Historical Approaches to Weight Loss and Healthy Eating

Here are a few interesting facts:

Today, we have made nutrition a science; we think that our experts know the secrets to healthy eating.

A much wider variety of healthy foods are available to us today than ever before.

However, in modern society, more of us have weight problems and become ill or even die from conditions related to being overweight than ever before!

Maybe it’s just possible that we have something to learn from the way that people ate in the past – throughout much of human history, in fact. One thing goes without saying, and is probably the most important factor – in the past, food was more natural. While it may be true that people ate more fat and even more calories, they acquired them from food that was close to its natural state, and therefore better for health.

But here’s something else – something that may surprise you. People in most ancient societies – and right through the Middle Ages and Renaissance – did not follow the advice that most nutritionists would give today. They hardly ate any breakfast at all, though we are often told that breakfast is the ‘most important meal’. In fact, they were likely to eat only one large meal a day – or two at the most, in which case one would be larger than the other. And here’s another thing that would make modern nutritionists shake their heads in despair – quite a lot of the time, it seems, that one big meal was eaten rather late in the day – often after the sun went down and the day’s work was done!

This is, of course, the direct opposite of what we hear nowadays. We are told never to skip breakfast, and that numerous smaller meals are better than fewer large ones. According to traditional societies, though, that’s just not true. People in ancient Greece and Rome would eat very little in the morning – a small piece of bread, maybe, or a fig or two. They would work throughout the day, eating little or nothing. Then, when work was done for the day, they would sit down to a great meal. What it consisted of would vary according to how well-off the people were, and the precise region they lived in – but for everyone, the evening meal would be comprised of most of their daily calories. They would go to bed on a full stomach, digest during the night, and be energized – and have little need to eat – next morning.

As time went on, some farming cultures varied this basic plan somewhat, and had their main meal in the middle of the day. They would then have a light supper – rather like our lunch – late in the evening. In fact, there are people in some European cultures today who eat exactly like this to this day.

Today, breakfast is sacrosanct, but it actually was not even invented until the seventeenth century. At that time, the idea of breakfast was popularized by the British royal family – and their ‘breakfast’ consisted of several courses, including meat, salads, and even dessert. In fact, the royals and aristocrats were the ‘deviants’ all along. They didn’t eat like most people did – they increased the amount and frequency of their meals, and ended up with much of the health and weight problems that we have today!

By contrast, the peasants’ meals seemed to be, for the most part, just right – as long as there wasn’t a drought or famine in the area, that is. Of course, part of it might have been the simple food and hard labor, but evidence suggests that people in bygone times had very few weight problems, despite (or maybe because of?) their tendency to eat most of their calories at one meal, which was often an evening meal, at that! Should we follow their lead? It goes against conventional wisdom, but it seems worth thinking about. If nothing else, we should appreciate the fact that this type of eating has been around a lot longer than modern diets and eating plans, and seems to have been successful, for the most part. So if you’re not a breakfast person, don’t despair – chances are you weren’t bred to be!

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