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How The Mighty Have Fallen

How The Mighty Have Fallen: Episode 5

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Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Factual: History

Episode 5

BBC Radio 4 - How The Mighty Have Fallen, Episode 5

Dr Hilary Jones investigates how our ancestors used exercise to fight obesity.

At the start of National Obesity Awareness Week, Dr Hilary Jones continues his survey of the history of obesity with a look at exercise and weight-loss.

"It is very injurious to health to take in more food than the constitution will bear, when, at the same time, one uses no exercise to carry off this excess": Hippocrates, millennia ahead of his time, defining the 'energy balance equation'. Celsus believed "Fat persons should be made thinner by warm bathing, strong exercise, hard beds, little sleep, proper evacuations...and one meal a day".

At the start of National Obesity Awareness Week, Dr Hilary Jones continues his survey of the history of obesity with a look at exercise. Various forms of physical activity have been recommended over the millennia; Plutarch suggested reading aloud - "a very healthful exercise"; Socrates advocated dancing - as did FA Hornibrook, whose 1920s book targeted those who "cannot hide their protuberant belly or ponderous buttocks which handicap fat people in their cumbrous waddle through life". 

But Cardan, in the 16th century, strongly opposed exercise: "Trees live longer than animals, because they never stir from their places". The programme also peruses an intriguing array of early 20th century exercise devices, including the Marvel Violet Ray, and the self-massaging 'Punkt-Roller' - "medically approved for the treatment of OBESITY".

There are interviews with Prof Michael Lean, Dr Susan Jebb, Prof David Haslam of the National Obesity Forum, and Neville Rigby, plus readings, music, and archive: a topical song from Band Waggon in 1937 coinciding with the launch of Britain's National Fitness Campaign, and a speech by King George VI.


Producer: Susan Kenyon
A Ladbroke production for BBC Radio 4.

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Dr Hilary Jones explores the history of obesity

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