miller,
The Making of the Modern British Diet (1976), ch. 3 , p p . 3143; C r a w f o r d , People's Food, p . 3 9 ; W a r r e n ,
Foods We Eat, p . 24.
45
C. Driver, The British at Table, 1940-1980 (London, 1983), ch. 1.
46
Ibid. p . 5 3 ; Seid, Never too Thin, p p . 2001; Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty, p p . 2201; L. B r e n n e r ,
American Appetite: The Coming of Age of a Cuisine ( N e w Y o r k , 1999), pp.1439.
47
S. Astrom, 'Main Trends of Development in the Market for Frozen Foods in Western Europe',
in United Nations, FAO, Frozen and Quick-frozen Food (Oxford, 1977), fig. 1, p. 6.
48
S. Bowden and A. Offer, 'Household Appliances and Time Use in the United States and Britain
since the 1920s', Economic History Review, Al (1994), 725-48, table 1, pp. 729-30.
49
Ibid., table Al, p. 746.
30
Excluding fast foods and takeaways. Mintel Publications, Convenience Meals (London, 1985), table
3, p. 7.
Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty, ch. 14; J. L. Hess and K. Hess, The Taste of America (New York,
1977) take a jaundiced view.
52
N. Charles and M. Kerr, Women, Food and Families (Manchester, 1990), p. 65; M. L. DeVault,
Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work (Chicago, 1991), pp. 2124;
D. W. Marshal], 'Eating at Home: Meals and Food Choice', in D. W. Marshall (ed.), Food Choice and
the Consumer (London, 1995), 264-91, pp. 276-7.
53
C. Wardle, Changing Food Habits in the U.K. (London, 1977), table 9, p. 38; Keynote Publications, Restaurants, 7th edn (1992), table 33, p. 40.
87

50
45..
sating out
^~*
+ UK other takeaway
and snacks
UK meals
bought out
10..
UK takeaway meals _
5..
UK school and work
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
F I G . 2. Eating out as percentage of food expenditure, US and UK, 195&-95. (cumulative)

Sources: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 'US Food Expenditures',
(Jan. 1996), Stock #91003, tables 3, 17; Great Britain, Family Expenditure Survey (annual).
the United States (Figure 2). The appeal was convivial as well as culinary.'4 This is
attested by the elasticity of'eating out' on consumption expenditure, which was
0.93 in America and 0.76 in Britain, i.e. rising much closer in line with consumer
expenditures than food outlays.55
Fast food outlets expanded even faster. The palatable, fat-rich hamburger, pizza,
fried chicken, and ethnic take-out cuisines rose from 3 to 16 per cent of US food
54
M. Visser, The Rituals of Dinner (London, 1992); J. Finkelstein, Dining Out: A Sociology of Modem
Manners (Oxford, 1989).
35
Data sources, see n. 17 above, and figure 2. Compare n. 18.
88
Avner Offer
outlays between 1963 and 1993.56 Portions also grew, and the conception of a
'normal' helping has moved upwards.57 McDonald's biggest hamburger inflated
from 3.7 ounces to almost nine.58 In a British market survey (1986), three-quarters
of adults bought take-away food once a month, rising from about half in 1972.
Most readily available were the sweet and salty, energy-heavy, snack or junk' foods:
crisps, chocolate bars, nuts, cookies, soft drinks, etc. 'The most heavily advertised
foods tend to be of dubious nutritional value', and are heavily promoted to
children.60 Defining snacking as 'the consumption of food in-hand, without the
use of domestic cutlery or crockery . . . and involving minimal or no immediate
preparation', in 1987 in Britain, 'snack foods represent 34 per cent of all food
purchases, and snack foods together with all other foods eaten as snacks account for
44 per cent of the total food market'.61 Adding non-alcoholic drinks would bring
the outlay on snacking very close to 50 per cent.62
There is a puzzle about food intake. Household food surveys showed intake in
decline, even as body weights were rising. But the British National Food Survey
omitted alcohol, confectionery and soft drinks, as well as eating out. A different,
top-down, approach is to measure 'disappearance', that is, how much food enters the
food chain. This incorporates some waste, but is a better guide to trends. Taking this
measure, from 1961/4 to 1988/94 calorie intake per capita in the USA increased 22
per cent.65 Americans consumed about as many calories as Britons in the 1950s, but
surged ahead in the 1970s, and again in the 1980s. Britons only followed after 1979
(Figure 3). American calorie intake was quite highly correlated with income per
head over time (r = 0.87), with British consumption much less so (r = 0.39).66
Recent American household consumption surveys have also confirmed these
trends, showing calorie intake rising about 9 per cent since 1977-78.67
56
USDA, 'U.S. Food Expenditures' (January 1996) Stock #91003, table 17.
G a r d n e r and Hallwell, Overfed, p . 32.
58
M. Fumento, The Fat of the Land: The Obesity Epidemic and how Overweight Americans can Help
Themselves (New York, 1997), pp. 44-8.
59
M i n t e l Publications, Snacking: An Eating Revolution? ( L o n d o n , 1987).
60
Gardner and Hallwell, Overfed, pp. 29-33.
61
Mintel, Snacking, p. 11, 19.
62
USDA, 'Expenditures of Food, Beverages and Tobacco, 1970-1988' (n.d.), Stock #93050, table
uk.wkl.
63
A. M. Prentice andS. A.Jebb. 'Obesity in Britain: Gluttony or Sloth?', British Medical Journal, 311
(1995), 437-9; Seid, Never too Thin, p. 297, n. 49.
64
Great Britain, National Food Survey 1994, fig 4.28, p. 67. D. H. Buss, 'The British Diet since the
End of Food Rationing', in C. Geissler and D. J. Oddy (eds.), Food, Diet and Economic Change Past and
Present (Leicester, 1994), pp. 121-32, does not provide calorie estimates; nor does M. Nelson, 'Socialclass Trends in British Diet, 1860-1980', in Geissler and Oddy, ibid., pp. 101-20. Their analysis of
food components is undermined by these omissions, especially for the later periods.
65
W. A. Gortner, 'Nutrition in the United States, 1900 to 1974', Cancer Research, 35 (1975),
3246-53, table 1, p. 3248; USDA, 'Food Consumption, Prices, and Expenditures' (August 1997),
Stock #89015B, table 4O.wkl. There is a large margin of waste. Compare Gregory el al., Dietary and
Nutritional Survey, table 7.1, p. 53; L. S. Kantor, K. Lipton, A. Manchester, and V. Oliveira, 'Estimating
and Addressing America's Food Losses', Food Review, 20 (1997), 2-12.
66
1950-90. The time-series relation is too complicated to explore here.
67
B. Lin, Biing-Hwan, J. Guthrie, and E. Frazao, 'Away-from-home Foods Increasingly Important
to Quality of American Diet', U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Agricultural Information
Bulletin no. 479 (Washington, DC, 1999), table 5, p. 7.
57
Fl c ; . 3. C~loricjpc2rired per d'ly i-o~ljtr~nt.d

irl r h I .rrlrzd S r m s mrl (;rc.nt Brirm, c . 1 Y5fk414
Sotrrccr: Otttcr ot t c o n o r n ~ zLo-operatlcm and I)eveloprnrt~t(OtCJL)), f-aid C(ltls~~ttlpriot1 Sr~rtsrlc( a n n u d ) ; United Statec Ilrpdrtnlent of Agriculture (USUA). 'Food Co115un1pt101i. Price\. .lnd E ~ ~ e n d ~ t u r e(Aug.
s'.
11)07). Stock #X1)01 513. table l?.\vk I :
USI)A. .+qnirtlr~rr~rl
Smriac.; 1YV.j-4 (W,:\hlngton, I)(:. 10i)X), table 640.
I k c l i n e in physical activity is a residudl cxplanatlon for the rise In body \veight.

though there is little research."' Bodily exertlon \vork has declined ~ v i t hrnanual
einployn~cnt.Britain motorized later than the United State3. which may help to
explain w h y American) \verc he'ivier than l3ritons o n the same amount o f c , ~ l o r i ~ s
In the 196(h."" T h e fragilentatior~o f d n ~ l l i n g \, h o p p ~ n g ,and work has requirtd
m o r e travel by car. It was a far cry from the world 111 which most men walked o r
cycled h o m e for lunch. T h e physical activit). that \vas once a part ofdally life n o w
hdd t o be pdid for w ~ t hdcsiglated time, space. equipment. and advice. But, \ v h ~ t ever the contribution o f the decline in phy\ical exercise, people have been eatlrlg
1 1 1 0 1 ~ a \tell. Tliry ~ t IcI I U I ~b c c ~ u x
111orcv.rrict) \\,I\ . ~ v ~ ~ i l . h 13~11
l c . IIUL\ ~ U C I
food variety undermine \elf-control?
I'ICI,LILC . ~ I JcbL,,
IJ
'OIICIII>
I I I I ~ I I ~ . I I~ I
' I JI I' ~. I ~ W , I IA I I JP I , \ I I C.II.. u I I ~ L-III I ( ; I < J 111'
\<
11, I ' M I dh<)ut73 prr ~ r n ot t A I T I C ~ C111,u\rh~rldrn
AII
hdii i,l,,ti,r car\. $ \ It.\\ thdrl 511 p r r
I $ r ~ r ~unt.5
< h / ~ ~ O L \ L ~dlld
I I ( ) t & r . . H o ~ ~ ~ r hApplldllc~\'.
old
t ~ h I l. p~ 7 2 ' ) .
I..
,;,
( c ' l l r 111.
90
Avner Offer
IV
If food availability was the supply shock, on the demand side, the response was
mediated by the psychology of satiation. Body weight responds to several different
feedback loops, which are difficult to monitor and to control. It usually follows a
slight rising trend over the life cycle without varying a great deal, but equilibrium is
often well off target. The choice of what to eat and when to stop can be regarded as
being either rational or myopic.70 Animal foraging in the wild, and huntergathering societies, are modelled in terms of'optimal foraging', the rational quest
for maximum energy at minimal effort. But the 'thrifty genotype', selected by
evolution under scarcity, becomes maladaptive under affluence, and impels people
to overeat. An 'efficient' converter of food into fat can put on twice as much
weight as an 'inefficient' one, with the same intake.72 Metabolic efficiency is a
genetic endowment, and overweight has a genetic component.73 There is a view
that the body maintains a homeostatic balance that 'defends' a 'set-point' body
weight. If weight falls below this level, the body will motivate weight gain.74 One
approach to appetite concentrates on the 'normal' physiological cycle: an empty
stomach signals hunger, the subject responds by eating, and a full stomach makes
him stop. The feedback is self-contained and physiological, but the cycle is complex and poorly understood.75
Once people attempt to restrain eating before satiation, they are easily disinhibited into excess eating. The trigger is external stress, which comes in three forms:
appetizing food; negative feelings; and the company of other people. Again, similar
results have come out of different research programmes. A robust finding is that
eating restarts after satiation, when the subject is exposed to palatable food.76 Rats
which maintained a steady weight on monotonous unrestricted 'chow' diets, rose
rapidly into obesity when offered a 'supermarket' of appetising foods. Another
research programme identified two psychological reactions to food. Eaters were
given a 'preload', e.g. a satiating lunch. They were then presented with a rich
milkshake or ice-cream. 'Normal' eaters soon lost interest. 'Restrained eaters'
started a new cycle of eating. They could be identified in advance by their concern
70
71
A. W. Logue, The Psychology of Eating and Drinking, 2nd edn (New York, 1986), ch. 7.
J. E.Blundell, 'Food Intake and Body Weight Regulation', in C. Bouchard and G. A. Bray (eds.),
Regulation of Body Weight: Biological and Behavioral Mechanisms (Chichester, 1996), pp. 11133, p. 113.
2
J. Rodin, D. Schank, and R. Striegel-Moore, 'Psychological Features of Obesity', Medical Clinics
of North America, 73 (1989), 47-66, p. 47, referring to G. A. Rose and R. T. Williams, 'Metabolic
Studies on Large and Small Eaten', Britishjoumal of Nutrition, 15 (1961), 110.
73
S. A. Jebb, 'Aetiology of Obesity', British Medical Bulletin, 53 (1997), 264-85.
74
R. F. Keesey, 'A Set-point Analysis of the Regulation of Body Weight', in A. J. Stunkard (ed.),
Obesity (Philadelphia, 1980), pp. 144-65; R. F. Keesey, 'A Set-point Theory of Obesity', in K. D.
Brownell, and J. P. Foreyt (eds.), Handbook of Eating Disorders (New York, 1986), pp. 63-87; I. D.
Caterson et al., 'Group Report: What Are the Animal and Human Models for the Study of Regulation
of Body Weight and What are their Respective Strengths and Limitations?', in Bouchard and Bray,
Regulation, pp. 85-110, pp. 86-8.
BlundeU, 'Food Intake'; Bouchard and Gray, Regulation, passim.
76
B. Rolls, E. T. Rolls, and E. A. Rowe, 'The Influence of Variety on Human Food Selection and
Intake', in L. M. Barker (ed.), The Psychobiology of Human Food Selection (Westport, Connecticut,
1982), pp. 101-22.
77
A. Sclafani, 'Dietary Obesity', in Stunkard, Obesity, pp. 16681, pp. 1758.
91
about body weight, and their inclination to diet and binge. Once having overstepped their diets, 'restrained eaters' abandoned restraint altogether. This pattern
appears to be pervasive.78 Although both 'normal' and 'restrained' eating are found
at all weight levels, it seems that weight control is more easily attained by not trying
too hard.79
'Restrained' eaters typically turn to food in search of comfort and relief. Food
acts as an 'emotional tranquillizer'.80 Distress is the single most reliable precipitant
of a binge. Here again, there is a difference: in response to stress, 'normal' eaters
hold intake steady or reduce it, while 'restrained' eaters increase it.81 In company,
people eat more.82 In everyday settings, a curvilinear powerlaw relationship was
observed between the number of eaters and the size of the meal. An increase from
one eater to seven increased meal size from 400 to 700 calories. 'Restrained eaters'
were more susceptible to companionship than unrestrained ones.83 Food prepared
professionally, eaten on a special occasion, is likely to be more appetizing. Restaurant food tends to mimic formal bourgeois eating patterns, only more so. Noise,
itself a form of stress, stimulates eating, hence perhaps the ubiquity of canned music
in restaurants and pubs.8D
The disinhibiting effect of stress in the form of appetizing food, distress, and
company, forms the link between the micro-motives of individuals, and macrobehavioural patterns. It suggests why Elias and Bourdieu have not been confirmed
in their hypothesis that self-control would increase with affluence. The three-meal
system was monotonous, regular, predictable, short on stimulation and on novelty.
The breakdown of family mealtime routines, expanding food variety and choice,
78
C. P. Herman andj. Polivy, 'Restrained Eating', in Stunkard, Obesity, pp. 208-25; C. P. Herman
andj. Polivy, 'What Does Abnormal Eating Tell us About Normal Eating?', in H. L. Meiselman and
H. J. H. MacFie (eds.), Food Choke, Acceptance and Consumption (London, 1996), pp. 207-38; S.
Orbach, Fat is a Feminist Issue: How to Lose Weight Pemanently-Without Dieting, new edn (first publ.
1978; London, 1988) describes the same syndrome, p. 16.
79
That is what several dieting manuals recommend, although the majority stress fairly strict selfcontrol. Among the former are Orbach, Fat; J. Polivy, Breaking the Diet Habit: the Natural Weight
Alternative (New York, 1983); J. Foreyt and G. K. Goodrick, Living Without Dieting (New York,
1994); E. Tribole and E. Resch, Intuitive Eating (New York, 1995); among the latter, R. B. Stuart, Act
Thin, Stay Thin: New Ways to Manage Your Urge to Eat ( L o n d o n , 1978).
80
Herman and Polivy, 'Abnormal Eating', p. 233; J. A. Slochower, Excessive Eating: The Role of
Emotions and the Environment (New York, 1983), p. 98; Chernin, Womansize,p. ll;alsoj. Rodin, Body
Traps: How to Overcome Your Body ObsessionsAnd Liberate the Real You (London, 1992), pp. 1356;
C. Brown, 'The Continuum: Anorexia, Bulimia and Weight Preoccupation', in C. Brown and K.
Jasper (eds.), Consuming Passions: Feminist Approaches to Weight Preoccupation and Eating Disorders
(Toronto, 1993), pp. 53-68, p. 63; A. J. Blair, V. J. Lewis, and D. A. Booth, 'Does Emotional Eating
Interfere with Success in Attempts at Weight Control?', Appetite, 15 (1990), 151-7.
81
Herman and Polivy, 'Abnormal Eating', pp. 2334.
82
J. M. de Castro et al., 'Social Facilitation of the Spontaneous Meal Size of Humans Occurs
Regardless of Time, Place, Alcohol or Snacks', Appetite, 15 (1990), 89-101; V. Clendenenen, C. P.
Herman, and J. Polivy, 'Social Facilitation of Eating Among Friends and Strangers', Appetite, 23
(1994), 1-13; Logue, Psychology of Eating, p. 207.
81
J. M. de Castro and E. M. Brewer, 'The Amount Eaten in Meals by Humans is a Power Function
of the Number of People Present', Physiology & Behavior, 51 (1991), 121-5; Herman and Polivy,
'What Does Abnormal Eating tell Us', fig. 5.1, p. 212.
84
Wood, Sociology of the Meal, ch. 3.
8:1
A. McCarron, A. and K. J. Tierney, 'The Effect of Auditory Stimulation on the Consumption of
Soft Drinks', Appetite, 13 (1989), 155-9.
92
Avner Offer
the ubiquity of rich fast foods, and their attendant advertising, exposed increasing
numbers to new foods, irregular eating and eating in public places and in company,
thus precipitating a shift from 'normal' to disturbed, or aroused, eating patterns.
Eating out, with its large portions, 'standard' three course meals, and clean plates,
has also challenged restraint. In its turn, this has acted to shift body weight
upwards, thus increasing the motivation for self-control, and hence for restrained
eating. In their turn, restrained eaters find it more difficult to resist arousal and, as
their share of the population increased, weight control became collectively more
difficult.86 Dissatisfaction with weight is the most frequently reported hassle in
daily life, and small hassles are good predictors of distress,87 and hence of eating
binges.
From physiology on to society: economic and social status also affects desired
body weight, both directly, and more importantly through gender. In poor
societies, food is scarce, the poor are thin, and the wealthy are fat. Once these
societies were exposed to food abundance, they experienced a sharp rise in
weights, and rising levels of obesity.88 In affluent societies, these conditions persist,
and the poor tend to fatness, while the well-off are slimmer.89 Table 1 compares
the relation between obesity, class, and gender in the USA, Europe, and several
developing countries. In poor countries, higher income is associated with obesity,
for both women and men. In the developed world, there is a strong inverse relation for women. For men, there is an inverse relation in Britain and Europe, but an
indeterminate one in the United States. Women's obesity is more strongly determined by socio-economic status than men's.
Table 2 indicates that, when average weights under affluence are considered
(rather than obesity), the relation of class and weight is mediated by gender.
American weight surveys are coy about social class. There is, however, one representative socio-economic breakdown available, of the national health survey of
19714, which is compared here with the British one of 19867. The gap in time
brings the incomes closer together. Table 2 describes the two social extremes in the
UK and the USA. American and British men at both social extremes differed very
little from each other in BMI. In contrast, affluent, educated women were much
thinner than poor women and those with little education. The difference in BMI
between lower- and upper-class women was between two and three units.
These weight norms are consistent with the 'handicap principle' in signalling: it
is the scarce and costly which is valued. 'Beauty, if it's to be deemed to have any
86
P r e s c i e n d y o b s e r v e d b y P . Pullar, Consuming Passions; A History of English Food and Appetite
(London, 1970), pp. 222-4, 233-4.
87
M. Argyle, The Social Psychology of Everyday Life (London, 1992), pp. 262-4.
88
P. J. Brown and M. Konner, 'An Anthropological Perspective on Obesity', in R. J. Wurtman and
J. J. Wurtman (eds.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 499 (1987), 2 9 ^ 6 ; Gardner and
Halwell, Overfed, pp. 21-8.
89
A. M. Hodge and P. Z. Zimmet, 'The Epidemiology of Obesity', ch. 5 in I. D. Caterton (ed.),
Obesity, Balliere's Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 8 ( 1 9 9 4 ) , p p . 5 7 7 - 9 9 .
90
J. Sobal and A. J. Stunkard, 'Socioeconomic Status and Obesity: A Review of the Literature',
Psychological Bulletin, 105 (1989), 260-75, pp. 261-2, 267-8.
A. Zahavi and A. Zahavi, The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle (Oxford,
1997).
93

T A B L E 1. Relationship
positive relationship
Relationship
Inverse
None
Positive
N
between socio-economic status and obesity: percentage of studies showing inverse or
Women
Men
USA
Britain
Western
Europe
Dev.
countries
USA
Britain
Western
Europe
Dev.
countries
93
7
0
30
67
33
0
12
86
0
14
7
0
9
91
11
44
11
44
27
55
27
18
22
55
9
36
11
0
14
86
14
Source: J. Sobal and A. J. Stunkard, 'Socioeconomic Status and Obesity: A Review of the Literature',
Psychological Bulletin, 105 (1989), 260-75, tables 1, 2, 4.
TABLE 2. Mean weight, height, BMI and social class of adults, USA 1971-4, UK 1986-7
Social
category
USA income
SS15000
<$4000
Probability
USA education
13 years
<9 years
Probability
Men
()
Women
()
Men
height
(m)
Men
weight
(kg)
Women
height
(m)
Women
weight
(kg)
Men
BM1
Women
BMI
857
1196
1215
2072
1.76
1.74
<0.001
79.8
74.4
<0.001
1.62
1.61
O.001
63.0
68.0
<0.001
25.8
24.5
24.0
26.2
1224
1750
1714
1990
1.77
1.72
<0.001
78.9
75.3
<0.001
1.63
1.59
<0.001
63.0
67.6
<0.001
25.3
25.3
23.7
26.6
405
189
401
235
1.76
1.74
>0.5
76.2
74.9
0.2
1.63
1.60
>0.5
62.7
65.9
0.005
24.7
24.8
>0.5
23.8
25.8
<0.001
UK social class
1 +2
4+5
Probability
Notes: (1) Ages: 18-74 in the USA, 16-64 for Britain. (2) USA Income: defined as family income.
(3) American BMI is derived from height and weight data. (4) Probability: chance that the difference
of the means is equal to 0, using two-tailed /-tests. Tests carried out on aggregate data. Reported data
are age-adjusted.
Source: USA: R. Fulwood, S. Robinson, S. Abraham and C. Johnson, Height and Weight of Adults,
Ages 18-74 Years by Socioeconomic and Geographic Variables, Vital & Health Statistics, Data from the
National Health Survey, Series 11, no. 224 (Hyatsville, MD, 1981), tables 1, 4, 13, 16. Great Britain:
J. R. Gregory, K. Foster, H. Tyler and M. Wiseman, The Dietary and Nutritional Survey of British Adults,
(London, 1990), table 15.11.
worth, has to be rare.'92 Under indigence, girth signals wealth and power. Under
affluence, it is slimness that is difficult, and demonstrates a capacity for self-control.
If self-control is costly, it is more readily available to the well-off than to the
poor.93
American research indicates that economic rewards to slimness are not in terms of
direct levels of pay. There was a small penalty for unattractiveness, and a small
premium for attractiveness, but these were gender-blind, and the contribution of
92
93
N . Lawson, 'Let's T a k e a W i d e r Look at the T h i n Issue', Observer, 16 April 2 0 0 0 .

Brown and Konner, 'An Anthropological Perspective', p. 42.
94
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body weight was not statistically significant.94 Other studies show a small wage
penalty for obesity, affecting women alone.93 The rewards for body-shape accrued
mostly through the competition for mates, a point reluctantly acknowledged by
feminist writers.96 'Physical attractiveness and weight are still the chief and most
wholeheartedly sanctioned domains in which women are encouraged to contend
with each other.'97 Female mating competition is more acute than male competition. Women seek men who are typically older, more educated and better off
than themselves.98 The age, the income, and the education pyramids taper towards
the top, so there are more female seekers than males sought. Women typically
marry men who are two to three years older.99
But why was it during the period from the 1960s to the 1980s that the 'cult of
thinness' re-emerged?
There are several reasons why mating competition,
especially among middle-class and educated women, might have intensified
during this period. These are associated with a reduction in the supply of eligible
males. The 1960s to the 1980s were the decades of massive female entry into
higher education and well-paid employment, which reduced the relative number
of males with comparable or superior attributes.101 Women with high education
and occupational achievement are less likely to be married.102 To make things
more difficult, between the 1960s and the 1980s, the sex ratio turned strongly
against women in the courting age, and they outnumbered considerably the
numbers of men two to three years older.103 This arose as a result of the 'baby
boom' cycle. In a sustained period of rising numbers of marriageable people, the
older cohorts will be smaller than the younger ones, thus disadvantaging women
seeking older mates. Figure 4 shows six different measures of the male/female sex
ratio, in a separate cluster for each census year, for the United States and Britain. It
94
D. S. Hamermesh and J. E. Biddle, 'Beauty and the Labor Market', American Economic Review, 84
(1994), 1174-94.
95
C. A. Register and D. R. Williams, 'Wage Effects of Obesity among Young Workers', Social
Science Quarterly, 71 (1990), 13041;J. A. Pagan and A. Davila, 'Obesity, Occupational Attainment,
and Earnings', Social Science Quarterly, 78 (1997), 756-70.
96
O r b a c h , Fat, p p . 312; R . F r e e d m a n , Beauty Bound: Why Women Strive for Physical Perfection
(London, 1988), ch. 8; Rodin, Body Traps, p. 104; D. A. Mori, S. Chaiken, and P. Pliner, '"Eating
Lightly" and the Self-presentation of Femininity', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53 (1987),
693-702, p. 693.
97
Rodin, Body Traps, p. 95.
98
B. J. Ellis, 'The Evolution of Sexual Attraction: Evaluative Mechanism in Women', in J.
Barkow, L. Cosmides, and R. Tooby (eds.), The Adapted Mind (New York, 1991), pp. 267-88; M.
Guttentag and P. F. Secord, Too Many Women? The Sex Ratio Question (Beverly Hills, California,
1983).
99
D. Coleman andj. Salt, T7ic British Population: Patterns, Trends, and Processes (Oxford, 1992), fig.
5.1, p. 181; United States, Bureau of Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to
1970, 2 vols., I (Washington, DC, 1975; CD edn, New York, 1997), table A158-159, p. 19.
100
Seid, Never too Thin, chs. 7-10.
101
C. D. Goldin, Understanding the Gender Cap: an Economic History of American Women (New York,
1990), pp. 215-17.
102
H. Joshi, 'Combining Employment and Child-Rearing: The Story of British Women's Lives',
in A. Offer (ed.), In Pursuit of the Quality of Life (Oxford, 1996), 88-118, p. 101, 113; J. Ermisch, Fewer
Babies, Longer Lives: Policy Implications of Current Demographic Trends (York, 1990), p. 9.
103
As noted by Guttentag and Secord, Too Many Women?; also F. A. Pedersen, 'Secular Trends in
Human Sex Ratios: Their Influence on Individual and Family Behavior', Human Nature, 2 (1991),
271-91, and the references therein.
Age groups: a 25-29120-24

20-29120-24
3 30-34125-29
5 Unm.25-29120-24
-
Unm.20-29'20-24
Unm.30-34/25-29
England and Wales
sho\vs that. from a Icvcl o f p n r ~ t y, ~ tth e 1000-01 c - r . r l \ r l v . \ , t h r n ~ l l n h c ~o rf c~ligihle

mCn per I o( 1 \volnen In the 3 1-20 ~ g pc o ~ ~ dropped
p<
t o .lro~irldX( 1, . ~ n dthit ratio
pcrvrtc.ri in the Lr5A rhrnrlgh the 1')Wl c w ~ \ u I~t .15 o n l y by 100()t h ~ pt m t y \\.,I\
rcqtored. A w c l a t i o n 15 n o t proof o f c a u w l o n . but the rt.latlon I \ ~ t r o n g l yw g gc5tive.
In a tlghtcnmg ~ ~ l a t i nmarket.
g
hod)- \ \ ~ g h it v ~ oi n e n.dy fur \conlcrl t o coinpctc. Tllc mc~glltLAI-gc.t \ct .it the lo\\. cwd ot'thz rlorrn,ll r'Ingc.
A~ri~ncan
),,,
96
Avner Offer
women sought a lower weight for themselves than the level that men found
attractive.103 This is consistent with the view that low weight is not desirable in
itself, but is rather a credible signal of self-control and virtue.106 It also suggests why
the media-driven 'cult of thinness' found such ready acceptance among the readers
of women's magazines. Overweight was often regarded as an advertisement of
moral failure: 'my body remains a visible-to-all-the-world sign that I am not in
control of my life', wrote Rosemary Green. 'Fat parents are forever a sign of selfindulgence, a perfect example of lack of self-control'.107 Silverstein and Perlick
make a suggestive association of eating disorders, extreme slimming, and the rise in
mental health problems with women's labour force competition with men, whom
they are driven to emulate in bodily appearance. There is a reasonably good fit
between a norm of thin body shapes and the expansion of working opportunities
for women in the 1920s and after the 1960s. And the signal of self-control may be
as valuable in the labour market as in the mating market. But the stick-thin models
in women's magazines are not generally shown as power-dressing, but rather
wearing garments of a distinctly feminine character. And while weight norms have
decreased, women's weights have increased. Anorexia only affects 1-2 per cent of
college-age women, while about one-quarter of all women are obese.
Food has symbolic power, signifying masculinity and femininity, weakness and
strength, high and low prestige.109 Some foods acquire an association with virtue
or with moral failing: the self-help slimming movement (like its model Alcoholics
Anonymous) has evangelical undertones.110 Many more women dieted than men,
and on the average (comparing BMI outcomes), women succeeded better than
men, suggesting that more was at stake for women.111
Body weight affected the outcomes of courtship. In one American study,
women of average weight reported one or two dates per week, overweight
women about one per month.1 Being slim (or tall) has been conducive to social
mobility. In Britain, the tallest women were the most likely to raise their social
class through marriage, while the shortest were least likely to raise their social class
1(b
A. E. Fallon and P. Rozin, 'Sex Differences in Perceptions of Desirable Body Shape', Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, 94 (1985), 102-5; Rodin et al, 'Women and Weight', pp. 287-91.
106
R. I. Stein and C. J. Nemeroff, 'Moral Overtones of Food: Judgments of Others Based on What
they Eat', Personality and Social Psychology, 21 (1995), 480-90; P. Pliner and S. Chaiken, 'Eating, Social
Motives and Self-presentation in Women and Men'. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 26
(1990), 240-54.
107
Green, Diary, pp. 27, 56; see AJlon, 'Stigma of Obesity'; Hesse-Biber, Thin Enough?, p. 4 and ch. 2.
108
B . Silverstein a n d D . Perlick, Tiic Cost of Competence: Why Inequality Causes Depression, Eating
Disorders, and Illness in Women ( N e w Y o r k , 1995).
109
J. Twigg, 'Vegetarianism and the Meaning of Meat', in A. Murcott (ed.), The Sociology of Food
and Eating (Aldershot, 1983), pp. 18-30.
110
R. B. Stuart and C. Mitchell, 'Self-Help Groups in the Control of Body Weight', in Stunkard,
Obesity, pp. 34554; J. Sobal, 'Group Dieting, the Stigma of Obesity, and Overweight Adolescents:
Contributions of Natalie Allon to the Sociology of Obesity', in D. J. Kallen and M. B. Sussman (eds.),
Obesity and the Family (New York, 1984); A. Goldstein, Addiction: From Biology to Drug Policy (New
York, 1994), p. 132; Seid, Never too Thin, p. 168.
' " j . Horm and K. Anderson, 'Who in America is Trying to Lose Weight?', Annab of Internal
Medicine, 119 (1993), 672-6.
112
J. Stake and M. L. Lauer, 'The Consequences of Being Overweight', Sex Roles, 17 (1987),
31-47, p. 38.

that way.113 Obese women were more likely to be downwardly mobile.114 In New
York in the 1950s, 12 per cent of upwardly mobile women were obese, as compared with 22 per cent of the downwardly mobile, with no comparable trend for
men.115 In a large American study in the 1980s, differences in marriage probabilities and in spouse's earnings accounted for 5095 per cent of the lower economic
status of obese women, and visually unattractive women married less educated
men: 'the great majority (as much as 96 per cent) of the economic deficit associated
with obesity among women . . . results from differences in the marriage market
(especially the probabilities of marriage), not the labor market'. 116 Overweight
women were less likely to marry, were poorer, and finished their education earlier
than other women, and earlier than men of the same social position." 7 If marital
and occupational mobility was denied to the fat,118 then the poor had even greater
obstacles to overcome than the well-off, and with a lower endowment of resources.
In a period of accelerated marriage dissolution, mating competition did not end
with marriage.119 Attractive women reported better sex lives and more faithful
husbands and lovers.120
Figure 5 shows that the younger women tended to be thinner than younger
men, and how the gap has been closing both with age and over time: women
became less competitive as they grew older, and the sex ratio moved in their favour
from the 1960s to the 1990s.
During courtship, a woman might have struggled to eat as little as possible. In a
permanent relationship, she typically aspired to keep her partner and children well
fed.121 'With cooking you get some appreciation', said a housewife in the 1960s,
'you'll never hear my husband saying the floor looks clean but he'll say he enjoys
his food'.
Women claimed more satisfaction from cooking than from any other
housework.123 A well-structured 'proper meal' of meat and two veg. for the whole
113
Knight and Eldridge, Heights and Weights, pp. 15, 18.

F. E. Braddon, B. Rodgers, M. E. Wadsworth, and J. M. Davies, 'Onset of Obesity in a 36 year
Birth Cohort Study', British MedicalJournal, 293 (1986), 299-303, p. 301.
115
P. B. Goldblatt, M. E. Moore, and A. J. Stunkard, 'Social Factors in Obesity', Journal of the
American Medical Association, 192 (1965), 1039-44, p. 1040.
116
S. Averett and S. Korenman, 'The Economic Reality of The Beauty Myth', Journal of Human
Resources, 31 (1996), 304-30, p. 327; Hamermesh and Biddle, 'Beauty and the Labor Market', p. 1189.
117
S. L. Gortmaker, A. Must, J. M. Perrin, A. M. Sobol, and W. H. Dietz, 'Social and Economic
Consequences of Overweight in Adolescence and Young Adulthood', New England Journal of
Medicine, 329 (1993), 100812. As pointed out elsewhere, poverty is more likely to be a cause than a
consequence of weight, and poverty is inversely correlated with education.
118
Occupational mobility, see Pagan and Davila, 'Obesity'.
119
K. Trent and S. J. Scott, 'Structural Determinants of the Divorce Rate: A Cross-Societal
Analysis' Journal ofMarriage and the Family, 51 (1989), 391^*04.
P. Blumstein and P. Schwartz, American Couples: Money, Work, Sex (New York, 1983), pp.
2469, 2667; Rodin, Body Traps, pp. 1067; also Green, Diary, pp. 301; R. Stuart and B. Jacobson,
Weight, Sex and Marriage (New York, 1987), pp. 98-102.
J. Neuhaus, 'The Way to a Man's Heart: Gender Roles, Domestic Ideology, and Cookbooks in
the 1950s', Journal of Social History, 32 (1999), 529-55.
122
J. Currie, 'Trends in Food', fols. 1, 10-14.
123
F. T. Juster, 'Preferences for Work and Leisure', in F. T. Juster and F. P. Stafford (eds.), Time,
Goods and Weil-Being (Ann Arbor, 1985), pp. 33351, table 13.1, p. 336; J. Gershuny and B. Halpin,
'Time Use, Quality of Life, and Process Benefits', in A. Offer (ed), In Pursuit of the Quality of Life
(Oxford, 1996), pp. 188-210, pp. 200-1.
114
97
Avner Offer
98
1.201.00-
i
Age
0.80-
0.600.400.20-
a
a
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
0.001960-2
1971-4
1976-80
1988-94
FIG. 5. Ratio of proportion of overweight women to proportion of overweight men, USA 196094
Source: NHANES surveys, in K. M. Flega], M. D. Carroll, R. J. Kuczmarski and C. L.
Johnson, 'Overweight and Obesity in the United States: Prevalence and Trends,
1960-94', International Journal of Obesity, 22 (1998), 39-47, tables 1-3, pp. 41-3.
family (or some ethnic variant thereof) has remained the woman's ideal.124 Several
British surveys found 60-70 per cent of families eating together on most days in the
1980s.125 In 1987, 'Family mealtimes are more prevalent among younger people,
and in the higher social groups. The presence of children in the family is particularly important.'126 A serious commitment to cooking survived the pressures
towards 'convenience' in about a third of households.127
But convenience was telling. With the decay of the 'three-meal system', by
1982 less than a quarter of British households conformed to the three-meal pattern,
while almost half ate only one main meal a day by 1982.128 In the 1960s, British
women spent about two hours a day cooking; by the 1980s, this had fallen by
almost 45 minutes (Table 3). American women were cooking less than British
women in the 1960s, and about the same in the 1980s. Some slack was taken up by
men, so that the overall decline in cooking time was less; only about ten minutes in
America, and twenty in Britain. By the 1980s about the same time was spent
cooking in both countries, with women doing about four-fifths of the work.129
124
Charles and Kerr, Women, Food and Families, ch. 2; DeVault, Feeding the Family, pp. 37-8; S. E.
Dare, 'Too Many Cooks? Food Acceptability and Women's Work in the Informal Economy', in D.
Thomson (ed.), Food Acceptability (London, 1988), pp. 143-55; A. Murcott, 'Raw, Cooked and
Proper Meals at Home', in D. W. Marshall (ed.), Food Choice and the Consumer (London, 1995), pp.
219-35, p. 229.
125
Dare, 'Too Many Cooks', pp. 150-2; Mintel, Snacking, table 11, p. 33; D. W. Marshal], "Eating
at Home', 264-91, p. 277.
126
M i n t e l , Snacking, p. 3 3 .
127
G. Davies and C. Madran, 'Time, Food Shopping, and Food Preparation; Some Attitudinal
Linkages', Manchester Business School Working Paper no. 3 4 8 ( M a n c h e s t e r , 1996), p . 13.
128
M i n t e l , Snacking, p . 9 .
129
In a recent survey, 80 per cent of women prepared every meal, while only 22 per cent of men
did the same. G. Nicolaas, Cooking: Attitudes and Behaviour, A Report on OPCS Omnibus Survey
Data Produced on behalf of the Department of Health. OPCS Omnibus Survey Publications: Report,
99
TABLE 3. Minutes per day spent in food preparation, UKand USA, c. 196190
Period
1961-70
1971-82
1983-90
1995
UK
USA
Women
Men
Women
Men
120
103
86
60
9
11
26
35
106
88
89
13
12
21
Source: Research in progress by Professor J. Gershuny (1995). Figures are

controlled for employment and non-motherhood, both of which reduced
time spent cooking, and both of which increased.
With food, women's mating interests diverged from their nurturing ones.130 For
men, the domestic meal restricted their exposure to food; for women, its preparation prolonged this exposure. Children were inimical to slimness. Pregnancy usually had a lasting effect on body weight.131 Child-care is stressful, and stress
disinhibits eating. Children like sweet and salty flavours, and energy-dense foods.
They also react keenly to television advertising of such foods.132 Giving way to
children, women are exposed more strongly to sweet and savoury snacks.133 'Junk
food' is an easy way to silence children, and another is to place them in front of the
television. 4 When the two practices are combined, the likelihood of obesity in
childhood rises.135 Metabolic rates decline while children are watching television.136 When the pressures of home and work mount, one solution is to eat out
more, and eating out, as we have seen, is also conducive to more ample eating.137
The stresses of marriage also disinhibit eating, and eating can become part of
implicit bargaining about sexual exchange, signalling availability or withdrawal.
3 (London, 1995), table 1, p. 2. For 1981, J. P. Robinson and G. Godbey, Timefor Life: The Surprising
Ways Americans Use their Time (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1997), fig. 8, p. 101, estimate that men
provided 23 per cent of household cooking, and women 77 per cent. An Australian survey (1993)
found men doing 21 per cent of food preparation (J. Baxter and M. Western, 'Satisfaction with
Housework: Examining the Paradox', Sociology, 32 (1998), 101-20, table 2, p. 108).
130
Charles and Kerr, Women, Food and Families, p. 164; G r e e n , Diary, p . 58.
131
R o d i n , Body Traps, p . 107.
132
L. L. Birch, J. O. Fisher, and K. Grimm-Thomas, 'The Development of Children', in H. L.
Meiselman and H.J. H. MacFie (eds.), Food Choice, Acceptance and Consumption (London, 1996), p. 190,
200; Fumento, Fat of the Land, pp. 53-5.
133
Charles a n d Kerr, Women, Food and Families, p p . 9 5 - 1 0 4 .
134
W. H. Dietz and V. C. Strasburger, 'Children, Adolescence and Television', Current Problems in
Pediatrics, 21 (1991), 8-31, p. 8; Fumento, Fat of the Land, pp. 53-5.
135
Dietz and Strasburger, 'Children, Adolescents and Television', pp. 13-14.
136
R. C. KJesges, M. L. Shelteon, and L. M. Klesges, 'Effects of Television on Metabolic Rate:
Potential Implications for Childhood Obesity', Pediatrics, 91 (1993), 281-6.
137
R. S. Oropesa, 'Using the Service Economy to Relieve the Double Burden: Female Labor
Force Participation and Service Purchases', Journal of Family Issues, 14 (1993), 438-73; J. Bonke,
'Economic Influences on Food ChoiceNon-convenience versus Convenience Food Consumption',
in H. L. Meiselman and H. J. H. MacFie (eds.), Food Choice, Acceptance and Consumption (London,
1996), pp. 293-318. The relationship between income and eating out is not straightforward. The convenience of eating out is counteracted by a commitment to family eating among the better-off.
138
Stuart and Jacobson, Weight, Sex & Marriage.
100
Avner Offer
V
As body weight began to rise, it stimulated an effort to recapture self-control. As in

other dimensions of self-control, those with more at stake, and with more access to
resources, have been more successful. Women, with more at stake than men,
maintained lower weights; the well-off were more successful than the poor. The
repertoire of reactions included food choice, exercise, eating disorders, normative
defiance, and acceptance.
If women were driven to slimness by the competition for attractiveness, then,
for men, the compelling pressures have been the correlations of animal foods with
heart disease. Previously these very foods,-red meat in particular, were associated
with manliness, while dairy products, fresh, full-fat milk and butter in particular,
were regarded as healthy for children.139 In the 1950s and the 1960s the correlation
between cholesterol and heart disease was discovered, and etched in the public
mind. Heart disease at that time was the prime cause of death among males. What
followed in the 1970s, in both America and Britain, was a shift in eating habits
from richer protein and fatty foods, to foods that were perceived as either 'lighter',
or as containing vegetable instead of animal fats.140 A US Senate committee highlighted correlations between food choice and disease in 1977; the Surgeon General
urged a lighter diet, and similar British reports followed soon after.141 Despite some
industry resistance, lighter eating became an official health objective.142 For the
United States, some sense of the changes can be gleaned from a list of'winners' and
'losers', which reflects both the shift to 'lighter' foods (e.g. broccoli, yoghurt), and
to more sophisticated ones (e.g. wine, cheese, pasta). Similar changes have occurred in Britain.143
Supply-side sources also indicate some shifts within food groups, such as the
large shift from butter to margarine in both countries. But for body weight it is
calories that count, and the rising input of meat, fats, cereals, sugar, and cheese in the
United States adds up to a higher calorie intake (Figure 3). Three differences stand
out: Americans ate more meat, while the British consumed more vegetables and
cereals; and, while Americans were consuming more sugar, the British restrained
139
Twigg, 'Vegetarianism'; H. Levenstein, Revolution at the Table: The Transformation ojthe American
Diet (New York, 1988), pp. 154-5.
140
Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty, ch. 13.
141
United States Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, Dietary Goals for the
United States (Washington, DC, 1977); Seid, Never Too Thin, p. 176; Great Britain, Department of
Health a n d Social Security, Diet and Cardiovascular Disease. Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy
( L o n d o n , 1984); British M e d i c a l Association, Diet, Nutrition and Health. Report of the Board of Science
and Education ( L o n d o n , 1986).
142
G. Cannon, The Politics of Food (London, 1987); C. Walker and G. Cannon, The Food Scandal:
What's Wrong with the British Diet and How to Put it Right (London, 1984); Seid, Never Too Thin, pp.
191-9; Great Britain, Secretary of State for Health, The Health of the Nation: A Strategy for Health in
England (London, 1992), pp. 46-64.
J. J. Putnam, 'Food Consumption', National Food Review, July-Sept. (1990), 1-9, p. 2; C. Ritson
and R. Hutchins, 'The Consumption Revolution', in J. Slater (ed.), Fifty Years of the National Food
Survey, 1940-1990 (London, 1991), 35-46; For Britain, Buss, 'British Diet' and Nelson, 'Social-class
Trends' also report these changes. As noted below (n. 147), American trends indicate that this
improvement will have been partly counteracted by inferior nutritional quality of the growing proportion of food excluded from the National Food Survey, on which these studies are based.
101
their sweet tooth.

These changes involved some self-deception. There was a
shift from 'heavy' meat (beef, pork, mutton) to 'light' meat, but consumption
overall increased substantially.143 Artificial sweeteners only accounted for about
7 per cent in terms of sugar equivalents.146 Low-fat 'lite' foods are often almost as
high in calories as regular foods.147 American sales of diet drinks rose from 2 to 12
gallons per year per head, but sugared soft drinks increased from 21 to 40 gallons at
the same time (1968-1994).148
In both the United States and Britain, improvements in the nutritional quality of
food have taken place inside the home.149 In the stable context of the home,
learning took place and prudential eating strategies emerged. But increasingly, as
we have seen, food is eaten outside the home. The expanding, compelling, novel,
and less regular eating environment outside was able to frustrate these strategies.
And this food, in the United States, improved much less. It typically contained
more of the nutrients overconsumed (fat) and less of those underconsumed
(calcium, fibre, and iron).150 From Britain there is evidence that the prudential task
was more difficult for the poor. Specially packaged, palatable 'light foods' tend to
be more expensive than the dietary staples, while cheap, low-fat, unsweetened
staples such as oatmeal and cabbage take a considerable effort to convert into
palatable meals. Poor families found it more difficult to produce balanced diets
within their budget constraints.131 The lower social grades consume junk food'
more heavily, e.g. 14 per cent of class AB are 'heavy users' of potato crisps, as
against 27 and 30 per cent respectively for classes C2 and D. 132 There are large
differences in household consumption, and the well-off spend more than the poor
on food, especially on high-cost foods.133 Body weight is implicated in cancers and
heart disease. All of them bear more heavily on the lower social classes, and these
classes also tend to consume more tobacco, alcohol, and inferior food.154
144
See Figure 5 in the discussion paper version of this article. Based on OECD, Food Statistics (annual).
USDA, 'World Per Capita Consumption of Red Meat and Poultry, 1975-91', (n.d.), stock
#91004.
146
B . Fine, M . H e a s m a n , a n d j . W r i g h t , Consumption in an Age of Affluence: The World of Food
(London, 1996), appendix I, pp. 222-3, table 6.6, p. 143. The statement applies to the late 1980s.
147
F u m e n t o , Fat of the Land, p p . 801.
148
USDA, Economic Research Service, 'Food Consumption, Prices, and Expenditures' (February
1996), Stock #89015B.
149
The British National Food Survey, which reports these changes, covers only home consumption.
150
Lin el at, 'Away-from-Home Foods'.
131
Charles and Kerr, Women, Food and Families, pp. 16778; DeVault, Feeding the Family, ch. 7; J.
McKenzie, 'Economic Influences on Food Choice', in M. Turner (ed.), Nutrition and Lifestyles
(London, 1979), 91-103; J. Charlton and K. Quaife, 'Trends in Diet 1841-1993', inj. Charlton and
M. Murphy (eds.), The Health of Adult Britain, 1841-1994, 2 vols, I (London, 1997), 93-113, pp.
105-6; indications of the relative increase in lower-income group consumption of fats and sugars in
the 1970s are also suggestive, but not conclusive in the absence of eating-out data (Nelson, 'Socialclass Trends', fig. 7.4, p. 109).
152
Z. Ratcliff(ed.), Snack Foods, 12th edn (London, 1997), table 20, p. 46. Similar gradients are
found for other junk' foods.
13:3
McKenzie, 'Economic Influences'; A. Chesher, 'Household Composition and Household Food
Purchases', in J. M. Slater, Fifty Years of the National Food Survey, 1940-1990 (London, 1991), 55-86,
p. 57.
134
Charlton and Quaife, 'Trends in Diet', pp. 97-8, 104-6; Sir D. Black, M. Whitehead, P.
Townsend, and N. Davidson, Inequalities of Health: The Black Report, Department of Health and Social
Security, Working Group on Inequalities in Health (Harmondsworth, 1988), pp. 2906.
145
102
Auner Offer
An appropriate response was to take up exercise: 'Joggers have become an

almost familiar sight throughout America in the last year [1968].''DD Exercise swept
the United States in the 1970s and 1980s.lD6 Stationary bikes became a sparebedroom fixture, and younger people spent long hours 'working out'. Fitness
clubs were a ^ l b n industry in the UK by 1998.157 But exercise requires selfcontrol and resources no less than restrained eating. Table 4 is an indicator that
exercise (like other forms of self-control) increases with education and income. It
also supports the notion that weight control is motivated by courtship. Exercise
was as frequent among the never married, as amongst the highest earners and the
best educated. In Britain, too, exercise was more of a male activity, and there was a
class gradient, with professionals taking exercise more frequently than manual
workers (Table 5). Both class and gender were converging over time.
Slimming is a repudiation of the prior 'eating decision'. In the 1980s, about 23
per cent of American men, and 40 per cent of women, were trying to lose
weight.158 In the UK, only 4 per cent of men, and 12 per cent of women were on
a slimming diet.159 Both success and failure are expensive. In 1990, some $8.4bn
was being spent in the USA on products for serious dieters, with about $33bn
being spent on slimming as a whole.160 The direct treatment costs of obesity were
placed somewhat higher, at $45.8bn.161 Together, what may be termed the money
'regret costs' of eating and drinking came to about 15 per cent of the outlays,
comparable to all the increment in annual food and alcohol outlays since 1965.162
Thousands of diet books attest that losing weight is a major emotional and
cognitive undertaking, which often ends in failure.163 Success is a notable achievement, justifying celebration in a book, and providing credibility for a career as a
slimming authority.164 This was Rosemary Green's motivation to begin her diary,
but even the financial incentive was of no avail. After years of yo-yo dieting, she
came to see that having come within range of a snack, it was already too late to
exercise self-control. She finally succeeded by turning over control of household
food to her husband, who kept it under lock and key.165 Nigel Lawson, former
' " Chicago Tribune, 9 July 1968; the first recorded instance in the Oxford English Dictionary.
b6
M. R. Gillick, 'Health Promotion, Jogging, and the Pursuit of the Moral Life', Journal of Health
Politics, Policy and Law, 9 (1984), 369-87; Seid, Never too Thin?, pp. 181-6; A. Yates et al, 'Running:
An Analogue of Anorexia?', New EnglandJournal of Medicine, 308 (1983), 251-5.
' " K. Marks, 'Gym Industry Now Worth Healthy l b n ' , Independent (21 August 1998), 8.
b8
Horm and Anderson, 'Who in America is Trying to Lose Weight ?' table 2, p. 674; Market
research places the level much higher (Rodin, Body Traps, p. 166).
139
Gregory et al., Dietary and Nutritional Survey, p. 48.
160
L. Armstrong and M. Mallory, 'The Diet Business Starts Sweating', Business Week, 22 (1992),
32-3; Miller, A., 'Diets Incorporated', Newsweek (11 September 1989), 56, (cited in Rodin, Body
Traps, p. 166).
G. A. Colditz, 'Economic Costs of Obesity', American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 55, Suppl.
(1992), 503s-7s; D. Hughes and A. McGuire, 'A Review of the Economic Analysis of Obesity', British
Medical Bulletin, 53 (1997), 253-63, p. 258.
162
Sources, n. 17, above.
163
Stuart and Jacobson, Weight, Sex and Marriage, pp. 3479; A. Stunkard, 'The Social Environment
and the Control of Obesity', in Stunkard, Obesity, pp. 438-62, pp. 4405.
164
F u m e n t o , Fat of the Land, c h . 6.
165
Green, Diary, pp. 336-8.
103
TABLE 4. Exercise, drinking and smoking, USA 1990 (percentages, age 18plus)
Characteristic
Exercise
or sport
regularly
Two plus
drinks a
day
Current
smoker
BMI
27.8+ (M)
27.3+ (F)
All persons
Male
Female
40.7
44.0
37.7
5.5
9.7
1.7
25.5
28.4
22.8
27.5
29.6
25.6
39.4
34.3
51.3
5.3
5.3
6.6
24.6
30.3
24.3
29.2
29.1
19.8
25.9
37.0
52.1
5.1
5.9
5.4
31.8
29.6
18.3
32.7
28.6
23.8
32.9
32.3
40.5
46.1
51.7
4.8
4.9
5.8
5.6
6.7
31.6
29.8
26.9
23.4
19.3
29.3
28.5
28.2
27.8
24.9
Marital status:
Currently married
Formerly married
Never married
Education:
Less than 12 years

12 years
More than 12 years
Income:
Less than $10,000

$10,000 to $19,999
$20,000 to $34,999
$35,000 to $49,999
$50,000 or more
Source: US Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1995 (Washington, DC,
1996) table 221, p. 145.
T A B L E 5. Exercise or physical activity of adults within last month in the UK, ages 1940, by social
class and gender (percentage engaged during last month)
Class
All years"
1977
1987
1997
Professional
Intermediate
Manual
Men
Women
Men
Women
Men
Women
55
50
59
57
39
27
46
45
44
39
50
48
29
20
36
42
40
29
48
46
23
10
29
35
Sources: Great Britain, General Household Survey, data extracted by ProfessorJ. Gershuny.
"Annual, 1977 to 1997.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, also wrote a slimming book. Like Mrs Green, he
also handed over control to his spouse.166 These successful dieters both conformed
with Ainslie's model of self-control: since available rewards were impossible to
resist, their strategy was to surrender food control to an external ally, and to follow
strict routines.167
But self-control can go too far. A rising wave of eating disorders has emerged
since the 1970s. Anorexia and bulimia are little known outside the affluent world
in the last three decades, although they are not unknown in the Western past.
166
167
N. Lawson, The Nigel Lawson Diet Book (London, 1996), pp. 63-4.
Ainslie, Picoeconomics, p p . 1 6 2 - 7 0 , 2 9 6 - 7 , a n d passim.
104
Avner Offer
They affected young women mainly, especially in college.168 Clinical diagnosis is

infrequent, but in milder forms these disorders affect substantial numbers.169 The
mating hypothesis of female slimming is supported by a 1980s longitudinal study:
female student eating disorders were peaking in the early 20s. Seven or eight years
later the women were more likely to be married, heavier, and with fewer eating
disorders, although still concerned about body weight. Men had fewer disorders
initially, gained more weight subsequently and remained unconcerned about it.170
Likewise, the convergence of female and male BMIs in the 1990s (Figure 1) is
consistent with the rise in male sex ratios during those yean. The ultimate act of
body-shaping is cosmetic surgery: in 1996, almost 300,000 fat-sucking operations
were carried out in the United States, on 4.4 women for every man.171 It remains
an anomaly that the pursuit of thinness does not seem to have abated, despite the
return of sex ratios to paritybut the recent popularity of'working-out' suggests
that emphasis has shifted onto 'muscle tone', in which men are more heavily
involved than women (Tables 4 and 5).
Black women were the heaviest of all social groups (Figure 1). Among the
reasons canvassed are fewer educational and financial resources, low physical
activity levels, ineffective dieting, and a rejection of non-black weight norms.172
This research is inconclusive. Many of these factors would apply to black men as
well, but black men have similar BMIs to whites, while black women are two BMI
units heavier than white women.173 Culture is as likely to be a consequence as an
independent cause. The sex-ratio explanation of malefemale difference may have
some purchase here. For black women, sex ratios were much the worst. Black
males have been disproportionately absent on military service or in prison, and fell
victim excessively to accidents and violence. They achieved less in education than
black women. Almost half of multi-person black households are now headed by
women. In these circumstances, competition for males has become much less
compelling, since the likelihood of marital commitment is reduced. The ratio of
the percentage of white to black married men was 76 : 67 in 1970, 70 : 55 in 1980,
168
R. A. Gordon, Anorexia and Bulimia: Anatomy ofa Social Epidemic (Oxford, 1990), pp. 3349.
J. E. Mitchell and E. D. Eckert, 'Scope and Significance ofEating Disorders', Jouma/of Consulting
and Clinical Psychology, 55 (1987), 628-9; Herman and Polivy, 'What does Abnormal Eating Tell Us';
J. Polivy and C. P. Herman, 'The Diagnosis and Treatment of Normal Eating', Journal of Consulting
and Clinical Psychology, 55 (1987), 635-44.
170-p p Heatherton et al., 'A 10-Year Longitudinal Study of Body Weight, Dieting, and Eating
Disorder Symptoms', Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106 (1997), 117-25. This is not inconsistent with
a labour-force entry interpretation for slimming pressures.
171
292,942 liposuction operations. American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, 'Statistics', http:
//www. cosmeticsurgeryonline.com/consumer/stats/1996percent.html
172
N. M. Riley, D. E. Bild, L. Cooper, P. Schreiner, D. E. Smith, P. Sorlie, and J. K. Thompson,
'Relation of Self-image to Body Size and Weight Loss Attempts in Black Women', American Journal of
Epidemiology, 148 (1998), 1062-6, pp. 1062-3; M. R. Heble and T. F. Heatherton, 'The Stigma of
Obesity in Women: The Difference is Black and White', Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24
(1998), 417-26.
173
R. J. Kuczmarski et al., 'Increasing Prevalence of Overweight Among US Adults: The National
Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 1960 to 1991', Journal of the American Medical Association,
272 (1994), 205-11, table 4, p. 209.
174
Guttentag and Secord, Too Many Women?, ch. 8. United States Bureau of Census, Statistical
Abstract of the United States 1998 (Washington DC, 1998), table 77, p. 65.
169
105
and 66 : 49 in 199O.'7:> With mating prospects so limited, there was less to be

gained in trying to push body weight below its natural equilibrium.
Two other responses are acceptance and defiance. As we have seen, the extreme
rational choice school regards overweight as an expression of legitimate consumer
choice. At the other ideological extreme, feminist writers of the 1970s and 1980s
recommended accepting one's body.176 The National Association to Advance Fat
Acceptance advocates 'Fat Pride'.177 Several influences have been acting to relax
weight norms. Sex ratios have improved in favour of women (Figure 4). Overweight is becoming a majority condition (Figure I). 178 Contrary to much comment, overweight people as a whole are not particularly low in self-esteem, and do
not suffer exceptionally from mental disorders.179
VI
Under affluence, the challenge posed by cheap rewards like food is not to maximize consumption, but to pace it down to the rate of optimal reward.180 Pacing
requires self-control, and self-control requires prudential strategies. Knowledge
takes time to build up, and the better-off, who have the resources, are therefore
more capable of success. This applies across the board: in women's body weight, in
junk food consumption, in taking exercise, in family meals, in smoking. Indeed, if
one assumes that affluent men are more exposed to food temptations than the less
well-off, then the weak relation between men's income and their weight (Table 2)
might suggest that well-off men are also exercising self-control, as the theory predicts.
The example of smoking is suggestive. Society lacks protection from new and
cheap rewards, and smoking swept through the United States and Britain until, by
1950, about three-quarters of all American families were buying tobacco.181
Evidence that smoking was inimical to health emerged before the Second World
War. By the early 1960s society was learning to respond. Governments endorsed
the medical warnings, and began to regulate advertising. Learning goes on, and
tobacco is increasingly restricted and shunned. Consumption peaked in the 1960s,
and has been declining ever since. The higher social classes have proven more
adept at avoiding tobacco, and the aversion is spreading. It is the poorest and those
least educated who are the most exposed to the reward (Table 5).182 But, as old
175
Statistical Abstract 1992, table 49, p . 44.

O r b a c h , Fat is a Feminist Issue, e.g. p . 14, p p . 312.
177
M . Millan, Such a Pretty Face: Being Fat in America ( N e w Y o r k , 1980); N A A F A h o m e p a g e , http:
/ / w w w . n a a f a . o r g / (1998). O n the 'Fatlash', see F u m e n t o , Fat of the Land, pp. 3843, 11522.
178
Polivy and Herman, 'Diagnosis and Treatment'.
179
Hamermesh and Biddle, 'Beauty and the Labor Market'; A. J. Stunkard and T. A. Wadden,
'Psychological Aspects of Severe Obesity', American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 55, Suppl. (1992),
524s-32s.
180
Ainslie, Picoeconomics, p p . 2 5 6 - 7 3 , 2 9 3 - 3 0 0 .
181
B r o w n , American Standards of Living, p. 2 3 2 .
182
Ibid., p. 416; R. Doll, 'Uncovering the Effects of Smoking: Historical Perspective', Statistical
Methods in Medical Research, 7 (1998), 87-117; R. Doll, S. Darby, and E. Whitley, 'Trends in Mortality
176
106
Avner Offer
problems were mastered, new ones appeared. Alcohol is rich in calories, while
smoking inhibits appetite. Drinking rose in step with affluence until the 1970s,
when it levelled off. Smoking has declined.183 This pattern is consistent with the
rise of body weight. Over a ten-year period in the 1980s, men who quit smoking
gained an average 4.4 kg, and women 5.0 kg. They were more than twice as likely
to become overweight as non-smokers.184
New rewards were thrown up by affluence faster than it took to learn to cope
with the previous ones, so that overall, despite growing wealth, self-control
declined. Obesity shows how abundance, through cheapness, variety, novelty, and
choice, could make a mockery of the rational consumer, how it enticed only in
order to humiliate. The 'cult of thinness' can be seen as a response to competitive
demands on women in mating and the workplace. But its impact on behavioural
outcomes was restricted to keeping women's average BMIs below those of men
for about two decades; it has not been able to halt the upwards trend of body
weight.
Acknowledgements
Additional data are available from the author in a longer version of the article.
Many thanks to Eleni and Katerina Bantinaki, for devoted research assistance, to
Prof. J. Gershuny, to Dr Gavin Cameron, and Dr Katherine Flegal for access to
unpublished data, and to H.-J. Voth and Shepley Orr for some acute comments.
from Smoking-related Diseases', in J. Charlton and M. Murphy (eds.), The Health of Adult Britain,
1841-1994, 2 vols, I (London, 1997), pp. 128-55, fig. 9.2, p. 132; K. Flegal et al., 'The Influence of
Smoking Cessation on the Prevalence of Overweight in the United States', New England Journal of
Medicine, 333 (1995), 1165-9, table 1, p. 1167.
183
Sources as n. 17, above.
184
Flegal et al, 'Smoking Cessation'; in Britain, men non-smokers were heavier than smokers, but
women were not. Gregory et al., Dietary and Nutritional Survey, p. 229.

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2001 The Society for ike Social History of Medicine

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

F I G . 2. Eating out as percentage of food expenditure, US and UK, 195&-95. (cumulative)

Fl c ; . 3. C~loricjpc2rired per d'ly i-o~ljtr~nt.d

I k c l i n e in physical activity is a residudl cxplanatlon for the rise In body \veight.

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

between socio-economic status and obesity: percentage of studies showing inverse or

N . Lawson, 'Let's T a k e a W i d e r Look at the T h i n Issue', Observer, 16 April 2 0 0 0 .

Age groups: a 25-29120-24

England and Wales

sho\vs that. from a Icvcl o f p n r ~ t y, ~ tth e 1000-01 c - r . r l \ r l v . \ , t h r n ~ l l n h c ~o rf c~ligihle

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

Knight and Eldridge, Heights and Weights, pp. 15, 18.

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

Source: Research in progress by Professor J. Gershuny (1995). Figures are

As body weight began to rise, it stimulated an effort to recapture self-control. As in

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

their sweet tooth.

An appropriate response was to take up exercise: 'Joggers have become an

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

Less than 12 years

Less than $10,000

They affected young women mainly, especially in college.168 Clinical diagnosis is

Body Weight and Self-Control in the United States and Britain

and 66 : 49 in 199O.'7:> With mating prospects so limited, there was less to be

Statistical Abstract 1992, table 49, p . 44.

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