One of my co-workers brought in a magazine today that she got at an estate sale.  It is called “The Cosmopolitan” and is dated 1900.  Reading through the ads was hysterical.  Every product claimed to be a “cure.”  In fact, many of the products claimed to cure just about everything from blindness to eczema.  I love seeing old stuff like this.

There was one ad that caught my eye, because it read in huge letters:  “LOST 40 lbs. OF FAT.”  Of course that would catch my eye.  And it contained a picture of a pretty woman that by today’s standards would still probably be considered overweight.  I noticed that quite often as I flipped through the pages.  There were a lot of pictures of women described as being beautiful and perfect who would today be considered very overweight and who you wouldn’t normally find in magazines at all.

This ad, however, read:

Are you too stout?
If so, why not reduce your weight and be comfortable?  Obesity is a disease and predisposes to Heart Trouble, Paralysis (really?), Liver disease, Rheumatism, Apoplexy, etc., and is not only dangerous but extremely annoying to people of refined taste (huh?).  We do not care how many reduction remedies you might have taken…

It is an ad for a free sample of a weight loss product that claimed to reduce a person’s weight “with out sickness or any inconvenience what ever.”  It also said:

If you want one, send us your name and 4 cents to pay for postage.  It costs you nothing to try it.  Each box is sent in a plain sealed package with no advertising on it to indicate what it contains.

Emphasis added.  So apparently even back then it was considered to be shameful to be overweight, and people were trying to get others to lose weight.  It seems like it will be an eternal and timeless problem.

I tried to scan the ad; however, I was unable to get a very good image from it (click on thumbnail for larger image).