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Finding people who want to lose weight in the 1940s is like finding a 40 year old virgin today...Turns out 40 is the new 60, though...

Feel Peppy Tonic - Over 40 Doesn’t Have to be the end...
"Men, Women Over 40 Don't Be Weak, Old. Feel Peppy, Years Younger. Take
Ostrex. Contains tonic often needed after 40 - by bodies weak, old solely because lacking iron. Get regular $1.00 size now only 89 cents! Try Ostrex Tonic Tablets to feel peppy younger, today. Also contain vitamin B1, calcium. For sale at drug stores everywhere - in Dixon at Ford Hopkins" (1947)

You Women Who Suffer From Hot Flashes - 1943
If you suffer from hot flashes, dizziness, distress of "Irregularities", are weak, nervous - due to the functional "middle-age" period in a woman's life - try Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound. It's helped thousands upon thousands of women to relieve such annoying symptoms. Follow label directions. Pinkham's Compound is worth trying!

RETRO-SPECTIVE THE DECADES PAST:

Dieting and Weight Loss in the 1940s  

  1. TOPS® (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) is the oldest international, non-profit, non-commercial weight- loss support group. TOPS was founded in 1948 by Esther Manz in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Dieting in the 1940s was a lot different than what we are used to today. First of all, the standard of beauty for a 1940's American woman was to have a rounder, fuller and curvaceous figure rather than the lean sporty look that is prized today.

America was just coming out of the Great Depression which lasted officially from 1929 to roughly 1941, so to a lot of people, thin meant poor and without food. So it is no surprise that an ample bosom, behind and curves with a little extra padding here and there was what was prized by our mothers and grandmothers in the 1940s.

Probably not overly concerned with "dieting". Photo of "Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange March of 1936 in Nipomo, California.
This 32 year old woman and her four children had been living off of frozen vegetables and birds the kids managed to kill.  Photo of "Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange March of 1936 in Nipomo, California.
 

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