Berret Post WAr Masculinity America

Feeding the Organization Man: Diet and Masculinity in Postwar America
Author(s): Jesse Berrett

Source: Journal of Social History , Summer, 1997, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Summer, 1997), pp.
805-825
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/3789784
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Journal of Social History
This content downloaded from

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
FEEDING THE ORGANIZATION MAN: DIET AND
MASCULINITY IN POSTWAR AMERICA
By Jesse Berrett San Francisco University High School
In 1958, the renowned historian and cultural critic Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. pub-
licly lamented the decrepitude of American masculinity. "What has happened
to the American male?" he wondered. "For a long time, he seemed utterly con-
fident in his manhood, sure of his masculine role in society, easy and definite
in his sense of sexual identity." But now he was a harried, sexualiy indeter-
minate refugee from the affluent society, seemingly in flight from everything
that had once made him forceful and individual. How to resolve this "crisis"?
Schlesinger favored reengagement with the political process, which he termed
"virile" democratic exertion, but whatever the remedy, reform from within struck
him as particularly crucial: "the achievement of identity, the conquest of a sense
of self.... [T]hese will do infinitely more to restore American masculinity than
all the hormones in the test tubes of our scientists."1
In his own way, the exuberant television health guru Jack LaLanne was ad'
dressing exactly the same malaise. "You gotta get down to the masculinity!" he
bellowed to one interviewer while discussing the American man's dangerous
lack of interest in dieting. "He's losing his manhood! They just sit and overea
and overdrink and they won't do anything until it becomes a status symbol!"2
To LaLanne, at least, dieting offered a way for the American man to reverse the
ebbing tide of manhood. Throughout the early postwar era, a variety of white
middle-class men who agreed with his diagnosis, ranging from social critics Vance
Packard and John Gunther, from advertising executive Elmer Wheeler to the
"ordinary people" profiled in popular magazines, publicly explored the implica-
tions of male weight loss. Both critiquing and accommodating themselves to the
nation's affluence, they responded to the "crisis" Schlesinger had identified by
producing diet narratives. By adapting what had typically been tales of female
self-discovery, and by relocating the fulcrum of masculinity from exercise to diet
such narratives rewrote masculinity to fit a "soft" age of organization and subur-
banization. In so doing, they articuiated a new consumerist masculinity whose
renewed authority resided in the ability to control consumption.
Few today might associate thinness, especially male thinness, with the 1950s.
Given the popularity of cookbooks that extolled dinners prepared by can-opener,
the pastel creativity of suburban cuisine, and the almost institutionalized three-
martini lunch and cocktail hour, middle-class American males, at least, spent
more time filling their stomachs than worrying about what they ate. Indeed
public-opinion polls consistently revealed that far more women than men de?
scribed themselves as dieters. (Nor do average weight figures suggest any drasti
change in men's weights.) In 1955, Science News Letter even resorted to adver?
tising for a "motivating force, social, fashion or otherwise, to make men 'strive
for slimness' the way women have. If found, this motive might lead to progress
against that major health problem, obesity, or, in less polite terms, fatness." As

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
806 journal of social history summer 1997
the manager ofa health club in Milwaukee explained, men wer
tible than women to social pressures: "Vanity will drive a wom
men have to be scared into it." Yet the crucial question here
men dieted but what male dieting meant. As the sociologist
notes, postwar anguish over suburbia?its affluence, mobility, m
rates, its conservatism and conformity?was cultural analysis by
a "safe and convenient way of talking about America and Am
general."3
Like discussion of suburbia, postwar diet discourse bore weighty cultural bur-
dens: it helped to convince experts and dieters alike that abundance was the
fundamental fact of their nation's existence and that everyone was middle class.
As the historian Stephen Whitfield writes, after World War II "the capitalist
'fetishism of commodities1 that Marx found so repellent had advanced to the first
line of defense" in America. In accordance with this popular myth, the discourse
of diet evoked a society in which the problem was always too much rather than
too little, a choice of focus that allowed dieters (and millions of their fellow
Americans) to ignore the hunger afflicting what Michael Harrington would de-
scribe as "the other America." Governmental attempts to instill a national spirit
of fitness sharpened that vision (or blindness) by simultaneously describing such
luxury as a source of weakness and calling on the public to defend it. "There
are an increasingly large number of young Americans who are neglecting their
bodies, whose physical fitness is not what it should be, who are getting soft,"
John E Kennedy complained in 1961. "Such softness ... can help to strip and
destroy the vitality of a nation. This is a national problem."4
Barbara Ehrenreich sees concern with the pernicious effects of abundance
on men's health as encouraging a growing male rebellion against the rules of
normative middle-class masculinity?support of the family, achievement, suc?
cess. The identification of the "Type A" personality and doctors' suggestion that
men opt out ofthe rat race, she claims, worked in the long term "to undermine
women's claims to a share of the husband's wage and, beyond that, to indict the
breadwinner's role."5 Yet the stories told by and about dieters in postwar Amer?
ica reveal something different: rather than undermining or rewriting masculine
norms, these narratives relocated them.
For the slimmed body attained at diet's end, regulated by expert discipline
and defined by what it took in, was particularly amenable to the regimen of
consumerism. As Richard Fox and Jackson Lears observe, entry into consumer
society mandates subscription to "an ethic, a standard of living, and a power
structure" centered around consumption. Within this system "individuals have
been invited to seek commodities as keys to personal welfare ... even to conceive
of their own selves as commodities." In Christopher Lasch's terms, the dieter
might well be the paradigmatic consumer:6
The state of mind promoted by consumerism is better described as a state of uneasi-

ness and chronic anxiety. The promotion of commodities depends, like modern
mass production, on discouraging the individual from reliance on his own resources
and judgment: in this case, his judgment of what he needs in order to be healthy
and happy. The individual finds himself always under observation, ii not by fore-
men and superintendents, by market researchers and pollsters who tell him what
others prefer and what he too must therefore prefer.

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
FEEDING THE ORGANIZATION MAN 807
Fat is thus not just, as Susie Orbach famously pu

sis of the "democratization of obesity" by sex re
through which male dieters worked out a new re
ambivalent about expert authority, extolling bot
neer individualism, they strove to retain traditi
even as consumerism ate them away.8
America had undergone previous "diet crazes" a
in the 1920s, but that of the postwar focused at
Widespread preoccupation with thinness itself d
eth century, and widespread concern about ove
More often the opposite had been the case. After
has noted, bearded rotundity, proof of middle-clas
tion, became the dominant male fashion. (Henry
boasted on the nation's first centennial that the
not just "better heads" than the Founding Father
Yet near century's close the myth of the "Big Ma
Progressive condemnation of the greed of the pr
to democracy rather than a testimony to one's
capitalists, resembling ambulatory money bags, b
cartoons of Thomas Nast and others. The vogue
man incarnated by former weakling Theodore R
roused by such vitalizing pursuits as big-game hu
dietary and nutritional fads associated with Ho
Kellogg. Like the postwar diet craze, these purs
Leach calls a "ready-made consumer mentality."
cused on men. But the dominant image in this ca
of overcivilization rather than the flabby victim o
Roosevelt suggests, was thinness necessarily the d
activities more often promoted elite class and so
mass inculcation of consumerist values. No one a
male obesity had the widespread cultural cogen
the phenomenon.9
"Overweight? Blame Our Soft, Lazy Way of

Diet10
America swept into the brave new postwar world on a swell of confidence, self-
satisfaction, and plenty. Because nearly two decades of deprivation had amply
stocked the popular memory with images of want?lean, careworn sharecroppers
and migrant workers in the photographs of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans,
soup kitchen lines twisting down snow-laden blocks?critics found the con?
nection of that confidence to ballooning waistlines understandable, though not
commendable. Celebrating freedom from hunger with an orgy of consumption,
one observer scolded, Americans "are stuffing ourselves so much we're killing
ourselves." As David Potter's celebrated People of Plenty (which saw in America's
tradition of abundance the key to its culture) and many others argued, average
calorie consumption provided an accurate index of national well-being, and the
United States stood first among the major industrial powers by a substantial

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
margin. Unfortunately, as the people of plenty consumed m
products of abundance, they also digested the most fat, the
and less and less fresh fruit. "Fattened wallets," Dr. Charlo
caused fat Americans; as Dr. Hilde Bruch put it, "pampered
appetites" were to blame.11
Despite early apathy, by the mid-50s, as the eminent Harvard
Mayer claimed, "obesity has become a national obsession." D
the first commercial diet cookbooks, including The Reducer
and The Slim Gourmet (1955), made their way into booksto
joined to form the National Obesity Society. "Calories are t
conversation in bars, boudoirs and drawing rooms," one jour
the American Medical Association feared that weight reduc
a "national neurosis."12 Although "weight" was of course a
metaphor, in the 1950s it captured the social changes that a
most prominently the effects of suburbanization and the
labor on middle-class men. At once accepting and resisting co
discourse mediated Americans' ambivalence on the subject: e
over puddled abundance, plenty brought uncomfortabiy clos
them to see themselves as commodities to be weighed and
fulfillment in charts and expert supervision, to define them
and how they consumed.
Many critics maintained that economic security made Ame
well-stuffed as their reclining chairs. Painfully aware of draft
basic physical-fitness tests, the director of the Selective Ser
admitted in 1955 that "we are not inherently a nation of softie
fight for us ... than for a lot of less-privileged people? [A]
mattresses, and regulated heating make it tough for us to st
learn to stay vigorous and still enjoy luxury."13 The chairm
Heart Association's nutrition committee laid the blame at th
appliances. The housewife spent a mere fifty calories dumpi
washing machine as opposed to 290 scrubbing it and hauling i
power lawnmowers afforded men a similar ease. Lavish super
freezers ensured that too much food was available when both s
their no-longer-Herculean labors, after which the family w
the television and gobble sweets instead of going for a walk
U.S Health Service argued, "there is a spontaneous recognit
the American people of the fact that they are gradually bein
state of atrophy."14
These were troubling signs of all-too-conspicuous consum
though comparatively few could actually purchase power lawn
machines, such luxuries provided especially potent symbol
new automated service economy.15 In 1960, an extended
News on the nation's future solidified those nebulous anxie
the curious paradox that "never before in history has a peop
prosperity now to be found in this country ... [yet] never ha
widespread signs of a deep uneasiness developing in the
that something is happening to American morals." Four of t
the magazine interviewed blamed prosperity for the Americ

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
Fitch, a prominent Protestant spokesman, com

feel the need of striving for anything," while Dr
professor of English, believed that "we haven
abundance?nor to a world of very deep unc
living can make people more decent. It doesn't
Yet few wished to deprive themselves of the rig
that wrapped comfort, personal achievement, a
package. The totems of abundance bore great
what was essentially religious belief in their ab
into the home, the middle class built its emoti
refrigerators, and televisions that doctors blam
Rejection of appliances was tantamount to rej
America had worked so hard to achieve. If "Sun
[because] we have Sunday every day," the phys
1959, most felt perfectly satisfied with that re
This complex set of pressures fell on middle-cla
The state of American masculinity was so thor
national resolve and global politics that fat be
symbolized as for the health risks it augured:
of surrender to indolence and feminization. O
imposed "inadequacies" on men that stripped th
ciency, and earning capacity." Perhaps the fat m
of self-reliance; more likely he was a victim of
Dr. Leonid Kotkin informed his readers, "you
your obesity!" The fat child or adult strikingly
fied by Philip Wylie and Edward Strecker?as
films like M} Son John> the sort of weakling l
blandishments. "He depends heavily on Mothe
him and even spoonfeed him," according to one
entire manner of life-Often Mama dominates
minor character." The adult fat boy, "half a ma
forcefulness. Worse, he set a discouraging exam
good many fathers are ashamed of their phys
be confined to occasional strenuous weekends, w
wind and flabby of muscle. The experience is h
Expanding waistlines, skyrocketing heart trou
furnished ample proof that Communism was
the middle classes. Fears of obesity accrued po
suggestions that expanded with the imaginati
around excess poundage? The Society of Actuar
while another study found only twenty-five
serious danger. But the broad, indefinite boun
"national tragedy" (as some claimed) or not, c
lurking menace: tons of fat were poised to ca
it let down its guard. "Once attained," Dr. Ma
his readers, the desirable weight "should be g
deviation either above or below the normal sh
thoroughly as possible." In a literal illustration o

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
a crowd of unwary pedestrians walking briskly on city stree
impending danger all around them. The photograph's caption
little both men and women recognized the need to guard thei
the fat waiting in ambush.19
If eternal vigilance was the price of leanness, weight tables?a s
Legion of diet?kept track of just how vigilant readers were. B
wars these tables had gradually been adjusted downward, from
measured to "ideal" ones; that is, from description to prescriptio
by continuing to exert normative pressure toward a changing
weights, these charts encouraged Americans' lust for what m
positivism of the self, a belief that one's inner resources coul
weighed, measured, and tabulated.20 They promised to measur
"adjustment"?primary concerns ofthe era's psychologists an
thereby to enable one to trace one's exact inner progress in rel
objective standards of valuation.21
In practice, moreover, such measures worked to enforce ad
Lasch identifies as fundamental tenets ofthe consumerist worl
to experts, loss ofthe ability to decide on one's own satisfaction
When the pop sociologist Vance Packard decided to enter a wei
for example, he took a test that determined his suitability fo
by measuring his ability to operate under expert surveillance
a commodity, to seek fulfillment through commodities, and
of measurement that accepted as given the quantifiable natur
To Packard's wholly uncritical relief, his score revealed that
of the population was "better adjusted" than he, he was "nor
undertake a diet. The critic who was simultaneously completi
the machinations of the hidden persuaders worried here only
to fit in. Both source of and path to normality, the diet beca
order: even as it criticized middle-class lassitude, it painted
portrait of postwar society and disciplined the dieter to fit i
Equally importantly, it opened a way to the truth ofthe self thr
of consumerism.22
"A Fierce Joy in Discovered Strength": Reading the Male
Beginning with the unexpected success of Elmer Wheeler in

counts of their diets came to constitute a distinct genre. Propag
selling books, magazine articles, and workplace gossip, these n
sentimentalism, fantasy, self-help, and pop psychology to provi
by which white middle-class American men coped with chan
roles as well as in the society surrounding them. They were trul
a story men told themselves about themselves that explaine
world. Whether or not they consciously understood their end
of these men were negotiating a personal narrative of maleness
ent society. This rewritten masculinity spoke an emergent disco
consumerism.23
The context for these stories was set out most powerfully in t
Riesman, who agonized over the lack of direction in men's live

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
he believed, were particularly endangered by

comfortably-appointed suburban homesteads
their inner drive. Whereas political parties, w
organizations had provided nineteenth-centur
a sense of belonging, in the twentieth centur
their salience, forcing men to prove themselv
sanction or recognition.24 Whatever tattered
survived the transition to a service economy w
American manhood lazed before television set
of well-stocked freezers. But whether one bla
ofthe gyroscope of inner-direction, or lamen
rites of initiation, it seemed clear that midd
within which to define themselves. This wa
real manhood was only a memory: "today th
mounts the 8:12, and his dragons are likely t
many articles on the subject put the case. 5
Hence the fervency with which the diet g
dieted "for cosmetic reasons," one expert be
much more powerful survival instinct": not ju
but preservation of older definitions of mascul
to recreate a kind of idealized pioneer manho
than were the hazy contours of modern mas
the roots of the masculine self.26 Yet this m
from what had existed in the previous centur
of bodybuilding, for instance, failed to catch
strong-man imagery, diet was fully assimilab
what the historian Hillel Schwartz calls "mor
attitude toward the world of goods the fundam
the signature of masculinity from the exterior
of the thin one.27
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centu
backbone of male identity, as either direct s
cense for activities like voting and breadwin
of middle-class jobs that did not demand ph
ing tangible came organized athletics, which
of productive satisfaction by resuscitating m
such as bloodshed and violent cameraderie, an
mat of ritualized physical competition.28 Wh
and athletics, required sweat and toil, consu
as a feminine (and feminizing) pastime: pass
overwhelming women's susceptible dispositio
dichotomy nevertheless persisted well into
male and female Americans' accommodation
onrush of the culture of consumption, male d
icans' gendered notions of consuming; redefi
pointed the way to a form of manhood groun
culture.
The reservoir of imagery such narratives tapped furthered their embrace of

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
consumerism. Echoing the sermons preached by nineteenth-c
the self-made man, postwar dieters told Bildungsromans, stori
growth to adulthood. Like Ragged Dick or Mark the Match-Bo
versed the boundaries between adolescent potentiality and ma
Whereas Horatio Alger's heroes migrated from homes in the s
side to membership in the racing urban workforce and mar
daughter, the dieter began his tale as an enfeebled, feminized
it by regaining his masculine subjectivity and self-control. But b
their achievement by becoming full-fledged members of consu
As the historian Daniel Rodgers has noted, however, Alger a
could not help noticing that the very virtues they champio
loyalty?were fast being rendered obsolete by the industrial or
evaded this paradox by setting their tales in timeless settings
service to "reality," but more and more often these stories bec
Extolling abstract virtues solely for their own sake, they were
of contemporary social context, since this would prove how
virtues had truly become.31 Diet narratives, in contrast, grou
in the texture of modern suburban life: stifling white-collar j
commutes; nervous, fugitive interactions with wives and chil
tioned leisure time. Yet though they took account of contem
the iimitations it entailed, in the end diet narratives descend
well. These attempts to escape the prison of modern America
more firmly within its confines. At root diet narratives, like A
to acclimate men to their duties in consumer culture rather
from its rules.
The most famous of these men was Elmer Wheeler, a former s
had opened an advertising institute that sold its ability to cr
"Don't sell the steak?sell the sizzle" the most famous. Publishe
in 1950, his Fat Boy}s Book interspersed inspiring homilies on
a Man of Distinction?Switch from Fat to Trim!" and "Wi
get chatty with men who are fatty" with an account of Whe
loss. The book suddenly took off when the Chicago Daily New
serializing it on the women's page, discovered that a huge m
reading as well. After an offer of a slide rule to aid in redu
90,000 responses, the editors moved the series on to the fro
three months seventy-seven papers carried the serial, a numb
their heaviest reporter to diet and recounting his progress eac
went on to sell more than half a million copies. Riding the
Wheeler penned the hit song "The Fat Boy's Bounce" and rec
three million pieces of mail from the serializing newspapers. "
that no one loves a fat man but his mother," he quipped. "All
Unfortunately, Wheeler was treated to so many promotio
within six months he had gained all of the weight back. Soo
sequel, The Fat Boy's Downfall, and How Elmer Learned to K
enjoyed somewhat less acclaim. Nevertheless, his success, whi
men to pen their own accounts, suggests something of the
road to masculine reconstruction; further, the structure and

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
weight-loss narrative make explicit the central

for inner-direction even as they endorse othe
veal how thoroughly dieting schooled men lik
consumerism.33
Wheeler's saga begins with his embarrassment
physical exam. Humiliated by a sarcastic docto
of the Bulge," hoping to put to use the "know
the war"?a time of action and simple moral im
passive postwar self that could say only "prosp
in these stories, an overweight man visits his d
instantly becomes stronger and more meaningf
That escape into the world of male homosocial
to Wheeler's unease, an attempt to evade comm
traditional male bonding. Though ties of affe
ternity" of men, that affection must be restrain
"unacceptable" homosexual passion. "The sympa
gives the other," Wheeler opined, "is almost as cl
Pythias-There is a real fusing of souls." But t
serves a crucial purpose, for only by vying for a
depth of their bond to each other. The emotion
passage, for instance, slide quickly from a brie
man by a woman to a hard, passionate stare w
the body of another; the passage ends by inve
One of the most effective ways to annoy one
promises, is to accrue admiring glances from a
thing floats into the room and says, 'My?what
to that effect[,] one look at your kisser as you si
ground you walk on."36
Such visions clearly evoke what have always b
paradises of competitive male bonding: the heart
shop floor, the grit and drive of the athletic
military unit. Stereotyped in popular movies a
the unit was also the example of male confrater
to mind throughout postwar American culture
by replicating the terms in which it was com
deeply cut" between the woman who could not
to endure it?Wheeler reclaimed American me
masculine self-definition. At the same time, in
he brought this territory under expert control. D
dreams of simultaneous personal and national r
the public eye only after they had remade them
Yet at the same time, this bond renders Whe
doctor, he recalls, "kept grabbing his way acros
the material at a rummage sale." Dieting, that
tomed view of themselves, proffering them as
rather than aggressive actors. One profile of e
measure fat accurately, for example, showed t

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
water, pinching them with calipers, lining them up for calibrati
otherwise treating them as quantities fit for experimentation
Clearly, this was troubling and unnerving. As the cultural c
puts it, the American gender structure is supported by a visual
"men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women w
being looked at." Placed in what they deemed a feminine posi
dieters revealed their unease by constantly likening themselve
to women, or to both.38
Note the contrast here with the social organization of w
Women joined the diet groups that sprang up after World W
sure, or at least with familiarity. For years diet had formed
communal culture, and organizations like TOPS (Take Off Po
formed in 1948), Overeaters Anonymous (1960), and Weight
merely formalized those relations. The feminist scholar Kim C
such groups speak the same language as do consciousness-rais
in quest of diametrically opposed goals. Whereas both involve
tual support and sisterhood, the feminist group speaks of empow
anger, "widening her frame of reference." In diet groups the op
women are trying to reduce themselves? [T]hey are trying to
smaller, to narrow themselves, to become lightweight, to lose gr
themselves. Here emphasis is placed upon shrinking and dimin
While Chernin is surely correct in her identification ofthe p
limitation female diet groups foster, she overlooks the impor
in the 1950s?of their link to earlier traditions of female comm
foremost reasons that Betty Friedan's "problem without a nam
less, after all, was that women lacked a venue within which t
independent adults. Nurtured by years of residence in ethnic
small towns, ties of friendship and acquaintance often collaps
under the relentless pressure of suburbanization and the mar
Severed from their friends and relatives, women felt their al
in those middle-class subdivisions where, the sociologists had i
dents met for several hours of mandatory chatter each morning
to the safety of tranquilizers in the afternoon. Given this pau
communal participation, by dignifying the practices of everyd
presented women with the rare opportunity to interact with
the clinging presence of husbands and children.
Male communal cultures, however, have rarely organized th
mutual reassurance. Instead, they have emphasized a rough eq
the (proven or presumed) ability to suffer and endure. Rath
ing women's emphasis on solidarity and revelation, male die
search of younger, slimmer selves. Like the self-made manho
nineteenth-century youths were encouraged to aspire, this ve
presented an account of its formation that could not be evaluat
by women. Foreclosing the possibility of female critique, male s
a/ait accompli, solely under the purview ofthe individual male
triots, and the (male) experts who regimented them?a thorou
embrace of the consumerist world view.40

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
Another such narrative, Kay Barth's brief acc

detailed exposition because it so effectively co
the period's diet culture, particularly the diet as
he lost seventy-five pounds, Barth was not mu
my life had been lived in New York City," he
a well populated suburb in Westchester? I h
wife, meanwhile, kept in vital touch with the o
"Molly was a girl who considered a little hike
back a form of pleasure. With woolen sox [sic
stick in her hand, she was out for enjoyment."
suburbanity differed little from that idealized
realized that something was missing, that he l
would fully satisfy his wife's desires. "This was t
he conceded. "I think she regretted it, and wi
man-We were married on impulse and were st
Rather than fret over his deteriorating relati
comes obsessed with dark visions of his collap
court, a victim of the heart attacks that wer
right. Paying a "secret visit" to the doctor, he
robs him of his beloved meat, gravy, and butte
facedly hands the list to Molly, who is both ho
though she bears primary responsibility for m
is a "referee" who enjoys no special emotional
is the doctor to whom Barth (literally) owes h
Three days of near-starvation leave Barth a
hungrily to and from the dinner table. On the
an epiphany that frees him. "[Qompletely dis
new lightness," he escapes his organized, fem
body. Having released himself from social const
transformation comparatively easy. He resolve
so every day, and by the end of the paragraph
When summer begins Barth is fit, both physica
camp in the wilderness of northern Ontario, an
the energy and initiative: "Sometimes I had to
beginning to get lazy_Not me! It was all the w
a paragraph later, Barth has fully repossessed h
his wife wants to climb Pike's Peak, he would
and explore the wilderness. "I'd much rather t
climbed so much, something a bit more rugged
be just a he-man idea or it may be that 75 pou
around is an inspiration to any man." Barth end
of freedom and thanking his wife, who "nagged
battle with the flesh." Her dissatisfaction resol
is back in command.41
The dieter-hero, like Kay Barth, was in need
friend, according to one dieter, was a lazy, self
he was too busy to think straight about his he

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
help him as long as he allowed his off-the-cuff, unthought-
govern his life." Presented with a philosophy of consumption,
resemble a discerning adult with "mature judgment" about th
"control [of his] eating for pleasure." Descriptions of fat men st
inexpert consumers and worse, bad men without that lean an
essential for success under capitalism. Anyone who wants to
watch what he eats, the business writer Jack Friedman couns
count against him just the same when promotions are being c
it's the vigorous, ambitious, dynamic man who usually has t
solid, calm, comfortably easy-going colleague who carries just
much." Quentin Miller learned a similar lesson after losing thi
impressed by the young man's willpower, a friend of his pare
"such strength of character in a fifteen-year-old boy means you
to success in any future undertaking."42
Diet, then, helped to reconcile traditional masculine indivi
restrained corporate world. Providing a putatively healthful m
tation that ensured a middle-class man's economic success, it
hood, expertise, possession of the store of knowledge by whi
commonly reckoned their authority. But diet also mandated t
discipline, submission to experts, and rigid self-control. Wor
be supplanted by the science of nutritional values and exerc
tered this language, the male dieter had achieved mastery o
had also learned that in modern America control of one's co
perhaps the?crucial faculty. The philosopher Susan Bordo
contradictions define precisely the "unstable bulimic person
talism demands: a diligent producer and saver who spends f
The traditionalist rhetoric of diet narratives helped to mask
dation. Kay Barth, for instance, never mentions the job that
sidizes his forays into the wilderness; rather than an escape
masculinity, as Ehrenreich would have it, that omission sug
fantasy, as if Barth hoped to pretend that his consumer iden
completely.43
The successful dieter then proceeded to master the rest of
masculinity, renewed by his control of what he took in, made
band," as one man's wife rejoiced. Physical failure seemed end
society: unable to avoid the fact that half ofthe men drafted fai
that schoolchildren failed fitness tests, and that heart disease
and weight were all on the rise, Harvard's Jean Mayer gloomi
"all of us, young and old, are, to put it bluntly, getting soft." B
stalwart and alone. "Now that I am back to normal size," rej
when his diet had concluded, "I no longer have to skimp on
now is moderation. I control what I eat_[T]here is a fierce jo
strength." For Elmer Wheeler dieting brought "your own Vic
the tub of lard where he is now hidden."44
In fact, Mature-ity rather than maturity characterized the
He had won domination over himself, his environment, and,
gression, over the women in his life. Equality was not at issue.
to Wheeler, the return of manhood brought hyperbolic poten

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
QUESTION: My Lard Face refuses to exercise. Wh

ANSWER: Nothing.... As he thins down the urg
bedroom will return automatically.
QUESTION: Before Fulbright began using your dope
minutes at a stretch. Since he read your Fat Boy's
What do you suggest?
ANSWER: Boys will be boys. Especially reformed fa
It should be noted, however, that Wheeler and h

potency securely within marriage. Whereas th
himself for the rigors of the sexual free market,
that the home would contain his passion. Like
cessity of sexual passion after matrimony, diet
life?and, by extension, the nation's social stabil
What did this transformation mean? A langu
tainly available to Barth, for psychoanalysis sat
1950s?and not just that of New York's West Sid
wright Arthur Miller remembered as "flocks of
discovering analysis ... [and gaining the] smugn
playthings since the teens and part of popular p
1950s psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanaly
remote corners of language and popular belief.
ration as a process of "psychological gentrificat
since the second World War Americans have b
tive, more attentive to inner experience."46
Although brain-science infused many differen
its uses comparatively early: by the late 1940s,
analytic status. "The physician's job today, in l
obesity," Thomas Desmond explained, "is not m
example, to ease your difficulties, divert you
and activities." Leonid Kotkin entitled one cha
Neurosis" and later added that psychotherapy
success and failure in weight loss. Doctors agre
depths of the patient's subconscious could any
Above all dieting was a mental endeavor. "We ar
habits and prejudices which we must try to un
we can get down to the business of curing ove
The doctor's job, like that of the analyst, was
to society, to build a life "in which the pati
food as a substitute for the other gratification
must be done with care. But, according to the p
out."47
In addition to reconstituting a masculine self that embraced traditional modes
of dominance, the male diet narrative dimmed these psychological insights.
Those who would exhort their readers to exercise in the 1970s, such as the
running guru Jim Fixx, insisted that the resulting surface transformation paled in
comparison to the accompanying internal rewards. "The qualities and capacities
that are important in running," Fixx boasted, "have a radiating power that subtly
influences one's life." As one of his disciples gushed, "it's like having your own

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
psychiatrist." But rather than allowing their feelings to be
fifties these men maintained a measure of their traditional imm
scrutiny; accounts such as Barth's and Wheeler's did not comp
of external metamorphosis with corresponding inner change
version of consumerist masculinity closed them off.48
Men's diet narratives, that is, diverged sharply from those
women. Striving to mute fat's ability to speak for them, th
the road to thinness with silence. Elmer Wheeler, for one, utt
chological interpretations of his weight problem. Instead, he
explanation that denied the possibility of any real insecurity
about why us fatties get fat. Real scientific stuff.... Personally,
name has something to do with fat? So us 'Elmers' have deve
complexes. We are shy fellows. We drown our shame in tons
losing his excess weight, regaining it, and losing it again, W
no more convinced of the merits of the talking cure. His anal
ferreting out his secrets: "It seems you lie on a couch and you
in your mind. He gets clues from your past that might tell why
bound to spill something that gives you away." Fortunately for W
thing inside him was his lunch. "But what could that doc make
that would be a mystery? Ali I'd perhaps think would be, say
'guinea hen under glass,' Veal cutlets,' lobster Newburg.'" "A
he concluded, "I found my introvert spirit gradually disppeari
psychiatrist?all I needed was a dietitian!"49
Lesser-known men echoed Wheeler's airy dismissal ofthe psy
spring of diet culture. 315-pound Joe Girard finally decided t
feet hurt, while young Quentin Miller visited his family doct
feared that his health might be endangered. Athletic trainer
gested that mastery of a few simple physical gestures were all
slimmer waistline: "Just shake your head from side to side in a
Try it at the table ... when the second portions come around
[method] ... learn to place both hands firmly on the table ...
like the doctor who first stirred Wheeler to action, Mauch sugge
to external transformation. Whatever self-examination these
very little, on the evidence of these stories?they kept to them
Arguing that such elisions ofthe inner self create what we m
cally male" account, the historian Peter Filene notes that biog
biographies of men (and men's history in general) usually seve
the private world and are thereby blind to the full complexit
"We are supposed to believe that men spend all their energy
Filene complains, "at least all that is worth writing about?in
parently, find their primary sense of self apart from boyhood, f
and love-Most of the action takes place in streets and legisla
public arenas rather than at home or in the heart."51
Wheeler and his fellow dieters continued a long tradition of
by recounting their tales in the fashion Filene describes. In th
to make fat (and men's interiors) speak, they struggled to r
silent once again. In one way such narratives were gestures of
of justified fear of exposing one's inwardmost self to the unca

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
outside world. But such denial of interiority a

prevent understanding and honest communic
mystique of silent male authority?the very
chafed for years.52
Feminists, in contrast, have detailed the nu
verge on women's bodies. Whereas these men
for bodily transformation, women suffer (an
manipulation," as Susan Bordo puts it, towar
is too thin? Objects of constant scrutiny, wo
to analysis. Their fat is presumed to "compen
something internal?an expression of inner f
men's fat, according to these dieters, signifie
were both external and remediable. (Most ofte
much.)53
Most importantly, these silences register the contradictions in consumerist
masculinity; they suggest how ambivalently the middle-class male embraced
its tenets.54 The doctor's expertise was acceptable, for he merely advised the
dieter to lose weight?an activity that could be east in traditional terms of self-
possession and individualism. The psychologist's was not, for his patient, like
Lasch's paradigmatic consumer, was difficult to fit out with the usual masculine
garb?eternally uneasy, unable to determine "what he needs to make him healthy
and happy," "always under observation," he was uncomfortably intimate with
the pressures women faced. Yet in the realm of diet?and throughout the realm
of consumer culture?both experts got their say. The refusal of these dieters to
ponder that consequence of consumerism reveals a lingering sense of discomfort,
a nostalgia for older, more easily assured means of masculine self-definition that
did not depend so completely on the world of goods. But even as these men
attempted to recreate nineteenth-century masculinity, ironically enough, their
submission to that expertise, their self-definition through those goods, moved
them ever deeper into the world of modern consumerism, ever further from the
certainties they wanted so desperately to recapture.
Department of History
San Francisco, CA 94115
ENDNOTES
The author's work has been greatly improved by the comments and questions
Fass, Peter Filene, and Peter Stearns; the Berkeley History Workshop, Alyso
Oz Frankel, Peter Gordon, Peter Laipson, Diana Selig, and Eric Weisbard; and
cially Karen Bradley, Beth Haiken, Julia Rechter, Tma Stevens, Jessica Weiss, an
Etlinger.
1. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., "The Crisis in American Masculinity," The Politics of Hope
(Cambridge, 1962), 237-46. The article was first published as a cover story in Esquire in
1958.
2. LaLanne quoted in Peter Wyden, The Overweight Society (New York, 1965), 119;
see also Jack LaLanne, The Jack LaLanne Way to Vibrant Good Heakh (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J., 1960).

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
3. Poppy Cannon, The Can~Opener Cook Book (New York, 1951). O
in general, see Gerry Schremp, Kitchen Culture: Fifty Years ofFood Fad
36, 48, 51, 53, 59-60; Joshua Giteison, "Populox: the Suburban Cui
Journal of AmericanCulture 15 (Fall 1992): 73-78; Harvey Levenstein,
Social History ofEating in Modern America (New York, 1993), 116-18;
As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture ofEveryday Life in the 1950s (Cam
40; Jane and Michael Stern, American Gourmet (New York, 1994)
manager quoted in "Big Bulge in Profits," Newsweek, 23 July 1956,
Embattled Paradise: The American Family in an Age of Uncertainty (
56,62-63.
4. Stephen Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War (Baltimore,

Mayer, "Exercise Does Keep the Weight Down," The Atlantic, July 1
Eisenman and C. Robert Barnett, "Physical Fitness in the 1950s a
One Fail and the Other Boom?" Quest 31(1979): 117-18,121; Curtis
Everyone? Or Swimming, or ??," New York Times Magazjtne, 23 Apr.
suggestions that American citizens become physically fit in order to
threat, see Jean Mayer, "Muscular State of tne Union," New York Tim
1955, 17; Hillel Schwartz, Never Satisfied: A Cultural History ofDiet
(New York, 1986), 232-33 and 413 n 104; Donald Mrozek, "The
Toughness in Cold War America," in Ray B. Browne, ed., Rituals
Popular Culture (Bowling Green, 1980), 178,183-84.
5. Barbara Ehrenreich, The Hearts ofMen: American Dreams and the

mitment (New York, 1983), 86.
6. Richard Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears, "Introduction," The Cultu

Critical Essays in American History 1880-1980 (New York, 1983), xii;
The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times (New York, 198
7. Susie Orbach, Fat is a Feminist Issue (New York, 1978).
8. On the roots of male consumerism, see Jesse Berrett, "The Secret

Culture: Masculinity and Consumption in Postwar America," (Ph.
Berkeley, 1996), 7-28,30-32.
9. Lois Banner, American Beauty (Chicago, 1983), 226-27,229-30

iani, America Eats Out (New York, 1991), 50?51; lackson Lears, No Pl
modernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920
William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and a New Ame
York, 1993), 259. On the "social decline of fat people," see Schwartz,
86, 88, 91-92, 95; on muscular Christianity and the rise of physical
Green, Fit for America: Health, Fitness, Sport and American Society (
88, 90, 182-84, 186-99, 202, 213, 242-52. For further commentary
male fatness, and comparisons to the same condition in women, see
Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness (New York, 198
10. Arthur Snider, "The Progress of Medicine: Overweight? Blame O

of Life," Science Digest, Oct. 1958,49-50.
11. Thomas Desmond, "Fat Men Can't Win," Science lllustrated,

54-56, 58-59; David Potter, People of Plenty: Economic Abundance
Character (Chicago, 1954), 83; Wyden, Overweight Society, 3, 12,
"The Murderous Riddle of Coronary Disease," Fortune, Sept. 1958
169-70; Young quoted in "Prosperity Causing Americans to be Ob
Letter, 29 Sept. 1956, 201; Bruch quoted in "Obesity the Enemy,"
1947, 54.

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
12. Louis Dublin, "Overweight: America's No. 1 Heal

1952, 18-21; "Obesity Is Now No. 1 U.S. Nutritiona
27 Dec. 1952, 408; "Fat & Unhappy,M Time, 23 Ju
National Obesity Society, see Schwartz, Never Satisf
Dieting Being Overdone?" American Legfan Magazi
Walker, "The Great American Dieting Neurosis," N
1959,12,100; see also David Cort, "Reducing Ad Absu
511-13.
13. "Are We Becoming 'SoftT Newsweek, 26 Sept. 1955, 35-36; see also Mayer, "Ex?
ercise Does Keep the Weight Down," 66; "Prosperity Causing Americans to be Obese,"
Science News Letter, 29 Sept. 1956,201; "Exercise?What It's Doing for Ike and What It
Can Do for You," US News and World Report, 23 Aug. 1957, 50-54, 56, 59; Patricia and
Ron Deutsch, "Let's Have No More Nonsense About Weight!" Good Housekeeping, Oct.
1958, 70-71,155,159; Wyden, Overweight Society, 1, 2,301.
14. Calorie figures given in "Why We Fatten Up," Newsweek, 8 June 1959, 66. On
freezers, see Lawrence Galton, "Why We Are Overfy Larded," New York Times Magazine,
15 Jan. 1961,44,47; Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty, 107,108; Schremp, Kitchen Culture,
57-58; Letitia Brewster and Michael Jacobson, The Changing AmericanDiet (Washington,
D.C., 1983), 29; Susan Strasser, Never Done: A History of American Housework (New York,
1982), 272-76; on television and overeating see Jack Gould, "Severe Curbs Jolt Video
Sports Fans," New York Times, 26 June 1951; "Latest on Exercise and What It Does for
You," US News and World Report, 8 June 1959, 104-05.
15. Even though these innovations had not reduced women's work weeks, such rhetoric
papered over that inconvenience, helping to convince Americans that better living
through technology was a reality. See Strasser, Never Done, 267-72; Ruth Schwartz
Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth
to the Microwave (New York, 1983), 195-96,199, 200, 208-209; Ann Oakley, The Soci*
ology of Housework (New York, 1974), 93-95. Oakley also argues (1-28) that sociologists
performed a similar function by denying women the right to be either practitioner or
object of study, and by denying housework the status of "work."
16. "What's Wrong?What's Right with Today's America," US News and World Report,
22 Feb. 1960,60-79.
17. "Fats & Facts," Time, 30 Mar. 1959, 51. For a perceptive discussion of the totemic
aspects of appliances and other consumer goods, see Thomas Hine, Populuxe (New York,
1987).
18. Max Millman, "Why People Reduce," Today's Health, lune 1955, 20-21,40-43; see
also Roy de Groot, "How I Lost 45 Pounds on the Rockefelier Diet," Look, 26 June 1956,
63-70; Leonid Kotkin with the assistance of Fred Kerner, Eat, Think, and Be Slender
(New York, 1954), 69, 77-83; Robert G. Whalen, "We Think Ourselves into Fatness,"
New York Times Magazine, 3 Dec. 1950, 22, 36, 38,40; "Fat & Unhappy," Time, 20 Oct.
1947, 61-62; Hilde Bruch, "Psychological Aspects of Obesity," BuUetin of the New York
Academy of Medicine 24 (Feb. 1948): 73-86; "half a man" from Mac Tarnoff as told to
Wambly Bald, "I Cut My Weight by 150 Pounds," Coronet, Jan. 1952, 32-35. (Compare
these descriptions with those in Philip Wylie, Generation of Vipers [New York, 1942]
and Edward Strecker, Their Mothers1 Sons [Philadelphia, 1951]. On masculinity and anti-
Communism, see also Michael Rogin, Ronald Reagan, the Movk, and Other Episodes in
Political Demonolagy [Berkeley, 1987], 236-71.) Jhan and June Robbins, "Why Young
Husbands Feel Trapped," Redbook, Mar. 1962, 123; Revere McVay, "Mauch Ado About
Muscles," Nation's Business, Sept. 1951, 50.
19. Stanley Frank, "Illusions of Reducing," Saturday Evening Post, 20 Jan. 1962, 28-
30, 34; Earl Bonnett, "Overweight?Our Biggest Health Menace," McCalTs, Apr. 1954,

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
34-35, 38; Cort, "Reducing Ad Absurdum," 511, 512; Norman Jolliff
Reduced (New York, 1952), 3; Bello, "Murderous Riddle of Coronar
"Overweight Called National Tragedy," Science Digest, Aug. 1955, 3
Your Weight Normal?" Today's Health, Jan. 1956,40-43,59; photograp
New Facts You Need to Know," US News and World Report, 2 Nov.
20. Indeed, tests furnished one of the most popular means of truth-tell
ica. World War II had popularized psychological testing, and in its w
of employers using some kind of test to evaluate applicants and emp
than nvefold, from 14% in 1939 to 75% in 1952. By 1959 one testing
among its 11,000 clients was a St. Louis chain of cafeterias that tested
janitors. A wide array of authorities appeared on the scene, including
tests of masculinity and femininity (especially the Miles-Terman MF
tionnaires to determine one's suitability for corporate work, and a g
that such nebulous categories as "adjustment" could be evaluated on
piece of paper. Inveighing against the "unchecked enthusiasm and
he saw everywhere about him, the social critic Loren Baritz devote
the subject in 1960. See Loren Baritz, The Servants of Power: A Histor
Science in American Industry (Middletown, Conn., 1960), 155-56.
Look, Decline of the American Male (New York, 1958), 29,30,32; Russ
ofHoney (New York, 1957), 105; "Testing: Can Everyone be Pigeon
20 July 1959,91-93; Vance Packard, The Pyramid CUmbers (New Yor
an Italian chemist's experience with postwar testing, one he could no
examinations he had recently undergone in Monowitz, see Primo L
the Orchid," Other People's Trades (New York, 1989), 78-81.
21. Schwartz, Never Satisfied, 157. On the history of weight charts, wh

monly used in the study of children's growth and development, see
"Height, Weight, and Health: Anthropometric Study of Human Grow
Century American Medicine," Bulletin of the History of Medicine
214-43.
22. Vance Packard, "How I Lost 15 Pounds in One Month," The American Magazine,
June 1956, 26-27, 106-109; see also Ernest Havemann, "The Wasteful, Phony Crash
Dieting Craze," Life, 19 Jan. 1959,102-106,108, 110,112, 114.
23. For the popularity of accounts of male dieting, see "Diets for Men," Time, 26 Mar.
1951,63-64. For a discussion of health crusaders in general, see James Whorton, Crusaders
for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers (Princeton, 1982), 2-6.
24. For complaints about the lack of initiation rites, see Robert Bly, Iron John (Reading,
MA., 1990) and Lynn Segal, Sbw Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men (Lon?
don, 1990), 131, 132. For the social functions of nineteenth-century institutions, see,
among many others, Susan Davis, Parades and Power: Street Theatre in Nineteenth-Century
Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1986); Alexander Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Re-
public: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (London, 1990);
David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working
Class (London, 1991); Mary Blewett, Men, Women, and Work: Class, Gender, and Protest
in the New England Shoe Industry, 1780-1910 (Urbana, 1988); Jean Baker, Affairs ofPany:
The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Ithaca, 1983);
on nineteenth-century fraternal organizations, see Mark Carnes, "Middle Class Men and
the Solace of Fraternal Ritual," in Mark Carnes and Clyde Griffen, eds., Meanings for
Manhood: Constructions of Masculinity in Victorian America (Chicago, 1990), 50; Lynn
Dumenil, Freemasonry and American Culture 1880-1930 (Princeton, 1984).
25. Lewis Lyndon, "Uncertain Hero: The Paradox of the American Male," Women's
Home Companion, Nov. 1956, 41-43, 107; see also The Decline of the American Male;
Margaret Mead, "American Man in a Woman's World," New York Times Magazine, 10

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
Feb. 1957, 11, 20-23. My understanding of mascu

by Tim Carrigan, Bob Connell, and John Lee, "Tow
Theory and Society 14 (Sept. 1985): 551-604; Ant
Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolutio
Segal, Slow Motion; Michael Kimmel, Manhood in A
1996).
26. Walker, "Great American Dieting Neurosis," 12,100.
27. On bodybuilding, see Eisenman and Barnett, "Physical Fitness in the 1950s and
1970s"; Benjamin Rader, "The Quest for Self-Sufficiency and the New Strenuosity: Re-
fiections on the Strenuous Life of the 1970s and 1980s," Journal of Sport History 18
(Summer 1990): 255-66; Schwartz, Never Satisfied, 18. "Every man ... is, or has been,
engaged in a dialogue with muscles," writes the sport sociologist Alan M. Klein. For the
significance of muscles, see his Little Big Men: Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Con?
struction (Albany, 1993), 4 and passim; Green, Fit for America; Barry Glassner, "Men and
Muscles," in Michael Kimmel and Michael Messner, eds., Men's Lives (New York, 1989),
310-20.
28. On sport, see Michael Oriard, Reading Football (Chapel Hiil, 1993), 189-276; Joe
M. Dubbert, A Man's Place: Masculinity in Transition (Englewood ClifTs, N.J., 1979),
163-90; Michael Messner, Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity (Boston,
1992), 13-19; Elliott Gorn and Warren Goidstein, A Brief History of American Sports
(New York, 1993), 98-149; Rotundo, American Manhood, 239-44; Steven Riess, "Sport
and the Redefinition of American Middle-Class Masculinity," Inurrumondfournd ofthe
History of Sport 8 (May 1991): 5-27.
29. On the association of consumption with femininity, see Elaine Abelson, When Ladies
Go A-Thkving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store (New York, 1989);
Barbara Melosh, Engendering Culture: Manhood and Womanhood in New Deal Public Art
and Theater (Washington, D.C., 1991), 183-84,194-95; Roland Marchand, Advertising
the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity (Berkeley, 1985), 66-69, 84, 86, 167-
71; Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Cukure, Postmodernism
(Bloomington, 1986), ch. 3.
30. On narratives of the self-made man, see Irvin Wyllie, The Seif-Maae Man in America:
The Myth ofRags to Riches (New York, 1954); John Cawelti, Apostles ofthe Self-Made Man:
Changing Concepts of Success in America (Chicago, 1965).
31. Daniei Rodgers, The Work Ethic in Industrial America 1865-1920 (Chicago, 1974),
125-52.
32. Obituary for Elmer Wheeler, New York Times, 3 Oct. 1968; Elmer Wheeler, The Fat
Boy's Book. How Elmer Lost 40 Pounds in 80 Days (New York, 1950), 36, 71, 162; "Diets
for Men," 63,64; "Page-One Fat Boy," Newsweek, 26 Mar. 1951,64; "Big Bulge in Profits,"
61; Elmer Wheeler, The Fat Boy's Downfdl, and How Elmer Learned to Keep it Off (New
York, 1952), 1, 5,141.
33. Wheeler, Fat Boy's Downfall, 27.
34. Wheeler, Fat Boy's Book, 5, 17-23, 58.
3 5. Not that there is much competition in Wheeler's case: his wife, sarcastically referred
to as "The Brain," appears to be charged with the sole duty of sneering at and belittling
her husband. (Similarly, in the Alger stories a boy's most important relationship is not
with his mother or future wife but with the older man who shepherds his career.) Beth
Wheeler, though, later gained a modicum of revenge by producing her own book, How to
Help Your Husband Relax, which advised wives to keep their husbands breathing as long

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
as possible?if only to ensure their own financial stability in later life
Book, 38-53; Beth Wheeler, How to Help Your Husband Relax [Garden
36. On the social effects of homosociality, see Sharon Bird, "Wel

Club: Homosociality and the Maintenance of Hegemonic Masculinity,
10 (Apr. 1996): 120-32; the topic has been most famously theoriz
Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desir
Wheeler, Fat Boy's DownfaU, 143; Wheeler, Fat Boy's Book, 153.
37. Susan Schweik, A Gulf So Deeply Cut: American Women Poets an

War (Madison, 1991), 6, 7; Susan Gubar, "'This Is My Rifle, This I
War II and the Blitz on Women," in Margaret Higonnet, et. al, eds
Gender and the Two World Wars (New Haven, 1987), 227-259. Th
C. C. Adams explains that conscious mythologizations of "happy
combat and censorship of Allied casualties helped sell the war to t
an equally fantastic vision of the conflict as one between pure goo
provided a wellspring of metaphor for the subsequent five decades. W
the experience suggests that such nostalgia craves clean-cut gender
C. C. Adams, The Best War Ever: America and World War 11 (Balt
73-75,157-59. See also Craig M. Cameron's perceptive study ofthe v
which Marines presented their experiences, in American Samurai: My
the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division, 1941-1951 (New
76-79,244-54.
38. McVay, "Mauch Ado About Muscies," 48-53, 67; the men ar
"How Fat is a Fat Man?" Life, 6 Oct. 1947,88,91-92; John Berger et
(London, 1972), 45-47; Wheeler, The Fat Boy's Book, 19, 157. For a
of "the gaze" in general, see Suzanna Danuta Walters, Material Gir
Feminist Cultural Theory (Berkeley, 1995), 50-66. Contained withi
at being examined is the unstated premise that women are and s
Compare McVay with Chernin, The Obsession, 1,43-44, 62.
39. Schwartz, Never Satisfied, 204, 206, 210-11; "TOPS Take Off P
1951, 137-38,140; Chernin, The Obsession, 99-103 (emphasis in or
40. For the competitiveness suffusing male communal cultures, see R

Manhood, 43-45, 49-51, 62-71, 143-44, 200-203. On the commonal
tion rites across cultures, see David Gilmore, Manhood in the Makin
of Masculinity (New Haven, 1990), 2-3, 9-29. This analysis thus p
narrative in the category that cultural-studies scholars term "neg
to "dominant" or "alternative") readings: though it contested som
diet culture, in the end it accepted most of that culture's assumption
thereby socialized men into the larger discursive framework of middle-
than challenged it.
41. Kay Barth, "From Man Mountain to Mountain Climber," Today's

41. 70.
42. Jack Friedman, "Those Hidden Pounds: Executive Enemy No. 1," Dun's Review
and Modern Industry, Apr. 1961, 42-44; Quentin Miller, "There's a Handsomer Man in
the House," Ladies' Home Journal, Sept. 1955, 81, 210-14. Similarly, Progressive health
reformers promoted "efficiency" in both bodily hygiene and business; indeed, they main?
tained, cleaniiness could not but lead to success. See Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness,
165-67, 293-95.
43. de Groot, "How I Lost 45 Pounds," 70. Elmer Wheeler was particularly pleased to be
equipped with a new array of jargon, and he lost no time lording his mastery over his wife:
Wheeler, Fat Boy's DownfaU, 165-66. Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC
Culture, and the Body (Berkeley, 1993), 185-212; see

Account of 'Health': Control, Release, and the Soci
Issues in the Political Economy of Health Care (Ne
Keith Walden argues, is a primary institution of m
"The Road to Fat City: An Interpretation of the De
in Western Society," Historical Reflections 12 (Fal
44. Tarnoff, "I Cut My Weight by 150 Pounds," 34

Union," 17; "Are We Becoming 'Soft'?" 35; Bonnie
Life," Sports lllustrated, 5 Aug. 1957,35-36,41-43;
45. Wheeler, Fat Boy's Book, 145-46; on "containm

May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Co
I am indebted to Oz Frankel for this point.
46. Arthur Miller, Timebends: A Life (New York

Embattled Paradise, 16-17; Roland Marchand, "Visi
minion: American Popular Culture, 1945-1960," in R
eds., Reshaping America: Society and Institutioris (Co
to Jessica Weiss for the Skolnick reference. On p
Turkle, Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Fr
don, 1992), 191-209.
47. Schwartz, Never Satisfied, 202; Desmond, "Fat

Think, and Be Slender, 40,49, 205-213; Galton, "Why
Yudkin, This Slimming Business (New York, 1960), 1
Whalen, "We Think Ourselves into Fatness," 40.
48. James F. Fixx, The Complete Book of Running

also The Editors of Runner's World, The Complete
the first two sections of which are entitled "Philoso
49. Wheeler, Fat Boy's Book, 3,63,64,106-107; Wh
50. Margaret Oppen, "He Lost 125 Pounds and his

Journal, Jan. 1960, 56-57, 84, 86-87; Miller, "Ther
81, 210?14; McVay, "Mauch Ado About Muscles," 5
I Lost 110 Pounds," Look, 1 Aug. 1961, 49-51; Daw
Diet," Ladies' Home Journal, July 1953, 79-82.
51. Peter Filene, "The Secrets of Men's History,"

Masculinities: The New Men's Studies (Boston, 1987
52. See, for example, Carol Tavris, "Men and Wom

ity," Psychology Today, Jan. 1977, 34-42, 82.
53. Bordo, Unbearabk Weight, 143, 99-134; Chern

183-84; Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images
(New York, 1992), 94-95, 98-102,121-27,186-96.
54. Special thanks to Peter Laipson for forcing me t

202.41.10.120 on Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:26:50 UTC

Berret Post WAr Masculinity America

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Berret Post WAr Masculinity America

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Feeding the Organization Man: Diet and Masculinity in Postwar America

Author(s): Jesse Berrett

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/3789784

This content downloaded from

By Jesse Berrett San Francisco University High School

This content downloaded from

The state of mind promoted by consumerism is better described as a state of uneasi-

This content downloaded from

Fat is thus not just, as Susie Orbach famously pu

"Overweight? Blame Our Soft, Lazy Way of

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

Fitch, a prominent Protestant spokesman, com

This content downloaded from

"A Fierce Joy in Discovered Strength": Reading the Male

Beginning with the unexpected success of Elmer Wheeler in

This content downloaded from

he believed, were particularly endangered by

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

weight-loss narrative make explicit the central

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

Another such narrative, Kay Barth's brief acc

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

QUESTION: My Lard Face refuses to exercise. Wh

It should be noted, however, that Wheeler and h

This content downloaded from

This content downloaded from

outside world. But such denial of interiority a

This content downloaded from

4. Stephen Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War (Baltimore,

5. Barbara Ehrenreich, The Hearts ofMen: American Dreams and the

6. Richard Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears, "Introduction," The Cultu

7. Susie Orbach, Fat is a Feminist Issue (New York, 1978).

8. On the roots of male consumerism, see Jesse Berrett, "The Secret

9. Lois Banner, American Beauty (Chicago, 1983), 226-27,229-30

10. Arthur Snider, "The Progress of Medicine: Overweight? Blame O

11. Thomas Desmond, "Fat Men Can't Win," Science lllustrated,

This content downloaded from

12. Louis Dublin, "Overweight: America's No. 1 Heal

This content downloaded from

21. Schwartz, Never Satisfied, 157. On the history of weight charts, wh

This content downloaded from

Feb. 1957, 11, 20-23. My understanding of mascu

26. Walker, "Great American Dieting Neurosis," 12,100.

33. Wheeler, Fat Boy's Downfall, 27.

34. Wheeler, Fat Boy's Book, 5, 17-23, 58.

This content downloaded from

36. On the social effects of homosociality, see Sharon Bird, "Wel

37. Susan Schweik, A Gulf So Deeply Cut: American Women Poets an

40. For the competitiveness suffusing male communal cultures, see R

41. Kay Barth, "From Man Mountain to Mountain Climber," Today's

This content downloaded from

Culture, and the Body (Berkeley, 1993), 185-212; see

44. Tarnoff, "I Cut My Weight by 150 Pounds," 34

45. Wheeler, Fat Boy's Book, 145-46; on "containm

46. Arthur Miller, Timebends: A Life (New York

47. Schwartz, Never Satisfied, 202; Desmond, "Fat

48. James F. Fixx, The Complete Book of Running

49. Wheeler, Fat Boy's Book, 3,63,64,106-107; Wh

50. Margaret Oppen, "He Lost 125 Pounds and his

51. Peter Filene, "The Secrets of Men's History,"