Publication of the first diet book, Letter on Corpulence, by William Banting, an English casketmaker, who became alarmed when he could no longer tie his shoelaces.
1873: First mention of anorexia.
1890s: First theory of food components - proteins, carbohydrates and fats - and calorie content.
Early 1900s: Calorie-counting born.
1917: Diet and Health, With Key to the Calories, by Lulu Hunt Peters: 1,200-calorie-a-day diet sells two million copies.
1930s: Dinitrophenol, an insecticide and herbicide, taken by thousands to control weight; 12 women blinded; others die. Makes a comeback in 1980.
1957: Injection of medication derived from urine of pregnant women, rabbits or mares given for weight loss. It proves useless. Still available.
1960: Overeaters Anonymous founded by LA housewife.
1961: Calories Don't Count, by American Herman Taller, sells two million copies. (In 1967 Taller is convicted of mail fraud for selling "worthless" safflower capsules.)
1963: Weight Watchers founded by housewife Jean Nidetch.
1970: Eight per cent of all prescriptions in the US are for amphetamines, which suppress appetite.
1978: Launch of The Scarsdale Diet (700 calories a day; high-protein).
1981: Cambridge Diet, a 320-calorie-a-day liquid diet, is introduced.
1983: Karen Carpenter dies of anorexia.
1988: Oprah Winfrey drags a cart piled with 67 pounds of fat onto her show to demonstrate what she lost with Optifast.
1993: Cardiologist Dean Ornish publishes Eat More, Weigh Less. Meditation and group support become popular. Stop the Insanity, by Susan Powter, published (low fat and very cross). Oprah Winfrey hires a personal trainer to help her lose weight she regained.
1994: Leptin discovered. Makes fat mice thin. Genetic research continues.
1995: Resurgence of low-carb, high-protein diets begins.
1996: Redux approved by FDA.
1997: Fen-phen is taken off the market after studies link it to heart disease.
1999: Low-carb, high-protein diets hog bestseller list. Include Sugar Busters!, Protein Power and The Zone.