Can fat be jiggled away? There was a time when a great number of people thought so.
Take the Battle Creek Roller, for instance. This item, which probably can still be found in homes or bought at auctions, retailed for $129.99, according to one print ad produced during the go-go, mad-for-workout-gadgets 1960s. That amount translates to about 900 bucks these days.
This roller went for $35 at an auction in Wisconsin.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SMITH SALES PROFESSIONAL AUCTION CO.
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The roller had a small motor that made it spin, and the curved design of the wood spokes supposedly would melt away fat from the stomach, thighs and buttocks.
John Harvey Kellogg was a big believer in the therapeutic benefits of massage. He was a physician who invented Corn Flakes, along with his brother William. John became nationally famous by running the Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Mich., a magnet for the super-rich with too much time and money. At "the San," clients were subjected to cold baths, enemas, rigorous exercises and a pummeling by various massage machines, including an electric vibrating chair. Feel better or else!
For a fictionalized look at the San, read T. Coraghessan Boyle's novel "The Road to Wellville," which was made into a movie in 1994, with Anthony Hopkins as John Kellogg.
John had a lot of ideas now viewed as pure drivel, including a relentless obsession with the evils of masturbation, which he thought could be cured with a little genital mutilation. But he also had some visionary notions, including the theory that one shouldn't eat too much red meat.
"Kellogg believed that good health could be maintained and that illness could be cured through 'biologic living,' a concept heralded far and wide as the Battle Creek Idea," wrote medical historian Patsy Gerstner in the journal Caduceus. "The Battle Creek Idea emphasized a healthy diet (preferably vegetarian), exercise, fresh air, water therapies, electrical stimulation (especially of the muscles), massage, good posture, abstinence from such things as alcohol and tobacco, and proper clothing that did not require tight undergarments (such as corsets) and that allowed the body to move in a reasonably unrestricted manner."
Corsets blessedly went away, and so did the belief that fat could be rolled away. But science has backed up the benefits of massage, which can alleviate pain, insomnia, anxiety and other ills. Go to any Brookstone to see a variety of massagers for sale.
The company that sold Kellogg's inventions, Battle Creek Equipment, is still around, specializing in light exercise gear, massage tables and hot or cold presses.
Contact the writer: lhall@ocregister.com
Source: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/battle-500682-creek-massage.html
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