Life — January 12, 1922 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Girth Control" - A 1920s Satire on Weight Loss This six-panel cartoon mocks the Fairlamb couple's attempts at dieting and exercise. The narrative follows their increasingly desperate efforts: they discover spots on their lamb (a pun on their surname) are gone, join a gym, carry pedometers to prevent cheating, attempt modest dieting, and ultimately devise a scheme where Mr. Fairlamb briefly starves himself before lunch meetings. The satire targets the era's obsession with reducing diets and fitness crazes—presented as simultaneously ridiculous and ineffective. The couple's elaborate schemes (pedometers, gym attendance, elaborate meal-timing) highlight how people devise complicated workarounds rather than simply eating less. The joke culminates in the husband's modest success through calculated restraint, suggesting that weight loss requires uncomfortable discipline rather than fashionable remedies.