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fleaJean Renfro Anspaugh, Fat Like Us (Windows on History Press, 2001).
I picked up this book because I answered a reference question about the Rice Diet, and in doing so got interested in it. The Rice Diet was started by a Duke University Medical Center doctor, Dr. Kempner, in the 1940s, as a very low-sodium diet to treat patients with extreme kidney problems (and later heart disease and diabetes). It had the side effect of massive weight loss, and became very popular, I think especially in the 1960s - famous people like Elvis and Buddy Hackett did it. The author of this book came to Durham NC to do the Rice Diet (it's a quasi-residential program) in 1989, and the period covered in her books extends from then to about 2000. Dr. Kempner died in 1997, and I don't think the Rice Diet is affiliated with Duke any longer. The author ended up moving permanently to Durham, and getting a degree in Folklore from UNC Chapel Hill. Her object of study is "diet culture" and specifically Rice Diet culture. The book is mostly oral history, monologues from people she interviewed, with names and identifying details changed. There's not a lot of analysis.
So, first of all, the Durham NC described in this book is not the Durham NC I know (a little) and live in. Lots of the places frequented by Rice Dieters are within 2 blocks of my house, and most of the restaurants or public places described as interview settings are places I've been to, but there's a complete cognitive dissonance. I don't think of Durham as the "Fat Capital of the World" as 'Ricers' apparently do, and I've not noticed an unusual number of overweight people in Durham compared to anywhere else I've lived. I didn't know that a big downtown hotel had (has?) a "Fat Night" once a week that was known as the "Crisco Disco." The author thinks that the preponderance of fast food places in Durham is because of the dieters, to tempt them and make money off their backsliding, and similarly with the tendency of upscale grocery stores (Fowler's, A Southern Season) to give out free samples. But everywhere I've lived is full of fast-food joints, and every upscale grocery I've ever been to gives out little things on toothpicks. It's called marketing, people!
All this is just the tip of the iceberg wrt the apparent insularity of 'Ricer' culture. I mean, it's totally a cult. It has a dictatorial and revered founder in Dr. Kempner, who was sued by a woman accusing him of sexual slavery near the end of his life, and was by all accounts a weird and obsessive guy. People who come to do the diet are either 1) filthy rich (one man flies himself and 4 friends to London to cheat on the diet with a special sandwich only available there) or 2) normal people who have sold all their possessions to get together enough money to do the diet. Current prices are more than $2000 for the first week and then scale down gradually to $500 per week after 12 weeks. This doesn't cover housing - it covers the medical consultation and the food at the Rice House (more on this see below). The majority of people interviewed have left their former lives - including spouses, families, jobs - behind, and many people either stay in Durham permanently, or return regularly (keeping a second home in Durham) to do diet maintenance. And the diet itself? For breakfast, you eat oatmeal and a piece of fruit. For lunch, you eat a cup of plain steamed rice and two pieces of fruit (canned peaches, oranges, and grapes are the only fruits mentioned by name). For dinner, you eat a cup of plain steamed rice and two pieces of fruit. After you've lost a lot of weight you are allowed such condiments as tomato sauce and on the weekends you sometimes get baked skinless chicken. I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV, but it seems like this sort of thing can't be exactly healthy over long periods of time (months and months), since the diet appears to be lacking in essential things like fiber, iron, calcium... You are encouraged to exercise a lot (mostly by walking) and you turn in urine samples regularly (so sodium content can be measured - that way the doctors can tell if you cheat). There seem to be a lot of mind games played by the staff and by the Ricers on each other, and there's a pretty active sexual culture - lots of dating and cheating on spouses. Yes, people lose a lot of weight - hundreds of pounds - on the diet. But most of them, unless they stay on the diet indefinitely or return regular for tune-ups, gain it back. Like any diet.
Freaky book. Freaky diet. People = freaky.
I picked up this book because I answered a reference question about the Rice Diet, and in doing so got interested in it. The Rice Diet was started by a Duke University Medical Center doctor, Dr. Kempner, in the 1940s, as a very low-sodium diet to treat patients with extreme kidney problems (and later heart disease and diabetes). It had the side effect of massive weight loss, and became very popular, I think especially in the 1960s - famous people like Elvis and Buddy Hackett did it. The author of this book came to Durham NC to do the Rice Diet (it's a quasi-residential program) in 1989, and the period covered in her books extends from then to about 2000. Dr. Kempner died in 1997, and I don't think the Rice Diet is affiliated with Duke any longer. The author ended up moving permanently to Durham, and getting a degree in Folklore from UNC Chapel Hill. Her object of study is "diet culture" and specifically Rice Diet culture. The book is mostly oral history, monologues from people she interviewed, with names and identifying details changed. There's not a lot of analysis.
So, first of all, the Durham NC described in this book is not the Durham NC I know (a little) and live in. Lots of the places frequented by Rice Dieters are within 2 blocks of my house, and most of the restaurants or public places described as interview settings are places I've been to, but there's a complete cognitive dissonance. I don't think of Durham as the "Fat Capital of the World" as 'Ricers' apparently do, and I've not noticed an unusual number of overweight people in Durham compared to anywhere else I've lived. I didn't know that a big downtown hotel had (has?) a "Fat Night" once a week that was known as the "Crisco Disco." The author thinks that the preponderance of fast food places in Durham is because of the dieters, to tempt them and make money off their backsliding, and similarly with the tendency of upscale grocery stores (Fowler's, A Southern Season) to give out free samples. But everywhere I've lived is full of fast-food joints, and every upscale grocery I've ever been to gives out little things on toothpicks. It's called marketing, people!
All this is just the tip of the iceberg wrt the apparent insularity of 'Ricer' culture. I mean, it's totally a cult. It has a dictatorial and revered founder in Dr. Kempner, who was sued by a woman accusing him of sexual slavery near the end of his life, and was by all accounts a weird and obsessive guy. People who come to do the diet are either 1) filthy rich (one man flies himself and 4 friends to London to cheat on the diet with a special sandwich only available there) or 2) normal people who have sold all their possessions to get together enough money to do the diet. Current prices are more than $2000 for the first week and then scale down gradually to $500 per week after 12 weeks. This doesn't cover housing - it covers the medical consultation and the food at the Rice House (more on this see below). The majority of people interviewed have left their former lives - including spouses, families, jobs - behind, and many people either stay in Durham permanently, or return regularly (keeping a second home in Durham) to do diet maintenance. And the diet itself? For breakfast, you eat oatmeal and a piece of fruit. For lunch, you eat a cup of plain steamed rice and two pieces of fruit (canned peaches, oranges, and grapes are the only fruits mentioned by name). For dinner, you eat a cup of plain steamed rice and two pieces of fruit. After you've lost a lot of weight you are allowed such condiments as tomato sauce and on the weekends you sometimes get baked skinless chicken. I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV, but it seems like this sort of thing can't be exactly healthy over long periods of time (months and months), since the diet appears to be lacking in essential things like fiber, iron, calcium... You are encouraged to exercise a lot (mostly by walking) and you turn in urine samples regularly (so sodium content can be measured - that way the doctors can tell if you cheat). There seem to be a lot of mind games played by the staff and by the Ricers on each other, and there's a pretty active sexual culture - lots of dating and cheating on spouses. Yes, people lose a lot of weight - hundreds of pounds - on the diet. But most of them, unless they stay on the diet indefinitely or return regular for tune-ups, gain it back. Like any diet.
Freaky book. Freaky diet. People = freaky.
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