ABSTRACT
Throughout the 1950s and into the early part of the 1960s, the Ladies Home Journal featured weight loss “success” stories. The women introduced in the monthly column represented a broad range of motivations, weight-loss methods, and results. Most women lost over seventy pounds on a daily diet averaging just over 1,000 calories. It is important to note that “obesity-related” health issues did not cause apprehension or inspire these women to lose weight. Women’s magazines seemed to say to their readers that being overweight was an affliction to keep private. Fat women overall had a one-third less chance of getting into college than their thin classmates. Research exposed that fat men, however, had a slightly better chance of being admitted into college than fat women. For fat women, more so than for men, academic exclusion and discrimination in the workplace were commonplace. Lesbian feminists played a prominent role in radical women’s groups like the Fat Underground.
