Ideal bodies vary across cultures and time. In the U.S. today, childhood obesity is considered a significant social problem and is widely covered in the news, on talk shows, and the like. When food was more scarce, however, having a fat child was a sign of health and well-being. This ad, from 1898, is for a tonic that will fatten up your child. How times change.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Comments 18
jfruh — August 2, 2009
Also interesting is that anyone would have ever promoted their product as "tasteless." "Mmm-mmm, that sure is bland!" I'm assuming they're drawing a contrast with other quack "tonics", which probably tasted awful.
Nia — August 2, 2009
What would something like this be made of??
P — August 2, 2009
Quinine, mostly.
P — August 2, 2009
Ironically, it took nearly 60 years for a much more potent "fattening tonic" to be developed.
jessica — August 2, 2009
woohooo, grove park inn founder's quack tonic REPRESENT!!!!! they have signs like this in the lobby of the grand ballroom or whatever, showing the stuff from "early days" of the grove park inn. now a nationally renowned resort where obama stayed during the campaign http://www.groveparkinn.com/Leisure/
Duran — August 2, 2009
(a) I don't think nearly as many people today are concerned about obesity in kids below toddler age, which is what the child depicted in the ad appears to be. No one cares if a 7 month old is pudgy. It's a good thing.
(b) It was tasteless compared to shit like cod liver oil.
Nataly — August 2, 2009
"(a) I don’t think nearly as many people today are concerned about obesity in kids below toddler age, which is what the child depicted in the ad appears to be. No one cares if a 7 month old is pudgy. It’s a good thing."
It's depressing how wrong you are about that, there are a lot of misguided people (and some of them new parents) who think fat babies are unhealthy. No surprise, considering the new pregnancy diets.
Nique — August 3, 2009
Nataly, pregnancy diet? The only thing pregnant women should be worried about it making sure their diet is well balanced so they can nourish 2 (or more) bodies! I hope in their quest to stay thin they're not starving themselves.
Dmitriy — August 3, 2009
"Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic was created not as a cure, but as a preventative and relief of malaria and its resulting chills and fever. Those who remember taking the chill tonic did not agree with the “tasteless” billing, although it was better than taking straight quinine. Quinine has been used for more than three centuries and, until the 1930s, it was the only effective malaria treatment. The chill tonic was so popular the British army made it standard issue for every soldier going off to mosquito infested lands and, by 1890, more bottles of Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic were sold than bottles of Coca-Cola."
"Taken as directed, the tonic was equally good for adults and children. Acute attacks of malaria required two tablespoonfuls, three times a day. For control of recurrent attacks, two tablespoonfuls, morning and evening, were to be taken for a period of eight weeks or during the entire malarial season."
"From the bottom of the box: “An excellent remedy for Coughs and Colds. Relieves the Cough and also the feverish conditions and Headache, which are usually associated with colds. The second or third dose will move the bowels well within 8 or 10 hours, when the cold will be relieved….”
www.grovearcade.com/files/chillTonic.doc
Sue — August 3, 2009
Nique:
A "pregnancy diet" is absurd, but some women end up gaining too much weight during their pregnancies.
As pigs go, that's a firm little pig-child.
It is indeed interesting to look at different constructs of beauty at different times, but health is not completely unrelated to aesthetics in our Western standard. Certain girls in Mali (?) are fattened up against their will, made to consume fat food until they vomit, and it's absolutely disgusting. Almost no one argues that it's great to look Reubenesque anymore.
Jenna — August 3, 2009
Sue, our standards of aesthetics have nothing to do with health. Were that the case, we'd idealize the slightly overweight, rather than the significantly underweight.
And the comparison of force-fed women to those people who are fat and are yet still healthy is both insulting and ignorant.
Annoyed — August 3, 2009
"health is not completely unrelated to aesthetics in our Western standard"
That's the conventional wisdom any way. And it is used so well in discrimination.
Annoyed — August 3, 2009
look how well you just did it.
Julia S. — August 5, 2009
health is not completely unrelated to aesthetics in our Western standard
No, it actually is. The group of people whose body weight falls into the "underweight" BMI category is, statistically, a higher risk group than those who fall into the "overweight" BMI category (the lowest risk group), the lower half of the "obese" BMI category, the "healthy" risk group (tied for second lowest risk), and equal in risk to the upper half of the "obese" BMI category.
Your evocation of the Mauritanian "fattening farms" is spot-on; young women there are forced to overeat if they don't naturally meet the cultural norm of a very high bodyweight, while young women in the entertainment industry in the US (and those who emulate them) are pressured to starve if they don't naturally meet the cultural norm of a very low bodyweight. Neither is healthy.
C — August 23, 2009
this is an ad folks- hyperbole is used all the time. Lighten up a little.
Brad Kinney — October 25, 2016
The ad wan't for "a tonic that will fatten up your child." It was for a tonic that made bitter quinine more palatable...so your child wouldn't die of malaria. But yes, fat children were considered healthy.