Body Kindness

The first historical study of diet books, Dr Adrienne Rose Bitar's book Diet and the Disease of Civilization examines how four popular plans -- Paleo, biblical, primitive, and detox diets -- reflect and shape our social world. Bitar categorized 17,000 diet books based on their titles. All of them, from Paleo to the “biblical diets” and even the first diet book by William Banting, center around the conversation of who are we, what do we eat, and why? The texts claim that we have fallen as a people and we need to regain that “original health” through diet. About Adrienne Adrienne Rose Bitar is a diet and food historian and recent author of Diet and the Disease of Civilization. The first historical study of diet books, Bitar's book examines how four popular plans -- Paleo, biblical, primitive, and detox diets -- reflect and shape our social world. Previous food publications include studies of competitive eating, food art, and the Paleo diet. In the popular press, she has published on migrant child farm labor, lo