The government is having its annual fit about the fat. In the ancient world, most of the population worked the land, while aristocrats kept trim in the gymnasia. Only the militarily obsessed Spartans made it government business, inspecting their warriors naked every ten days for signs of excessive thinness or corpulence.
But ancient doctors were aware of the problems. While no one mentions anorexia or slimming for aesthetic reasons, the famous 5th C. bc Greek doctor Hippocrates commented that ‘dieting which causes excessive loss of weight, as well as the feeding-up of the emaciated, is beset with difficulties’. He was also aware that sudden death was more common in the fat, and judged obesity a cause of sterility in women, causing a blockage to the mouth of the uterus.
Etruscan tomb-paintings, however, regularly depicted very wealthy, very fat, very happy diners chomping merrily away. The relaxed and worldly-wise Roman poet Horace found amusement in presenting himself ‘as a pig from Epicurus’ herds’, Epicurus being famous for his hedonistic philosophy. Dionysius, Greek tyrant of Heracleia, lived to 55 and ‘excelled all in gentleness and decency’, but was so enormous that he was in danger of choking if he fell deeply asleep and had to be pricked awake with very fine needles long enough to locate the nerves under the rolls of flesh.
Practical remedies were available. The Roman doctor Celsus (1st C. ad) recommended slimming down through late nights, worry and violent exercise, while the thin should put on weight through rest, constipation and big meals. But even though ancients generally were never slow to mock, express disgust at or castigate the physically deformed, including the very fat, there is no evidence that ancient doctors passed judgment on their social acceptability, or thought (mercifully for the obese, no doubt) that they ought to try to intervene medically. But today’s world still sees them as a ‘problem’ needing a ‘solution’. Hence the government’s predictable fit.
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